Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) | Hansard source

I move an amendment to the government's amendment, circulated in my name in the chamber:

In paragraph (a), omit "7 November 2019", substitute "28 November 2019".

In paragraph (b), omit "10 October 2019", substitute "27 November 2019".

This is to extend the reporting dates for the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Drug Testing Trial) Bill 2019 and the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Income Management to Cashless Debit Card Transition) Bill 2019. The reporting dates on both of those are far too soon to allow us to get the evidence that we need and to enable us to travel, particularly to the Northern Territory, to be able to look at the impacts, hear evidence and consult, which the government hasn't properly done on the cashless debit card bill in the Northern Territory. I know that because I've had direct correspondence and in fact discussions with organisations in the Northern Territory who are deeply concerned about the cashless debit card bill, which extends the cashless debit card to the Northern Territory. They tell me very clearly that they have not been consulted. Therefore, we need more time as a committee to look into those issues in order to properly discuss and debate this legislation when it comes on for debate in this place. Similarly with drug testing, the government are trying a third time to get their drug testing bill out. We need a proper amount of time to be able to talk to experts about this and to look at the government's changes in the bill, and a reporting date of 10 October for that bill is simply inadequate. So we seek to extend the reporting dates for those two bills, one to 27 November and the other to 28 November.