Minister decides to make Cashless Debit Card trial permanent without reading $2.5m evaluation

The Government decided to make the Cashless Debit Card permanent, despite the Minister for Families and Social Services Senator Anne Ruston admitting at Senate Estimates that she hadn’t read the long-awaited review of the card.

The card is currently being trialled in four sites: Ceduna; the Goldfields and East Kimberley; and Bundaberg-Hervey Bay.

As well as this, the Government has also revealed it had set up a formal working group with the big banks and Australia Post to work on making the Cashless Debit Card part of mainstream accounts and point of sale technology – revealing their real plan to roll this technology out more broadly.

An Auditor General’s report from 2018 concluded that the Government had failed to demonstrate that its broad-based compulsory income management program actually worked.

Instead, it has made it more difficult for participants to purchase basic and essential items at more affordable prices.

The University of Adelaide was engaged to evaluate the trial sites following the botched trial in 2018 – at a cost of almost $2.5 million.

Yet, on 8 October, the Government proceeded to introduce legislation to make the trials permanent – before the Minister read the evaluation.

The Minister revealed at Senate estimates that she still had not even read the report.

Senator Malarndirri McCarthy asked Senator Ruston, ‘Minister had you read the Adelaide report?’

The Minister replied, ‘No’.

This follows comments from the Minister for Indigenous Australians saying he did not need to see the report to support making the trials permanent.

People on payments across Australia are right to wonder if they’ll be next.

LINDA BURNEY

MEDIA RELEASE - THURSDAY, 29 OCTOBER 2020

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