Labor opposes Government's Cashless Debit Card permanency bill
Linda Burney addresses the House of Representatives - Thursday, 12 November 2020
***check against delivery***
Speaker, I rise to speak on the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Continuation of Cashless Welfare) Bill 2020.
And I move the amendment circulated in my name.
That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
“the House declines to give the bill a second reading and:
(1) notes that:
(a) thirteen years after the Howard Government’s so-called Intervention in the Northern Territory, there is no evidence that compulsory, broad-based income management works;
(b) the Minister decided to make the Cashless Debit Card trial permanent before reading the independent review by Adelaide University; and
(c) this proposal is racially discriminatory, as approximately 68 per cent of the people impacted are First Nations Australians; and
(2) calls on the Government to:
(a) not roll out the Cashless Debit Card nationally; and
(b) invest in evidence-based policies, job creation and services, rather than ideological policies like the Cashless Debit Card”.
Labor does not support this bill.
And I am very disappointed to see that the Government has brought this Bill forward for debate in NAIDOC week.
It really saddens me. Because it is an incredibly clear example of policy being done to First Nations people, not with First Nations people.
Because it is policy without clear evidence. And because it is a crystal-clear example that the Prime Minister’s own, much lauded changes to Closing the Gap -
Their promised partnership approach, is not being followed.
Outline of the Bill
This Bill will:
Make the Cashless Debit Card permanent in the existing trial sites of Ceduna, the East Kimberley, the Goldfields and Bundaberg-Hervey Bay.
Permanently replace the Basics Card with the Cashless Debit Card in the Northern Territory.
Replace the Basics Card with the Cashless Debit Card in Cape York, and extend Income Management in Cape York until 31 December 2021.
Make it easier for a person to volunteer to be placed on a Cashless Debit Card, and allow a person to remain on a Cashless Debit Card when they move outside one of the prescribed areas.
Enable the Secretary to review and revoke Cashless Debit Card exit provisions if the Secretary no longer believes a person who exited the card is reasonably and responsibly managing their affairs.
Mockery of trials
This Bill has finally exposed what many – including Labor – have long-suspected the Government’s agenda to be –
A big, permanent roll-out of the card.
The Cashless Debit Card was first proposed as a trial – but we now know the Government was never really interested in finding out if it worked.
How do we know that?
Because in Senate Estimates, the Minister admitted that she had not read the long-awaited review by Adelaide University before deciding to make the Cashless Debit Card Trials permanent.
On October 6, the Government announced their intention to make the Cashless Debit Card trials permanent in the Budget.
On October 8, the Government introduced this legislation to make the trials permanent.
But on October 29, when Labor Senator for the Northern Territory, Malarndirri McCarthy, revealed asked Senator Ruston: ‘Minister had you read the Adelaide report?’
The Minister replied: ‘no’
This would have been many, many weeks after the Minister and the Government decided to make the Cashless Debit Card trials permanent.
And it is proof positive, that the Government had no intention at all of taking into account the findings of the $2.5 million study by the University of Adelaide -
Which the Government only did in the first place, when under pressure from the crossbench as part of one of their previous extensions to the Cashless Debit Card trials.
This comes after the after the Auditor General found that there is no evidence that the card works to reduce social harm, as claimed by the Government.
Failure to listen to First Nations People + racially discriminatory
The simple reality of this Bill is that it is racially discriminatory.
The rollout of the Cashless Debit Card as proposed by the Government with disproportionately impact first nations people.
68 per cent of the people who will be forced onto the Cashless Debit Card are First nations Australians.
Over 23,000 out of the 34,000 people impacted by this card will be Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people.
This includes over 18,000 people in the Northern Territory.
Labor’s position
Labor is not opposed to Income Management in all circumstances – but we are opposed to the broad-based compulsory programs that catch and disempower the wrong people.
Income Management can be justified when it is targeted – such as for child protection – but it should not be indiscriminate or broad-sweeping.
For example, in Cape York where the local community is applying Income Management based on individual circumstances, supporting families and monitoring outcomes – that is appropriate where community support continues.
At a recent inquiry into another one of the Government’s Cashless Debit Card Bills a number of witnesses told the hearing that one of the only credible pieces of evaluation, of any form of income management, is the evaluation that was completed about Income Management in the Northern Territory.
That report found that compulsory income management usually does not bring about improvements, but voluntary income management might.
But it’s not just the evaluation that says this.
In a document presented to the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Australian Government wrote:
“There are more positive results associated with people who volunteer, as they have made a choice to change their behaviour and receive assistance, positive findings have been found for people who have been referred for Income Management by a social worker or a child protection officer.”
I reiterate that the Australian Government wrote that.
Dr Elise Klein from the University of Melbourne told a Senate Committee that “if we…are serious about evidence based policymaking, we must stop the ongoing operations of the cashless debit card…or…make [it] entirely voluntary.”
There is a very real difference between someone who genuinely wants to be on the card and believes it appropriate for their circumstances – and someone who is compelled to go on the card and whose circumstances are completely incompatible with the card.
The Aboriginal Peak Organisations of the Norther Territory (which includes the Central and Northern Land Council and the Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance NT) said in one of their submissions on the Cashless Debit Card:
“The continuation of compulsory income management through the transfer to the CDC is being rushed forward despite the lack of any strong or positive evidence drawn from either the 2014 Social Policy Research Centre (SPRC) evaluation of New Income Management in the NT or the 2017 Orima Research evaluation of the Cashless Debit Card Trials in Ceduna, the Goldfields and East Kimberley (Western Australia).”
“Income management cannot provide a transition to employment in locations where few employment opportunities exist and those that exist are largely done by outsiders. Instead, for many Aboriginal residents of the NT, particularly those living remotely, compulsory income management is long term and, regardless of a person’s lifestyle and financial management capacity, almost impossible to get off. The 2014 independent evaluation of New Income Management conducted by the Social Policy Research Centre found that:
“90.2% of those on income management in the Northern Territory were Indigenous and 76.8 of those were on compulsory income management. More than 60% of this group were on income management for more than 6 years. Of those Indigenous people on compulsory income management a mere 4.9% gained an exemption compared to 36.3% of nonindigenous people.”
The Arnhem Land Progress Aboriginal Corporation said in one of their submissions about the Government’s Cashless Debit Card plans:
“The ALPA Board of Directors are disappointed that the Government is moving forward and expanding this oppressive policy when there is no evidence demonstrating that it creates positive change for the people who will be subjected to it. This erosion of people’s choice and control over their own lives destroys any sense of self-agency, it is an attack on their basic rights, the burden of proof should lie with the Government to prove without doubt that this policy works before enforcing it upon our communities. Alongside the lack of evidence there has been little to no consultation undertaken in the Northern Territory to date.”
The Anti-Poverty Network South Australia also told the story about a woman they had met in Ceduna, who was on the Cashless Debit Card.
She volunteered in her local craft shop, and donated what she could.
She used to be able to purchase things online, but because of the cashless debit card, is no long able to.
The Network told the Committee that this women is: “…never drunk. She’s never had drugs or anything like that. It’s just such an inhibitive way of life for her now.”
Why should someone who has never engaged in binge drinking or taken illicit drugs be forced on to the Cashless Debit Card that was introduced to address these behaviours? The answer is that they shouldn’t.
Thin edge of the wedge
This Bill is just the beginning of the Government’s plans for the Cashless Debit Card.
We know there are those on the other side who have publicly called for a national rollout.
And we also know – from Senate Estimates – that the Government has established a technology working group with the big banks, the supermarkets and Australia Post to look at how this can be rolled out through the payments system.
This is what you do if you want a national rollout.
You work out how every card, from every bank can have restrictions places on it –
So the Government can track and control what people on social security do with their money in pretty much every shop around the country.
We already know that DSP recipients are on the Cashless Debit Card, and it is only a matter of time before more people are caught in this new.
In fact, pensioner groups are already worried about what this card will mean for them.
In their submission on this Bill, the Combined Pensioners & Superannuants Association says members have contacted them about: “how very fearful they are of being put compulsorily on [Income management/Cashless Debit Card] if the Government is not stopped.”
Conclusion
Labor does not support this Bill.
It represents a cynical triumph of ideology over evidence.
And the Government’s plans for a much bigger, broader roll-out of social security quarantining have been laid bare in black and white.
It is an insult that this has been shoved on the list at the last moment for debate in NAODIC week.
Because it is a backward, racially discriminatory bill – which continues the scraps and last vestiges of the dismal failure that was the Howard Government so-called intervention in the Northern Territory.
The process the Government has taken in making this policy is a slap in the face to the Coalition of Peaks and the makes a mockery of the Government’s new Closing the Gap partnership.
This doesn’t create jobs, it doesn’t deliver clean water, it doesn’t improve dilapidated remote housing and it doesn’t help close the gap.
So I simply don’t know why the Government is doing this.
Except to blame and punish some of the most disenfranchised people in Australia.
ENDS
LINDA BURNEY
SPEECH - THURSDAY, 12 NOVEMBER 2020