Al-anwar Newspaper English news in Australia
Northern Territory senator Jacinta Price has called the scrapping of the cashless debit card “an absolute shame”, with more than 17,000 people able to come off the scheme from Tuesday.
A repeal Bill passed in parliament last week to axe the controversial program, which quarantined 80 per cent of a welfare recipient’s payments so they could not be withdrawn as cash or spent on alcohol or gambling.
From Tuesday, participants in Ceduna, East Kimberley, Goldfields and Bundaberg-Hervey Bay will be able to come off the card.
The cashless debit card program will be abolished by early next year when it is removed from all other sites, including the Northern Territory and the Cape York and Doomadgee regions.
But Ms Price expressed concern over what this could mean for vulnerable people who relied on the program.
“Simply ripping it out from underneath vulnerable individuals is not good enough without at least some sort of proper transition in place,” she told 2GB on Tuesday.
“We don‘’ know what it’s going to do to them, what the consequences will be.”
Ms Price accused the government of not understanding the pressures of traditional Aboriginal culture and how the cashless debit card had helped people. “What they don‘t understand is that your family has access to everything you own, we have a demand share economy,” she said.
“So anything that your addicted family member wants of you, you’re expected to give it without saying no. It’s considered very rude and inappropriate to say no to your family.
“This cad has been used as a tool for vulnerable people in those communities as a way of being able to say no to family who put pressure on them to take their welfare payments from them.
“There’s going to be a lot of vulnerable people out there who are now open to having their money taken from them by gamblers, drug addicts and those who have alcohol addiction in their family.”
She said the cashless debit card, which was introduced by the Coalition government in 2016, was a “grassroots initiative” that had been informed by local community members.
“There are academics in the cities, there are left-leaning do-gooders who think they know what’s best for Aboriginal people,” Ms Price said.
“Their concern is for upholding the human rights of perpetrators to be able to spend their money however they see fit over the right of children to be fed.” After the Bill was passed last week, Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney described the cards as “discriminatory and arbitrary”.
“The cashless debit card diminishes people’s self-worth,” she said. “It is also a piece of infrastructure policy that has been reviewed and reviewed and reviewed. “It was a piece of technology that was used by a private organisation for profit.”
The government said those affected by the changes would be contacted directly, and cashless debit card users would be able to volunteer for income management. “The Department of Social Services and Services Australia will work collaboratively to ensure those affected by these changes are contacted directly and advised on what they need to do to move off the program,” it said in a statement.“The Family Responsibilities Commission in Cape York will retain all of its powers of self-determination and referral for community members to go onto income management.
“CDC participants in the Northern Territory will be subject to the requirements under previous income management legislation.”
