Jacqui Lambie finalises 'fact-finding mission' into cashless debit card in trial regions

ABC News
Jan 22 2020


The fate of Australia's controversial welfare experiment — the cashless debit card — could rest with Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie and her whirlwind outback tour.
Key points:

    The cashless debit card is designed to curb drug and alcohol abuse by limiting access to cash through quarantined welfare payments
    The card is currently being trialled in WA's East Kimberley and Goldfields, Ceduna in SA, and Bundaberg and Hervey Bay in Qld
    Senators are expected to vote next month to include the NT and Cape York in the trial, and whether to extend current trials

Senator Lambie today finished her visits to cashless debit card trial sites in Western Australia, on what she has called a "fact-finding mission" into the card's success.

With Labor turning against the welfare scheme, Senator Lambie's opinion will be crucial as the Senate is expected to vote on the trial's extension next month.

A legislation amendment would extend the current trial sites until July 2021 and expand to include welfare recipients in the Northern Territory and Cape York.

The cashless welfare card operates in WA's East Kimberley and Goldfields, Ceduna in SA, and recently began in Bundaberg and Hervey Bay in Queensland.

Senator Lambie said she had seen "good results" at the trial sites but told the ABC she would not reveal how she would vote.

    "I want to vote for it, I want to see this continue, but they [the coalition] have to deliver what they promised," she said.

The "promise" refers to the Government's guarantee that support services will be provided in the trial locations including drug and alcohol rehabilitation, mental health services, and financial counselling services.

With her trademark bluntness, Senator Lambie said she was drafting a list of conditions her vote will depend on, including the delivery of these services.
Could banks soon control welfare?

Opponents of the card, who met with Senator Lambie in Kalgoorlie this week, told her the card was failing them.   

    "We wanted her to know we're normal, real people just trying to pay bills and this system isn't working," cardholder Sylvia Asusaar said.

She said the group was "flabbergasted" when Senator Lambie told them the cashless card would "soon" be managed by the big four banks.

Single mother Sylvia Asusaar relies on Centrelink payments to care for her son, who has an intellectual disability.

The Department of Social Services (DSS) confirmed Minister Anne Ruston met with banks to discuss the cashless debit card but refused to say if banks would replace Indue — the current operator of the card.

Senator Lambie also visited the Goldfields town of Laverton, where she held a meeting with about 30 people.

Shire president Patrick Hill told the senator he wanted the card to stay because the town had previously struggled with alcohol, drug, and gambling issues.

"Since the card came in, the crime rate has dropped, kids are going to school, and it's had a positive impact on the whole community," he said.

However Laverton police have previously warned against directly attributing any reduction in crime to the card.   


Where's the research?

Nearly two years since the Goldfields trial started, evidence of the card's success or lack thereof remains anecdotal because an independent review is yet to be seen.

After a botched attempt to assess the first trial sites, the University of Adelaide was hired to evaluate the East Kimberley, Ceduna, and Goldfields trials.

DSS said in March that findings were "expected to be finalised in late 2019".

But when asked today if the research would be available before parliament resumes, a department spokesperson said findings would be released "in the coming months".

In a speech to parliament last year Kalgoorlie MP Rick Wilson said the trial should be extended because "the anecdotal evidence is overwhelmingly positive".

Trials of the Federal Government's cashless welfare card have proven controversial with one charity warning they lead to "social stigmatisation".

While Senator Lambie said she did not need to see the research to determine her position, Labor has withdrawn its support for a trial extension due to the lack of evidence.

Labor also wants the scheme to be made voluntary, leaving the coalition reliant on support from either crossbencher Senator Lambie or the Centre alliance.

Welfare is a privilege,  not a right.

You are spending other people's money.
Money that has been worked for by taxpayers.
It isn't YOUR Money, it's an allowance to help you through troubled times.
If you want your own money.....get a job.

Disabled are given a living allowance.
It's not meant to make you rich, just to help you live.
It's been abused for far too long.
Every muzzo coming to Australia goes for the disability pension for him and his tent, and often gets it.

We, the taxpayer, have a right to see our taxes spent wisely
Not wasted on deadbeats and the terminally lazy.
Bring on the cashless welfare card........all over Australia......NOW

Anyone with half a brain would expect to see evidence of how the scheme is working before making an uninformed decision based on nothing more than instinct and personal beliefs....Politicians should start listening expert advice and base their decisions on the evidence that taxpayers have paid for and the public can trust....If you are not going to listen to the experts who were engaged to evaluate the scheme then why waste money when you have already determined the outcome....Lambie is too stupid and self serving to determine anything without cocking it up!!!

Valkie wrote on Jan 23^rd, 2020 at 4:32am:

Is that why the politicians get very fat pensions? Why the Coalition of Corruption fight tooth and nail to keep lining the pockets of the greedy with unfunded measures like franking credit refunds while starving the needy with petty penny-pinching? Why the average household on $200,000 a year receives about twice as much government money a year as the average single person on Nostart, with far less paperwork? Why fossil fuel companies receive about $40 billion a year in subsidies?

If you're going to be whining about "welfare", look at the huge amounts going to the RICH. There are HUGE savings to be had by cutting all this wealthfare and making the rich pay their fair share of tax by abolishing all regressive and flat taxes and making ALL taxes progressive.

There are a lot of people out there who are MUCH angrier than you at this inequity, and for very good reason. Privileged idiots don't even know this is going on and will remain ignorant until the killings start.

From what I'm reading labors mind is made up and she isn't listening to anyone

Spot

Captain Nemo wrote on Jan 23^rd, 2020 at 11:03am:


These results may be genuine but i have some doubts about ‘Seems to be working’ and the actual meaning of ‘participants who reported’.
If the language used here is an accurate expression of how the results were obtained we need to ask are there any reasons participants could want or need to report their behavior in this manner.

Ayn Marx wrote on Jan 23^rd, 2020 at 11:27am:





It should only be used in very specific cases - including the 'self-reporters' such as with gambling etc - but to just do it with the few who really need it would not be 'economical' - far easier to just apply the old shotgun approach, and include everyone in an area - that ensures more profit for the private contractor... guaranteed income...

I'll have to consider Lambie's position.. maybe have a word with her...

Ayn Marx wrote on Jan 23^rd, 2020 at 11:27am:

Correct. There was one very dubious survey - it may even have been this one - where "participants who reported" was found to be eight people out of a sample of over 2,000 and they were drawing conclusions from that. Oh, and there was a survey - again, it may have been this one - that was NOT done anonymously and had "inducements".

This whole "trial" has been a stitch up from the beginning. It needs to be subjected to the investigative blowtorch of a Royal Commission.