Single mother Sylvia Asusaar says she was “devastated” after the government’s cashless debit card scheme was extended in parliament.
Trials of the program are set to go ahead for another two years after the federal government secured enough votes in the Senate on Wednesday night.
This is despite the government failing to convince senators to roll out the scheme permanently in designated areas across the country.
Ms Asusaar, who is a mother of four, said going on the cashless debit card has made her life even harder since it commenced in Kalgoorlie in 2018.
“We have to question everything: will that bill be paid, will this transaction be declined, is this a participating merchant, am I going to be ostracised at the register?” she told SBS News.
Under the cashless debit card program, 80 per cent of an person’s welfare payments are quarantined on a card that cannot be used to purchase alcohol or gambling products.
The program has been extended through trials in Ceduna in South Australia, the Goldfields and East Kimberley regions of Western Australia, and Queensland’s Bundaberg and Hervey Bay.
The bill to extend the program passed the Senate after Centre Alliance Senator Stirling Griff abstained from voting on amended legislation.
This was despite opposition from Labor, the Greens and independent senators Jacqui Lambie and Rex Patrick.
“It is devastating … we were sold out,” Ms Asusaar said.
“We should have been able to stop it and we couldn’t.”
Since going on the card, Ms Asusaar said she has been forced to question how bills were going to be paid because of the restrictions on spending it imposes.
“It has put a lot of doubt in everyone’s lives, that’s for sure,” she said.
“It’s demeaning. You feel like a child again… we have no privacy left, there is nothing.”
The cashless debit card debate
About 12,000 people are currently on the cashless debit card across the four trial sites.
The federal government has maintained the policy would help these communities by preventing people on welfare from spending money on alcohol and drugs.
Social Services Minister Anne Ruston says the government still believes the card should become permanent.
She has argued the continuation of the program is in direct response to calls from community leaders wanting to ensure money is being spent on essentials and supporting positive change.
However, multiple inquiries into the scheme have also heard issues with the system’s ability to process rent and other debit payments.
Labor, the Greens, academics and various human rights and legal groups have condemned it as an unproven and “racist” policy that disproportionately impacts Indigenous Australians.
Indigenous Australians make up 76 per cent of card users in Ceduna, 18 per cent in Bundaberg and Hervey Bay, 48 per cent in Goldfields and 82 per cent in East Kimberley.
Change the Record co-chair Cheryl Axelby said the card represented a “devastating” continuation of discriminatory policy-making towards Indigenous Australians.
“Those living in poverty and those who are disadvantaged in our communities are being punished by the government for receiving the benefits,” she told SBS News.
“This flies against the commitment that this current government has made with respect to ‘Closing the Gap’.”
Expansion of cashless debit card scheme
New amendments will soon allow welfare recipients in the Northern Territory to also join the scheme.
The government was previously seeking to force more than 20,000 people in the NT onto the cards from another income management scheme.
Deborah Di Natale, chief executive of the Northern Territory Council of Social Service, said data showed some 82 per cent of people on income management nationally were Indigenous.
“This cashless debit card is racist – it impacts on 82 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders – so the impact is disproportionate,” she said.
“It is a paternalistic model that is telling some of the poorest, most disadvantaged members in the Northern Territory how they need to spend their money.”
Critics have also raised concerns about a failure of the government to put forward proven evidence of its success, with other reports into the program highlighting deficiencies in its effectiveness.
ANU researcher Elise Klein says her research on the card in the East Kimberley showed it often made life more difficult.
“There is just no evidence base to support it and an increasing amount of research showing that compulsory income management is actually really harmful,” she told SBS News.
“It is extremely troubling that the government has gotten this far.”
