LETTERS: Cashless card kills our human rights

THE Bundaberg community can mark down September 12 as the day human rights were abolished.

CARD CONCERNS: The Cashless Debit Card will bring stigma to people forced on to it and the Bundaberg community more generally, says a reader. Picture: FILE

Fully enforced

I WISH to reply to a letter by Merv Allen RE: blue cards and police checks.

I have worked for a church for the past 12 years organising volunteers to visit the sick, the elderly and the needy.

All our priests, ministers and volunteers who have any connection with children, whether it be through schools, hospitals or church training have to have a blue card.

This has been in force for many years.

All who have contact with the elderly within aged care facilities must have a police check.

I can assure you this is fully enforced.

DENISE TUZES

Bundaberg

Human rights dead

THE Bundaberg community can mark down September 12 as the day human rights were abolished.

Why should this heartless Liberal government punish the majority for the actions of a few?

Basic human rights have been stripped away from the community.

We all hope that small businesses in the area are aware of the consequences of this card, the costs, the authorised use and where market stalls and opportunity shops lose business because of the lack of cash.

Why should the Australian taxpayer pay up to $12,000 per card for a trial? That money could buy Bundaberg a new hospital.

I am asking our local federal member why? It won't solve drug abuse or alcoholism and I am tired of his pitiful excuses. I want the real reason.

R. THOMPSON

Norville

Mistake made?

IT WAS very pleasing to have K.W. Miles (NM, 12/09) make such flattering remarks concerning my letter on the sinking of ex-HMAS Tobruk .

Unfortunately, neither Mr Pitt, Mr Bennett nor any other official has enlightened us about the scuttling.

Did the person in charge make a mistake in allowing the ship to settle on its side instead of upright as desired?

Was the contract written in such a way as to ensure the ship should be most suitable for diving? If not, why not?

Is it possible to right the vessel without enormous cost?

Are such queries not to be answered as the ship is under the ocean? Perhaps a case of out of sight out of mind?

FREDERICK F ARCHER

Bundaberg

Who benefits?

ALL of the supporters of the Cashless Debit Card must be very happy - happy that their short-sighted point of view regarding this card is coming to fruition.

Have these supporters ever sat back and thought of the downside of their actions, outside of it being discriminatory and the sheer fact that it is ridiculous to have a cut off age of 36?

What this proposes is that at the age of 35 and 364 days you are incompetent and cannot manage your life but the next day, abracadabra, that incompetence disappears and all is well you can have the full cash benefit.

There are many reasons that people need to be on social security but most of it stems from unemployment.

How many jobs does this action provide outside of the public service?

The answer to that is none and as a guess I would suggest that most of the supporters do have a job thus creating a certain bias.

Now let's consider the short comings of the card.

The first is the stigma that it creates both to the recipient and the community.

The negative publicity created for our community all over Australia; that we are the social security capital of the entire country does not matter to the supporters.

What about how this action affects our already low property prices and as a supplementary issue how about the negative effect that it has potentially on investors.

Knowing that these are real issues that affect all of us now and in the long term surely turns any positives, if any, for the card's introduction into negatives.

This is quite outside of the fact that the Federal Government's own investigation concluded that it does not work as proved in two other areas of trials.

Does this not make one ask the question: who does it really benefit ?

C. BROWN

Burnett Downs