Indigenous organisations slam cashless debit card expansion Bill as denying ‘our basic freedom to control our lives’

AN alliance of Indigenous organisations has launched a scathing attack on a proposed expansion of the cashless debit card to 22,000 Territorians, saying it ‘disregards our views and lived experience’ and undermines closing the gap.

AN alliance of Indigenous organisations has launched a scathing attack on a proposed expansion of the cashless debit card to 22,000 Territorians.

A federal Bill would see the card rolled out to welfare recipients in the Northern Territory — 82 per cent of whom are Aboriginal and live in remote communities — with the government saying it was confident of the card’s “positive impact”.

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However, the Aboriginal Peak Organisations NT (APO NT) has labelled the card as “disabling”, saying MPs who support legislation to expand it would be going against the National Agreement to Close the Gap.

“We did not ask for the card, yet 22,000 of us will be affected if the card is imposed on NT income recipients,” APO NT spokesman John Paterson said. “It is not in keeping with the spirit of the agreement and its emphasis on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander self-determination,” Mr Paterson said.

The Indue cashless debit card. Picture: File.

He cited a University of Queensland study from February which found the cashless debit card had a “disabling rather than enabling effect on the lives of many social security recipients”.

“To the government this is just a law change, but to us it is about our everyday lives becoming even more of a struggle,” Mr Paterson said.

“We are sick of governments doing things to us, rather than with us.”

A spokeswoman for Families and Social Services Minister Anne Ruston defended the cashless debit card.

She said it was a way for taxpayers to know that welfare was being spent on essential goods.

“The cashless debit card is becoming one of the most advanced bank cards in Australia, supporting welfare recipients to improve their financial literacy and reducing social harm,” the spokeswoman said.

A spokeswoman for Families and Social Services Minister Anne Ruston said the government was confident the cashless card was having ‘a positive impact’. Picture: Gary Ramage

She defended the rollout of the card as a “transition,” noting that income management was already carried out in the NT.

The spokeswoman also said the UQ study into the cashless debit card had surveyed no one from the NT and represented the feedback of just 0.2 per cent of people on welfare income management.

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“Even the report’s authors acknowledge they ‘cannot objectively verify the responses provided’ to the survey,” the spokeswoman said.

“The government is confident that welfare quarantining measures, which have been in place in various forms since 2007, have a positive impact on participants and the broader community.”