NT’s move to the cashless debit card to take 9 months and cost millions

IT would take nine months and more than $17m to transition as many as 23,000 Territorians on welfare payments from the BasicsCard to the cashless debit card, according to the federal government.

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IT would take nine months and more than $17m to transition as many as 23,000 Territorians on welfare payments from the BasicsCard to the cashless debit card, according to the federal government.

The federal government is poised to pass, by the end of the year, new laws that would result in the NT being moved from the BasicsCard – a program born out of the NT intervention – to the cashless debit card.

Social Services Minister Anne Ruston, following a report in support of the laws released by Liberal members of a senate committee, sought to assure Territorians the laws didn’t expand the program to more communities or change how much of their welfare was quarantined.

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In cashless debit card trial sites up to 80 per cent of people’s welfare can be quarantined. In the NT, as is standard on the BasicsCard, only up to 50 per cent is quarantined.

Under the rules of the new card there won’t be restrictions on buying tobacco or pornography, unlike on the BasicsCard. Items that are restricted are alcohol, gambling products, certain gift cards and cash.

The new laws don’t stop the minister from increasing how much welfare is quarantined, though the government has said this power would be exercised only “following a request from the community” and after “necessary consultation”.

The move to shift the Territory from the BasicsCard to the cashless debit card is opposed by peak Aboriginal health and justice bodies alongside the NT government and federal Labor due to its impact on the rights of First Nations peoples.

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The federal government confirmed it expected the transition in the Territory and Cape York, Queensland to take nine months through “intensive support” from mobile Centrelink centres and “financial counsellors”.

A total of $17.5m was set aside in the federal budget for the transition.

All merchants who currently accept the BasicsCard will be able to accept the cashless debit card.