We should be listening to right voices on cashless card

All power to Laverton Shire president Patrick Hill and local residents for calling out the obvious consequences of taking thousands of locals off the cashless debit card (“Town warns of grog-fuelled violence as cashless card goes”, 12/8).

The city-centric Albanese government cannot be serious when they say it’s about giving dignity back to recipients to decide how they spend their money.

Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney needs to leave the leafy suburbs, to spend a lot of time in our most disadvantaged communities, and to really listen to communities all across Australia, paying particular attention to mothers and kids who are the recipients of anti-social behaviour and neglect due to alcohol and drug violence.

Lynda Morrison, Bicton, WA

The article by Paige Taylor on the cessation of the cashless debit card draws out the voice debate very nicely. A West Australian town is ­already requesting emergency police help, anticipating the inevitable.

We have senator Jacinta ­Nampijinpa Price, an Indigenous woman, stressing how stupid this is. She is a voice enshrined in our Constitution, she is a voice that exposes political nonsense and puts forward the facts of what her community needs.

Here is the voice we need. If the government ignores this, nothing else will work.

Why a referendum on some de-unifying politics when pro rata representation of Indigenous people is greater than non-Indigenous Australians (10 Indigenous representatives in federal parliament)?

Evatt Furney, Gordon, NSW

At a time of debate about an ­Indigenous voice to parliament and understanding Aboriginal views, we have a new government doing the opposite.

This is about drunken violence against women and kids, crime, gambling, safety, and kids without food and clothing.

Yet Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth and her assist­ant minister, Justine Elliot, are rushing a bill through parliament to do away with the cashless debit card.

But now they are pretending to consult local Aborigines who are adversely affected by the card’s removal. The donkey is before the cart. Who is Labor listening to? Certainly not the Aboriginal communities who want it retained. But they won’t even get a chance to have a say on it or stay on it, as they want.

L. Smith, Kenmore, Qld

The abandonment of the cashless card, particularly in outback Indigenous areas, is very obviously an ideological decision taken by the Albanese government.

I have followed this issue carefully and once again it is the elitist white activists among us who are leading this push. These are the same people who are backing a most radical version of the voice to parliament.

Most ordinary everyday Indigenous folk living in these settlements who are victims of domestic violence are in favour of the cashless card. How can those who have achieved the abolition of the card live with themselves as domestic violence goes on unabated in outback communities? The fact they do not live there or have never visited there probably answers my question.

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, who has a wealth of experience in these affected communities is a voice that should be listened to. But, then again, she sits on the wrong side of the political fence.

How can her white political foes look her in the face in parliament and claim to know far more about Indigenous communities and what goes on in them than she does?

Peter D. Surkitt, Sandringham, Vic

So an urban-dwelling white male thinks he knows what is best for Indigenous communities more than a community-based Indigenous woman. This is the same patriarchy that “protected” Aborigines, relocated them to missions and took their children away.

Peter FitzSimons has not a clue about the Aboriginal condition in remote communities or how to improve it. What arrogance leads him and so many others like him to think they know what is best?

We have plenty of Aboriginal voices and indeed whole communities right now speaking up to retain the 300 dry NT communities and the cashless debit card. Why not listen to those?

Catherine Simpson, Gold Coast, Qld