Cashless debit card cut, ‘now it’s bedlam’ in Ceduna

Residents of the remote town of Ceduna have held a crisis meeting following the abolition of Australia’s first cashless debit card program.

Ceduna residents Kingsley and Charlette. Picture: Andrew Brooks

Residents of the remote town of Ceduna have held a crisis meeting following the abolition of Australia’s first cashless debit card program, amid fears it has contributed to a spike in alcohol abuse, child neglect and “absolute bedlam’’.

Some residents of Ceduna and outlying communities on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula are glad the card has been abolished, saying they didn’t ­believe the government should have quarantined up to 80 per cent of their welfare benefit in the first place.

Mayor Ken Maynard said he believed the abolition of the card had caused “some negative ­impacts’’, while his predecessor, Perry Will, said the decision had led to problems on the streets ­including drunken fights, vomiting, defecation and people ­accosting tourists for money.

The card was introduced by the Coalition in 2016 with the consent of the community in a bid to tackle entrenched alcoholism, drug abuse and child neglect affecting some Ceduna residents, but was abolished by Labor in October as one of its first policy priorities, amid claims it was ineffective, stigmatising and disproportionately affected Indigenous Australians.

The January 16 meeting ­involving the council, police, hospital staff, representatives from the pub, and local Indigenous groups and support organisations was told the situation had been exacerbated by the arrival in Ceduna of a large group of people from remote communities, who stayed in town for weeks on cultural men’s business, many of them sleeping rough and abusing alcohol.

The mainly male group had come from as far as the Northern Territory, Western Australia and the APY Lands, and had never been on the cashless debit card.

Official figures supplied by the police and senior hospital staff to the meeting showed only a minor increase in police callouts over the summer, and no significant proportional increase in drug and alcohol admissions at the Ceduna Hospital.

But business owners and a veteran schoolteacher said the abolition of the card had caused problems, including a spike in public drunkenness, violence, ­injuries requiring medical treatment, and fears children were being adversely affected.

Mr Maynard, who was elected in November, said he had been “middle of the road’’ on the card, believing it had some merit, but flaws as well.

“There’s been some negative impact in the community since the card’s been abolished. Most of that’s anti-social behaviour, probably due to public drunkenness,’’ he said. “It was exacerbated by the fact that over the Christmas-New Year period we had about 140 people in the community for cultural business. It was a perfect storm.’’

Four business owners who spoke to The Weekend Australian but were too fearful of repercussions to be named publicly, said there had been an obvious increase in public drunkenness and anti-social behaviour in the town centre, and not just in the period when the out-of-towners were in Ceduna.

One business owner said they had locked themselves in their shop and called police after a brawl outside saw locals throwing rocks at each other.

Another said drinking on the foreshore had escalated, and tourists were being driven away by people fighting, yelling and aggressively asking for money and cigarettes.

Mr Will said he had run the visitor information centre for more than 12 years, but retired last week and was “just glad to be out of it’’.

“It’s been absolute bedlam again,’’ he said. “By bedlam I mean vomiting, urinating, defecating in the streets around the business areas and on the lawns on the seafront, fighting in the streets, smashing bottles and littering all over the town with ­alcohol and takeaway food containers.

“People begging, accosting tourists for money to buy ­alcohol. All this behaviour was at a minimum when we limited the amount of cash available and people still had money so they could buy food and clothes, in particular for the children of dysfunctional families.’’

Allan Suter, the mayor when the card was introduced, fought hard for its introduction, and said the town had worked together to prepare for it by opening facilities for rough sleepers and introducing alcohol restrictions.

He said while the introduction of the card “wasn’t 100 per cent ­effective’’ it had dramatically ­improved the situation. “It was pretty much instant,’’ he said.

The community had tried to make the card easier for people to use, established a committee to recommend benefits be restored to some people who didn’t have drug or alcohol problems, and removed the Indue branding from the card to reduce stigma.

“There’s been a dramatic change with the public drunkenness. That had all but disappeared, but now unfortunately it is common place,’’ he said.

Mr Suter is a Liberal Party volunteer and Mr Will is a former Liberal staffer. Both said they were speaking as community members and were not partisan on the issue.

Ceduna, population 3500, had about 700 people on the card program, which quarantined up to 80 per cent of benefits for essentials such as food, clothing and household items.

While the Labor Left had ­always despised the card, some Labor figures have privately expressed nervousness about its abolition following the government’s backflip to reintroduce ­alcohol bans in response to an ­explosion of crime and violence in Alice Springs.

A team of government workers flew to Ceduna last year to ­assist cardholders to transition back to full control of their benefits after Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth abolished the card.

Charlette, a mother of four from Ceduna, had been placed on the cashless debit card in 2016, and said she was no longer on ­income management arrangements. “When I was on the Indue card, I didn’t like it,’’ she said, ­referring to the card by the name of the financial institution that ­issued it. “I can buy more stuff now and it’s my money and I know how much money I have to spend. It used to drive me crazy. I used to look at my account and sometimes there wasn’t enough there.”

The 42-year-old said she ­always had doubts about whether she was getting her entire benefit. When she could access her full benefits in cash, she was confident she was getting the full amount.

Her partner, Kingsley, 53, a ­father of seven and traditional owner, said he had been on the card for five years before it was ­revoked.

“I was pretty angry, pretty upset about it,’’ he said of being compulsorily placed on income management. “I was used to the cash and not used to learning how to use it (the card).’’

Kingsley said it took him several years to get to use the card properly, and that it had moderated his consumption of alcohol.

“I drank a fair bit less (on the card). I felt better for it,’’ he said. “At the end of the day I still had something left to go buy food with. Overall it was a benefit.’’

Kingsley has recently started casual work at the grain silos at Thevenard, down the road from Ceduna.

Royden, who is banned from Ceduna Foreshore Hotel, was waiting outside, hoping to convince someone to buy him a beer. He remains on income management voluntarily.

“Indue card was good for me,’’ he said. “I’m still on it. I love the drink. I use my own cash now from the bank.’’

A woman, who asked not to be named, said she had come off the card, and was glad to have control of her benefits.

“It was our money and we didn’t want to be pushed around,’’ she said. “We couldn’t get all the money out with the Indue card. We had no choice.’’

Ian McGowan has taught at the Ceduna Area School for 41 years, and spent decades observing children, some of whom had home lives marred by alcohol and substance abuse.

“Most of the families in Ceduna are pretty good at looking after their kids – it’s a good school, good kids, fantastic community,’’ he said.

“My biggest disappointment with the card was that there was never collected any quantifiable data. No one asked for information, or if they did no one passed it on.”

He said that prior to the card being introduced, he would “lose 15 to 20 kids, I’m talking 13- and 14-year-olds, every Thursday, which was pension day.’’

He said the students would go into town to try to extract money from their parents before it was gone.

After the card was introduced in 2016, the students would stop disappearing from school.

“We saw a pretty immediate impact on families. The kids had money for food and excursions and they were pretty well dressed,’’ Mr McGowan said.

“Then it (the card) went and, anecdotally, I noticed some kids started to lose days at school, and were looking tired and a bit ­dishevelled when they came to school.

“I don’t know why that was, if it was because they didn’t have access to money anymore or it was the time of year.’’

Mr McGowan said he did not want to get into the politics of the card’s introduction or removal, and agreed a number of people felt stigmatised when they were first placed on it.

The Eyre and Far North Local Health Network said general emergency department presentations had increased since the lifting of Covid restrictions in 2021, but there had “not been a significant increase in drug and alcohol-related ED presentations at Ceduna Hospital’’.

Asked if the removal of the card had led to an increased police response, Superintendent Paul Bahr said “a range of factors’’ contributed to crime and necessitated police responses.

“The warmer weather does see Ceduna become a centre for ­people from traditional lands (including those in WA) to escape the heat,’’ he said. “2022 also saw a large cultural ceremony occur in Ceduna for the first time in ­decades which saw an influx of additional visitors, those taking part in the ceremonies and their families.’’

The Weekend Australian tried multiple times to speak to the leading Indigenous organisations in the area – the Ceduna Abor­iginal Corporation and the Koonibba Community Aboriginal Corporation – but was unable to get a response.