Extract from The Guardian
Senator Rex Patrick refused to back the Coalition’s bill due to a lack of evidence
The Morrison government’s cashless debit card has been extended for a further two years after a plan to make it permanent was dealt a major blow in the Senate.
The Coalition’s bill appeared likely to be voted down late on Wednesday after the swing vote senator, Rex Patrick, revealed he would not support plans to make the existing trials at four sites in Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland permanent.
But the social services minister, Anne Ruston, introduced last-minute amendments leading to the Centre Alliance senator, Stirling Griff, abstaining from the vote.
Initially, the government’s fortunes appeared to hinge on the vote of Patrick, who had declined to outline his position until he spoke on the legislation in the Senate.
“In the end, weighing up all the evidence, the difficulty for me is that the government has not made out its case,” he said.
“When I try and balance up everything that I’m seeing, unfortunately the data is not there that supports that … the card achieves what it is intended to achieve. On that basis that I will not be supporting this legislation.”
The scheme – which is in place in trial sites in East Kimberley and the Goldfields in WA, Ceduna in SA and Bundaberg and Hervey Bay in Queensland – quarantines 80% of a person’s welfare payment onto a debit card that can’t be used to buy alcohol, gambling products, or to withdraw cash.
Labor, the Greens and welfare groups have decried the policy as punitive, ineffective and racist, given it is disproportionately applied to Indigenous communities.
After Patrick revealed his position late on Wednesday the government flagged amendments that would extend the trials until the end of 2022.
Although the Centre Alliance MP, Rebekha Sharkie, had voted against the original bill in the lower house, her Senate colleague, Stirling Griff, said he would be open to extending the trials with conditions.
“We would consider, and only consider, an extension of the trial, not permanency – but you’ve got to have these wraparound services there,” Griff said.
Rustonsaid the government wanted to provide certainty to communities where the card operated.
“This amendment does not change our commitment, it simply means we have more work to do in the future to convince the parliament they should support this program on a permanent basis,” she said.
The government’s bill would have also placed about 25,000 people in the Northern Territory onto the card. Those individuals are already on the Basics card which was introduced during the NT intervention.
But due to a second back down, people in the NT could instead be given the option to adopt the cashless debit card scheme or remain on the Basics card.
Patrick noted the government had refused to release a $2.5m evaluation into the scheme, though he pointed to a Guardian Australia report that revealed some of the unpublished research had found there was “little consensus” the card was working in Ceduna.
He said he had visited a trial site in Ceduna and also made a trip to the Northern Territory to inform his view and had also been using the card.
Patrick said changes to the card, which he viewed as an impressive piece of technology, had reduced stigma, but not eliminated it. He said he had felt uncomfortable when he had tried to use the card to purchase alcohol and the transaction was declined.
The Tasmanian independent Jacqui Lambie revealed on Wednesday evening she would join with Labor and the Greens in opposing the government’s plan to make the scheme permanent.
She said she had seen benefits from the card but the government had not been “prepared to make it work”. “The card’s a stick,” Lambie said. “You’re not giving them a carrot. You’re just hitting them. I didn’t sign up for that.”
The government announced in the federal budget it would seek to make the card permanent in the existing trial sites, citing calls from local community leaders.
However, it was dealt a blow last week when the Tasmanian Liberal MP Bridget Archer blasted the card as “punitive” and not backed by evidence. Archer later abstained from a vote in the lower house allowing the bill to progress to the Senate by one vote.
The government has spent nearly $80m since 2015-16 on the card but its implementation has been dogged by criticism that the evidence base for the program is lacking.
Guardian Australia revealed last month that an independent quantitative study by the University of South Australia had found there was little evidence the card was having an impact in the Ceduna site.
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