TO THE CASHLESS WELFARE SENATE INQUIRY
To the members of the senate,
I am a recent graduate of a Bachelor of Social Sciences. I am also currently unemployed!
I have been avidly following the implementation of income management since the “Intervention” on indigenous Australians in the Northern Territory, since its inception in 2007.
My submission here is related to the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card) Bill 2017. It is my will that this bill be rejected in its entirety and that the current Cashless Debit Card trial cease immediately.
My name is and I am based in Hobart. I am deeply concerned about the Cashless Welfare Card and the legislation currently before the Senate to expand the program.
Firstly income management and the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card) Bill 2017 breach three United Nations Human Rights laws. Australia as a signatory of the United Nations Human Rights Charter (UNHCR) is now in breach of UNHCR laws and therefor any continuance of the aforementioned bill is inconceivable. Any continuance of the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card) Bill 2017 is in breach of Australian and international law.
The aforementioned bill in question is also in breach of the Section 8.4.3 of the Social Security Act (http://guides.dss.gov.au/guide-social-security-law/8/4/3) ,Social Security benefits are an inalienable right of all Australian citizens. Nor can they be sold, transferred to a third party such as Indue (the private corporation currently administering the Cashless benefit trial).
Even though there have been very negative reports about the effect the card has had on trial communities, the Government seems to be ignoring the people on this issue and increasing the trials in other areas?
Below are numerous examples for why the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card) Bill 2017 should not be passed and why all trials of cashless welfare should cease immediately.
Why The Cashless Welfare Card is bad for Business and for Communities:
1. Contrary to Government propaganda, the Cashless Welfare card is not as user friendly Government purports it to be. Local and regional communities with high unemployed, single parent and underemployed cohorts mutually support local small business owners by working with them to mutual benefit: https://www.theguardian.com/australia- news/2017/may/05/shop-owner-says-cashless-welfare-card-has-left-him-100000-short Both will be negatively impacted by this card.
2. The card is produced by the Australian company INDUE, to use it the business owner needs to enter into a business agreement with INDUE which may not benefit the business.
3. Small business in regional and rural areas, do not necessarily use eftpos machines. The cost of small business is climbing, particularly in relation to utilities, the books are getting tighter and every cent counts. There is currently no way for small business owners to quantify how much of their takings is supplied through welfare recipient cash transactions, making a feasibility assessment of whether or not to invest in an eftpos terminal and go into an agreement with INDUE impossible.
4. The cashless card is geared towards bigger business such as Coles and Woolies, where shopper anonominity is encouraged, particularly with the installation of Cashier Terminals where no human contact is necessary for a transaction to take place. This means that people who feel stigmatised by the cashless welfare card may choose to stop shopping with small businesses.
5. Unsurprisingly these bigger supermarkets are the very same businesses that co-own the Australian Eptpos business, so they stand to take the lions share of Government welfare spending under this card. Australian Eptpos is a company which makes money from transactions and card production, it is wholly owned by its 18 Members so all profits from cashless welfare transactions will go to the following companies:
Adyen
Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited
Australian Settlements Limited
Bank of Queensland Limited
Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Limited Citigroup Pty Limited
Commonwealth Bank of Australia
Coles Group Limited
Cuscal Limited
First Data Network Australia Limited
Indue Limited
ING DIRECT
National Australia Bank Limited
PayPal Australia
Suncorp Bank
Tyro Payments
Westpac Banking Corporation
Woolworths Limited
The many draw backs of the cashless card include:
1. The app designed for people to check their account on their smartphone is reported to be glitchy. In areas with poor internet reception the app is a useless utility.
2. The INDUE card is very different from a bankcard. It operates as a credit card in the sense that funds are not the property of the recipient, so a recipient has no claim to interest accrued on funds over time. In the case of persons becoming ill and spending a period of time in hospital, (elderly, chronically ill and mental health patients who are unable to access the Disability Support Pension) this can amount to regular periods of many months. Interest accrued on funds becomes a significant revenue stream for the company INDUE who have full ownership of accrued interest across millions of Newstart recipients. In other words INDUE gets to keep the sum total of all your small change, the stuff that goes in the jar above the fridge and comes in handy to pay the winter electricity bill with. This amounts to welfare spending contributing directly to the profit margins of big business, diminishing the growth of smaller local economy.
3. The low amount of cash that can be accessed through compulsory income management is not enough to participate in alternate markets such as farmers markets, trash and treasures, local craft markets, alternate food and goods banks and many charity shops which deal exclusively in cash transactions. In regional and rural areas eggs, mulch and fresh vegetables can often be purchased from road side sales points and co-ops dealing only in cash, these healthy options for people on low incomes will be impossible to access with the cashless card.
4. The small-economy becomes impossible under income management, how do you pay the babysitter with an INDUE card? How do give $50 to the bloke up the road who fixes your lawn mower or $20 to the boy who mows your lawn if you are unable to? How do you support your children and teenagers to participate in school fates and local excursions that require lunch money, pocket money and taxi money for an emergency such as having no safe option to get home from a late party? How do you teach your kids how to handle cash?
5. Residents in Ceduna, one of the trial sites for the Cashless Welfare card have reported their mortgage payments have become more expensive due to added transaction fees.
6. People cannot contribute to share house costs with a cashless card. How can you pay your landlord if they only accept cash?
7. There are reports that people on income management are begging, are buying food and then reselling it at lower prices to get access to cash so they cover costs like share-room rent, private studio and caravan rent, getting around town using alternate transport systems (throwing in some cash to help with petrol for a friend who gives them a lift somewhere etc) and providing pocket money for their kids, which effectively makes welfare recipients even poorer than they already are.
8. Compulsory income management stigmatises people and separates them from mainstream society even further, disallowing social mobility and scapegoating poverty.
9. Cheap shopping alternatives such as Aldi are excluded from participating in the scheme because there is no separation between the liquor store and the main store, thus preventing cheap goods being obtainable to people on tight budgets.
10. AUWU have information that organised crime gangs are already strategizing around how they can recruit a labour force to achieve criminal goals from the pool of unemployed on income management who need access to cash.
11. The only people with access to cash in welfare demographics will be elderly pensioners and disability pensioners who will be made vulnerable targets for criminals.
12. Cashless welfare, in a society where the welfare payments don’t lift people over the poverty line, forces people to use mainstream shopping outlets that are just too expensive for limited budgets, making emergency situations requiring cash impossible to manage.
13. People in welfare demographics will not be able to “chip in” or help each other financially from fortnight to fortnight.
14. INDUE are not a bank and cannot provide any of the privacy and security measures that banks provide. Our data will be open to organisations who collect data to profile and target consumers. The Government cannot guarantee our privacy because INDUE are not a Government organisation, regardless of assurances and agreements Government and INDUE come to. This lack of privacy is already an ongoing issue with Job Network Providers who are reported to be repeatedly breaching the privacy rights of their clients.
15. There are reports of people manufacturing bootleg liquor because they can no longer by alcohol. The cashless card has already created a back yard market in liquor and gambling in exchange for resalable goods.
16. The card will encourage black market labour hire because more people will accept cash work that pays below the minimum wage.
Further information about the “Indue” Cashless “Welfare” Card.
[C/O: https://www.facebook.com/SAYNOSEVEN/posts/419114115150075]
➡⚖INDUE LTD TERMS AND CONDITIONS: https://indue.com.au/wp-conte…/uploads/Conditions-of-Use.pdf
ORIMA WAVE 2 DATA GRAPHS HERE: https://www.facebook.com/SAYNOSEVEN/photos/a.275354549526033.1073741829.275344262860 395/414995252228628/?type=3&theater
TWITTER: @NOTOWELFARECARD : https://twitter.com/notowelfarecard?lang=en
A note to the Opposition - before you post https://www.facebook.com/SAYNOSEVEN/posts/378854235842730
A New Definition. - Pork barrelling in the Card Trial Regions. :https://saynoseven.wordpress.com/2017/
Community Panels - Major Issues: https://www.facebook.com/SAYNOSEVEN/posts/371357766592377
Fakes vs Facts : https://www.facebook.com/SAYNOSEVEN/posts/374655686262585
Online shopping, categories, transfer restrictions points to note: via our Q&A section: https://www.facebook.com/SAYNOSEVEN/posts/378344949226992 Shutting down the Tudge Trap. Public Inattention. The difference between Indue cards and a 'normal visa debit card' and how we can claim Mr Tudge is lying: https://www.facebook.com/SAYNOSEVEN/posts/374369032957917
CONFRONTING MR PITTS LIES AND POLITICAL SPIN: https://www.facebook.com/SAYNOSEVEN/posts/377275612667259:0
SNS responds to Keith Pitt : https://www.facebook.com/SAYNOSEVEN/posts/369098870151600
SERCO and the Sell Off of our Social Welfare Systems. - https://www.facebook.com/SAYNOSEVEN/posts/378360399225447
The issue of Consent and withdrawing consent : https://www.facebook.com/SAYNOSEVEN/posts/373865393008281
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⚖⚖REPORTS:
ANU Report Jane Hunt : http://caepr.anu.edu.au/Publications/topical/2017TI1.php
Cashless welfare cards: controlling spending patterns to what end? Dr Shelley Bielefeld: http://cashlessdebitcard.net/dr%20shelley%20bielefeld.htm
Centre in Excellence and Child and Family Welfare incorporated. June 2017 https://www.cfecfw.asn.au/…/Review-of-the-Cashless-Debit-Ca…
Link to the Human Rights Commission Social Justice and Native Title Report 2016 and its Recommendations on Forced Income Management - Completely ignored by Alan Tudge : https://www.humanrights.gov.au/…/…/social-justice-and-nati-2
Human Rights Commission key Forced Income Card recommendations here: https://www.facebook.com/SAYNOSEVEN/photos/a.293838804344274.1073741831.275344262860 395/293838941010927/?type=3&theater
Draft guidelines for ensuring income management measures are compliant with the Racial Discrimination Act
Australian Human Rights Commission 11 November 2009 : http://www.humanrights.gov.au/…/RDA_income_management2009_d…
Australian Human Rights Commission: "Government’s Healthy Welfare Card no solution to alcohol abuse". - Mick Gooda, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner: https://www.humanrights.gov.au/…/government-s-healthy-welfa…
ACOSS: Compulsory Income Management: A flawed answer to a complex problem : http://www.acoss.org.au/…/Income_management_policy_analysis…
Civil Society Joint Statement : http://www.acoss.org.au/strengthen-the-social-safety-net-s…/ Cashless Debit Card Trial ( CDCT) Evaluation Wave 1: https://www.mhs.gov.au/…/cdc-wave1- interim-evaluation-repor…
Cashless Debit Card Trial ( CDCT) Evaluation Wave 2: https://www.mhs.gov.au/…/cashless-debit- card-trial-final-ev…
"The effectiveness of Child Protection Income Management in Australia" - A report to the Child Protection Systems Royal Commission. Author Samantha Parkinson Conclusion ( page 11 ) : "There is no conclusive evidence that income management improves financial vulnerability and outcomes for vulnerable children and families." https://www.agd.sa.gov.au/…/the_effectiveness_of_child_prot…
A Decade On, The Fraud Of The NT Intervention Is Exposed https://newmatilda.com/…/a-decade-on- the-fraud-of-the-nt-…/…
COMPULSORY INCOME MANAGEMENT, INDIGENOUS
PEOPLES AND STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE – IMPLICATIONS
FOR CITIZENSHIP AND AUTONOMY :http://www.austlii.edu.au/…/journals/AUIndigLawRw/2015/7.pdf
Submission to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee
Inquiry into NTER Legislation Amendments, including Welfare
Reform and Reinstatement of the Racial Discrimination Act. https://antar.org.au/…/antar_submission_to_nter_amendment_l…
Sydney Law Review: Compulsory Income Management and Indigenous Peoples — Exploring Counter Narratives amidst Colonial Constructions of ‘Vulnerability’ https://sydney.edu.au/…/slr_36/slr36_4/SLRv36n4Bielefeld.pdf
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⚖⚖CURRENT ACTIVE ANTI-CARD GROUPS:
No cashless Debit card Hinkler Region: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1587750588204366/
(BAG) Bundaberg Awareness Group - No to Cashless Debit Card: https://www.facebook.com/groups/323872321359320/
We Don't need Income Management: https://www.facebook.com/groups/921284571294006/
No Welfare Card SA: https://www.facebook.com/NoWelfareCard/
No Welfare Card Australia: https://www.facebook.com/notowelfarecard/
Geraldton Says NO to the Cashless Welfare Card: https://www.facebook.com/groups/207308622966376/
No Debit Card Nth and Sth Burnett : https://www.facebook.com/groups/1945030142393395/ Stop the Welfare Card LOGAN: https://www.facebook.com/nowelfarecardlogan/?ref=br_rs
Stop Income Management SA: https://www.facebook.com/StopIncomeManagementSA/
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⚖⚖ CURRENT ACTIVE ANTI-CARD PETITIONS: https://www.megaphone.org.au/…/stop-the-cashless-welfare-de… http://greens.org.au/cashless http://www.aph.gov.au/…/Petitions_Gener…/Sign_an_e-petition… https://www.change.org/p/alan-tudge-tell-keith-pitt-no-cash… https://www.communityrun.org/…/stop-the-debit-card-trials-a… https://www.change.org/p/prime-minister-malcolm-turnbull-st… https://www.change.org/p/bill-shorten-oppose-the-cashless-w…
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⚖⚖VIDEO:
FC Journal : Indue Card- Kathryn WIlkes and Jenni Cameron: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtDUmHT-a4Q
David Pav (Ceduna) radio interview: https://www.spreaker.com/…/david-pav-interview-indue-card- 0…
Daniel Taylor Cashless Welfare Card Story Kununurra : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRnx9zKdl8s
Full video - Tammy Franks meeting Ceduna SA : ⚖⚖Local Business owner 120K worse off, may have to close business https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDPiS9or6fU&feature=share "Published on May 5, 2017
Shadow Minster for Human Services on CDCT: https://www.facebook.com/NoWelfareCard/videos/1210344195700366/
Australian Unemployed Workers Union Anti-Card rally video: https://goo.gl/XdTz29
GetUP @ Alan Tudge's $300 a plate dinner where he entertained 20 SERCO executives, playing up the sale of the social welfare system like a used car salesman.: https://www.facebook.com/GetUpAustralia/videos/10154380269271455/
Kathryn Wilkes First Video: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1587750588204366/permalink/1770667496579340/?pnref=sto ry Brilliant Video - Thank you Lux Voco ! Fight the good fight! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf4RjfN3OcU&feature=youtu.be
Video of an Indue Card being used to purchase alcohol (alcohol was also purchsed at Parlaimen thouse under controlled conditions using an Indue LTD card) : https://www.facebook.com/Ms- Mental-As-Anything-6726843695…/…
Cashless Society: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UyHCc3Ehvs
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⚖⚖⚖ THE SAY NO SEVEN YOU TUBE CHANNEL :
Say NO Seven Responds - The Tudge Oct 2016 "Progress Report" . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2LU81Sqm-M&t=5s
The Healthy Welfare Card Vol;4 Myth Busting "Retro causality" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85TCVM0U4cg&t=7s
The Healthy Welfare Card Vol;3 Myth Busting : " Its just like a regular bank debit card " https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Mrj_nYQyiM&t=446s
BREAKING: SAY NO SEVEN SPECIAL EDITION : Alan Tudge and Lies in Parliament https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58PAp6IWGiI&t=1s
Healthy Welfare Card Vol; 2 : Myth Busting "that the card will have limited effect on daily social and consumer life." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf4owh8EJ9I
The Healthy Welfare Card Vol;1 Mythbusting : Stereotypes and Ceduna https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFkrdvfsmFw
Allied Rabble and Income Support Recipient support videos:
WE SEE YOU : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aH6sKa8qBzs
THE VALUE OF WELFARE, THE VALUE OF YOU : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzXfudbTzU0&t=4s
A SAY NO SEVEN CHRISTMAS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEYYC9IBlng
SAY NO SPEAKS OUT @MARCH IN MARCH : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b17skoIe_FU
Team intro videos bit-o-fun:
WELFARE WARS : EPISODE 1: IN THE SHADOW OF FACISM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcN4YUYk_2M&t=21s
WELFARE WARS: EPISODE 2 "THE FORCED ARE AWAKENING" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAfXNXAmIuY
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⚖⚖ Why we oppose the Indue Ltd Healthy Welfare Card ⚖⚖
* Legislation governing the card trial removes Australian Citizens who have committed no crime, from full and equal protection under Anti-Discrimination Law and existing Human Rights and Privacy Legislation.This agreement to segregate income support recipients from the wider Australian community in this manner was not bought before the Australian people. In the current trials, the LNP have put in place the groundwork for a two tiered citizenship status based solely on income source; which is, to have intentionally implemented a state of national socioeconomic apartheid.
* We reject the notion it is acceptable in any way to force individuals to enter into financial relationships and/or legally binding third party contracts with private corporate entities against their will, simply because they are receiving income support benefits.
* We reject the statement this card is " Just like any other bank card" and make our concerns clear here: https://www.facebook.com/SAYNOSEVEN/posts/374369032957917
* We reject the specious statements aired in press, that millions of lives will be "unaffected" or experience only " minor inconvenience" when hit by a sudden and forced exclusion from the cash economy, from equality of participation within society, and the social, legal and personal costs of reductions in choice and in diminished citizenship status.
* We reject the notion that the trial locations are a genuine representative sample of the lives and living conditions being faced by the total body of income support recipients across Australia [approximately five million citizens]. We hold that trial results can not be applied unilaterally outside of these trial locations' unique geographic and micro-socal circumstances.
* We demand a full and public dislcosure of ALL costs of the Indue LTD cashless Debit Card program current and future prospectus, and we demand an accounting and audit be held into ALL current programs of forced income management so that Australian Taxpaying Citizens may know the full extent of the yearly expediture being asked of them and give *informed* consent to structures and policies that directly affect them.
* We reject the use of unverified data, massaged data, anecdotal data and the welfare stereotypes and prejudices being expressed by Alan Tudge, Andrew Forrest and Christian Porter in press and in parliament in order to sway political and public perception towards an antagonistic view of income support recipients. And we reject wholly, the unfounded and unsubstantiated presumption that all people receiving income support suffer from the same disease of alcoholism, or share in addictions, idleness and gambling obsessions. We further reject the assumption that we are all fiscally incompetent, uneducated or under-educated and/or morally and socially deficient in any way. * We reject the notion that the privatisation of the currently nationalised Australian welfare payments system is in our National Interest; that handing the national welfare budget and payment systems to a private corporation closely affiliated to the current serving government, is anything other than an example of inter-generational political incompetency and stewardship failure. We hold that this attempt at privatisation of one of our largest government portfolio's is part of a wider privatisation agenda and as such, it is and will be undermining to the present and future health and safety of those dependent upon these systems and all citizens who through taxation pay for them.
* We hold that it is inappropriate for a serving government minister and a local council to be currying favor in the press, on social media and in Parliament for further roll outs of the Indue LTD HWC when Governments own sourced data has proven that over 2/3rds of people forced onto the card have had NO POSITIVE OUTCOME.
* We particularly reject the lies being told by Alan Tudge and the Ceduna Council in media and in Parliament regarding crime statistics and the percentages of "benefit" being credited to the HWC trial as these percentages are being used to foster in parliament and in the public at large the illusion the "card is working well" when it is not. We have proven these claims are false and that Mr Tudges statements are dangerously omissive, we have made our proof publicly available for witness in our video "Special Edition" where we clearly show the figures quoted of a 30% decrease in legal contacts and use of alcohol related social services use is NOT owing to the card but to a further exclusion of the most vulnerable population from Ceduna's town boundaries.
* We reject that it is acceptable in any way to force unwanted policies onto or into remote and suburban communuties by withholding vital funding from essential social services aka, taking them hostage.
* We reject the practice of "porkbarrelling" in social services sector policy as an attempt to manufacture " community consent" to roll out programs already proven to be financially and socially disastrous, individually harmful, racist, ineffective and ideologically unsuited to the Australian ethos.
Our key areas of focus:
-The misrepresentation of CDCT Data and CDC attributes in media and parliament
-The issues of Community Panels/ Star Chambers and Injustice
-The issues of Coercion
-Economic and Social Segregation
-Privatisation of essential Government portfolios.
Some more legal issues with income management! https://independentaustralia.net/life/life-display/cashless-debit-card-income-management-and-the- surveillance-state,10711 As you can see there is a mountain of evidence against the extension of the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card) Bill 2017. I have a lot more as well. Particularly concerning the impossibility of determining if the card has actually been responsible for any positive outcomes. Not that the Orima, police, State and governments own information provided any evidence to indicate any real positive outcomes. In fact the Liberal National Coalition and its ministers have deliberately and continuously lied about the implementation, conduct and result of the income management – “Cashless Welfare Card” trials. The cost is exorbitant and would be much better spent been given directly to people on benefits. There is absolutely no statistically verifiable method to every to determine the benefit of the card trial due to NO baseline data being collected. There is absolutely no statistically verifiable method to every to determine the benefit of the card, as numerous other social services and programs were in play, such as the anti-gambling program implemented by South Australian State government in 2015. Then there is the strange confounding effect of the Federal government giving councils “additional” funding for social services and programs if they accepted the card in their community. The instigation of additional social services being implemented in conjunction with card by local councils and state governments makes any statistical proof of the benefits of the “Cashless Welfare Card” impossible. Which is why the Orima report and the government, only refer to anecdotal personal interviews and qualitative assessments.
The Cashless Welfare Card trial is an abject failure!
Kind regards
(B.Soc.Sc)