Look, sm has convinced me (andseveral of us) that this is not a good thing for many (possibly most) affected people, and that there are so many problems it should be fought against.

This is a place for sm to drop her posts, so we can email:

senator.ruston@aph.gov.au

as several people her have done, including cs and rule.

I intend to use different images to the one sm (Becky’s)put up, so it doesn’t look like an orchestrated campaign. I have four email addresses I can send from…

The Becky image was this one:

sarahs mum said:

say no seven website.

https://www.thesaynoseven.com/

From chat:

sarahs mum said:

say no seven website.

https://www.thesaynoseven.com/

This is more common than you might think. All indue payments were late last week.

I could read a lot more and post a lot more but I need a rest from it. I was looking for the story about the woman who had her little girl stolen from her at a checkout because she paid with the druggy card by a bystander with some problems making some sort of citizen’s arrest.

sarahs mum said:

I could read a lot more and post a lot more but I need a rest from it. I was looking for the story about the woman who had her little girl stolen from her at a checkout because she paid with the druggy card by a bystander with some problems making some sort of citizen’s arrest.

No worries. Bookmark the thread and post anything you read that’s important here.

The Say NO Seven
7 November at 02:40

🌿👉SNS submission to the void that is the LNP controlled parliament of Australia.

Despite a call from the Committee saying it was to be published almost three weeks ago, and despite their reassurances only two days ago that it would be published in a timely manner, today is D day and the Committee has apparently decided not to publish our submission after all – and without even so much as an explanation call or letter.

Nice to know we p*ssed off the right people.

So sans parliamentary privilege, we post our sub here now – 7/11/19 – as they have already denied us our voice by denying us the opportunity to campaign from this sub over the last few weeks, denied us the capacity to use its information and key points in posts here and elsewhere and to make use of it in correspondence in order to raise the issues contained within this sub to a targeted audience.

Today the Senate Committee’s report is due to be handed down, so withholding it is a moot point in any case.

Here is the link: https://drive.google.com/open…

Please be prepared for their report today. Going on past experience, we fully expect the LNP will ignore everyone’s testimonials, all the facts and the evidence of departmental and policy failure not to mention the lack of consultation, and will recommend the bill be passed regardless.

This is what the LNP do….They have no respect for any of us. They never have.

- SNS

The Say NO Seven
15 mins ·

🌿#MEDIA Another poor excuse for journalism from the FCC. They have held this interview since Tuesday, and have not investigated the issue of Indue Ltd’s PRE-SELECTED PAYMENT CATEGORIES for themselves. Instead this sly attempt to undermine Jodie and her experience. So pale.

Obviously FCC are still refusing to read the Indue T’s and C’s we sent them, much less report honestly about those rules and their impacts, and the subject of PRE_SELECTED PAYMENT CATEGORIES itself.

THIS issue, income micromanagement, is the primary reason why Indue cards are NOT “ just like any other visa debit card” and why this policy is 100% one of FORCED THIRD PARTY INCOME MANAGEMENT not “welfare in another form”.

➡ INDUE set up the card account.
➡ INDUE control the categories your money is divvied up
and put into.
➡ INDUE control transfers between those categories
➡ INDUE decide if your reason for NEEDING a transfer external AND internal between categories is “worthy” enough.

YOU get to call INDUE and ask for permission to transfer between categories and if they say no THAT IS IT. Tough luck.

So if you have $200 sitting in ‘other expenses’ and nothing left in ‘housing’ but need to make up rent for whatever reason, including the 28 day cycle reason (ie: their stuff ups) then you CAN’T simplly spend the other $200 on rent as you need to. You have to ring and ASK them to transfer that to the housing category and then WAIT for them to APPROVE that transfer which 9/10 times they DO NOT.

🌿 REMINDER:

ALL cardholders are subject to the Indue Terms and Conditions, and within those conditions is the clause on “pre-selected transfer categories” people do need to be aware of.

Yes most places that accept eftpos, will have no technical issues with taking the card physically, however, CL recipients need to be aware that their 80% is placed into ‘spending categories’ once it arrives in the restricted account. You may get a say in how much goes where, just be aware some people haven’t.

There are limits on spending from each of these categories, which was one of the reasons over 21000 transactions of approved items failed in previous trial regions. Last month in parliament Anne Ruston let slip over 400K Indue card declines have occurred since then. No wonder why!

Another example :If you nominate $200 dollars for your groceries category but need $250 on the day, you will need to call Indue to get money transferred over into that category, and they may or may not approve it. Or you take items back.

Essentially, before a person spends, anywhere, anyone, they must be sure that not only do they have enough in the Indue account overall, but that they have enough money in the related payment category they are taking that spending from.

Transfers of amounts between these categories must be done by calling Indue and approved by Department. See 14 and 14:3 of Indue Terms and Conditions or image below for further information.

When a person clicked ‘activate my card’ they gave their legal consent to abide by these terms. To breach these terms incurs a non specified “penalty”, though it states it can include closing your account and leaving with no access to income at all.

We tried to talk about the problems people would face with this set up and the PPC issue two years ago and the Department shut us down and called US liars. Keith Pitt even came out in press calling us FEARMONGERS and liars…yet here we ^##!% are!

People, vulnerable people are being actively and intentionally placed at risk of devastating life altering consequences like homelessness now because of a stupid inane utterly INSANE sets of INDUE LTD restrictions OTHER than Departmental restrictions on “ alcohol gambling products and gift cards”.

When will the lagging dithering cross bench senators out there WAKE UP and STOP buying into the LNP script to get EDUCATED about this card and its ACTUAL impacts IN PRACTICE on the ground?

We are so sorry Jodie that we have a gutter press bent on twisting facts and promoting abuses. You are so brave and thank you so so much for continuing to face this kind of disrespect to let people know how hard life is UNDER INDUE.

- SNS

So what are some of the positives that have come out about the trials?

Peak Warming Man said:

So what are some of the positives that have come out about the trials?

Some company is making money?

Peak Warming Man said:

So what are some of the positives that have come out about the trials?

I think the idea is to ram this current legislation through before any of the reporting happens. What reporting has been done has seen little in the way of positives. What positives there have been haven’t been evaluated against other stuff. eg..when extra dollars have been put into policing just prior to the card’s arrival in a district…is it the policing or the card that has made a change in crime rates?

Some positives…more employment in Hinkler..are just plain dodgy as. Figures taken from a much larger area than the wind out of the card and selected in the middle of the cane season.

An independent assessment would be advantageous. There is one being done by the Uni in SA. It is due for publishing in February. The libs intend to have this legislation through before then.

sarahs mum said:

Peak Warming Man said:

So what are some of the positives that have come out about the trials?

I think the idea is to ram this current legislation through before any of the reporting happens. What reporting has been done has seen little in the way of positives. What positives there have been haven’t been evaluated against other stuff. eg..when extra dollars have been put into policing just prior to the card’s arrival in a district…is it the policing or the card that has made a change in crime rates?

Some positives…more employment in Hinkler..are just plain dodgy as. Figures taken from a much larger area than the wind out of the card and selected in the middle of the cane season.

An independent assessment would be advantageous. There is one being done by the Uni in SA. It is due for publishing in February. The libs intend to have this legislation through before then.

This legislation also postpones Departmental reporting.
l

No Cashless Welfare Debit Card Australia
58 mins ·

This admin recently rang the dept, regarding people visiting from outside Kalgoorlie whilst coming to town for cultural ceremony
For those that don’t know how the Community Development Program, CDP work for the dole 25 hrs a week, 48 weeks of the year for all first nations peoples, requires that when they travel outside their own region they must get permission from their CDP provider to have the leave, and then upon arrival to their destination they must check in with their temp address they will be staying at.
Recently in Kalgoorlie 6 members from the Mulan Community, not on the card nor anywhere near a card region were forced onto the cashless debit card whilst visiting for ceremony .
This caused issues with being able to get home, as they had to barter and borrow from other groups as the card does not work in the fuel stations along their trip home, this also left them with no access to cash for their families.
The Outback store in Mulan does not accept the cashless debit card, ( part of the outback stores set up by the gov’t in remote communities) leaving these 6 people and their families unable to buy food.
The closest place to buy food is Kununurra some 700 km away, would mean a 1400km round trip to get shopping.
Mulan community has limited satelite communications at best.
So I spoke to a lovely man on the phone, from the DSS Cashless Debit card Hotline and explained what had happened to these people.
He informed me that staff in Kalgoorlie had marked them as permanent residents in order to trigger them onto the card and once they could prove they were not permanent and only visiting, they would be let off the card.
Next I heard they had been let off the card after they were able to finally get a hold of the DSS after 4 hrs on the phone, however their Indue accounts will not be able to be closed for 3 mths?
This was the staff at the job active cdp provider in Kalgoorlie effectively trapping those visiting onto cards
Warburton community is not a card region, however the minister is Kalgoorlie is pushing hard to force those people onto cards, knowing there is no infrastructure to support the card in their communities!
Makes you wonder if it was a mistake or was someone being ordered to put these people on the card?,
Of the 6 people from Mulan community only one of them could speak English, it scared them, and left them having to hunt for traditional food for their families while the dept sorted out the cockup,
And in ALL card regions bartering is a booming trade, no matter how much the minister doesn’t want to acknowledge it. Groceries to pay rents that Indue does not allow, people paying others back in fuel, groceries and bill paying due to not being able to access cash for their personal family debts to family or friends, when families are stepping up to pay for things because Indue is not allowing people access. etc, Take the blinkers of denial off @AnneRushton the card is a failure, and bartering will not stop just because you dismiss it

Why aren’t aborgines allowed to move freely?

sarahs mum said:

Why aren’t aborgines allowed to move freely?

I dunno.

Dissenting Report by the Australian Greens
The Australian Greens remain opposed to compulsory income management. The evidence we have heard during this limited inquiry confirms our concerns about the harm being caused by compulsory income management and the lack of evidence of positive outcomes clearly indicates that these so-called trials should not continue.
The Australian Greens therefore oppose the measures contained in the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Income Management to Cashless Debit Card Transition) Bill 2019 (the Bill).
This Bill will extend the end date for existing Cashless Debit Card trial sites in East Kimberley, Ceduna, Goldfields and Bundaberg regions from 30 June 2020 to 30 June 2021. The Bill establishes the Northern Territory and Cape York as Cashless Debit Card trial areas. As a result, approximately 23 000 income management participants in the Northern Territory will be transitioned to the Cashless Debit Card from 1 January 2020.
The Bill removes the cap on the number of Cashless Debit Card trial participants and allows participants in the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay trial areas to voluntarily participate in the Cashless Debit Card. The Bill also makes changes to the evaluation process, the right to appeal decisions and gives the Minister the power to vary the portion of income quarantined to 100 per cent.
The Australian Greens note that this is the fifth legislation inquiry into the Cashless Debit Card, none of which have provided quantitative evidence of the positive impacts of these measures.
We further note that the ANAO evaluation of the Cashless Debit Card found:
The Department of Social Services largely established appropriate arrangements to implement the Cashless Debit Card Trial, however, its approach to monitoring and evaluation was inadequate. As a consequence, it is difficult to conclude whether there had been a reduction in social harm and whether the card was a lower cost welfare quarantining approach.1
The Australian Greens continue to hold deep concerns about punitive compulsory income management and staunchly oppose the extension of these so-called ‘trials’. Extending the Cashless Debit Card to the Northern Territory disproportionately impacts First Nations peoples and undermines human rights and fundamental freedoms.
The Australian Greens reject the committee view that the Bill be passed.
In addition to our dissenting reports from previous inquiries into the CDC, we outline further concerns below.
Lack of evidence to support compulsory income management in the Northern Territory
One of the recurring themes that emerged in the submissions and at the hearings into this Bill was the lack of evidence to support compulsory income management in the Northern Territory. People in the Northern Territory have been subject to compulsory income management for over 12 years.
In 2014, the Federal Government’s independent evaluation into compulsory income management in the Northern Territory concluded that:
A wide range of measures related to consumption, financial capability, financial harassment, alcohol and related behaviours, child health, child neglect, developmental outcomes, and school attendance have been considered as part of this evaluation… Despite the magnitude of the program the evaluation does not find any consistent evidence of income management having a significant systematic positive impact.2
Key findings from the evaluation included:
There was no evidence of income management having resulted in changes to spending or consumption, including on alcohol, tobacco, fresh fruit and vegetables.
There was no aggregate improvement in financial wellbeing at the household level.
There was no evidence in changes to school enrolments or learning outcomes that could be attributed to income management and no significant change across child wellbeing outcomes.3
One of the authors of the evaluation, Dr Rob Bray, recently undertook an updated analysis on the social impact of income management in the Northern Territory. Dr Bray discussed the paper in his submission:
The paper clearly shows that there has been a total absence of any improvement in the outcomes for Indigenous people in the Northern Territory which can be attributed to income management, despite the fact that the most vulnerable third of this population has been subject to the measure for over a decade.4
The inquiry also heard evidence from a number of people around the harmful impact of compulsory income management.
Professor Sven Silburn, Mary-Alice Doyle and Associate Professor Stefanie Schurer recently undertook a study of the population-level effect of income management on the birth outcomes of First Nations children.
Professor Silburn noted in his submission:
The study’s key finding of relevance to this Senate Committee hearing regarding the draft Bill to extend the implementation of the Cashless Debit Card to NT communities, is that the Aboriginal birth cohort affected by the 13 month roll-out of Income Management resulted in an average reduction in birth weight of 100 grams and a 30% increase in the likelihood of being born with low birth weight (i.e. below 2,500 grams). The magnitude of this effect is comparable to what has been reported from other international studies of births to women exposed to famines or extreme weather events such as cyclones.5
Low birthweight can have lifelong consequences and is associated with childhood behaviour and learning difficulties, as well as chromic health conditions in adults.6 The link between a reduction in birthweight and the rollout of income management is deeply concerning and demonstrates the harmful effects of compulsory income management.
Ms Olga Havnen, Chief Executive Officer, Danila Dilba Health Service, said income management has not increased access to healthy food for people in remote communities:
The other comment I would make is that income management has done absolutely nothing to ensure that Aboriginal people in remote communities have increased access to healthy, affordable foods. The cost of healthy foods in remote areas is widening….There is no evidence from store turnover or sales data that there has been any significant change in people’s purchasing or consumption patterns. There has been no significant discernible difference between the volume of healthy foods purchased pre Intervention and post…7
The Human Rights Law Centre noted in its submission that poverty continues to grow in remote communities that are subject to income management:
Income Management has failed to alleviate poverty in remote communities. Data collected through the census in 2016 demonstrates an appalling increase in poverty rates in remote communities since 2011. Between 2011 and 2016, there was a real decline in disposable incomes of low income households in very remote areas at the same time as costs of living in remote parts of the Northern Territory rose.8
The Government’s proposed introduction of the Cashless Debit Card in the Northern Territory fails to acknowledge the harmful outcomes associated with compulsory income management.
Hardship under the Cashless Debit Card
The Committee heard extensive evidence that the Cashless Debit Card is making people’s lives harder. The Australian Greens reject the committee view that ‘the Cashless Debit Card will greatly contribute to the improvement of wellbeing outcomes’ and highlight some of the concerns that were raised which clearly indicate that this approach does not improve peoples’ wellbeing.
At the Canberra hearing, Dr Michelle Peterie, Research Fellow, University of Queensland, provided evidence about the results of in-depth interviews conducted with Cashless Debit Card participants in the Hinkler region. The study found that the card was making it harder for people to pay bills and provide for their families, payment issues were negatively impacting on individual’s health and wellbeing and that significant stigma surrounds the card. As a result, people are withdrawing from participation in their communities. Dr Peterie concluded:
The evidence from our study suggests that the cashless debit card is not only failing to achieve some of its core objectives but actually making things a lot harder for some people.9
Queensland Council of Social Service undertook two Cashless Debit Card Trial surveys in the Hinkler region. The most recent survey found a growing number of people oppose the card:
A significant majority, 81 per cent of respondents oppose the CDCT outright (up from 65 per cent). An overwhelming majority of 93 per cent of respondents oppose the CDCT in its current compulsory form (up from 75 per cent), this proportion increases to 98 per cent when filtering for those with direct experience of the CDCT. 12 per cent saying they would support it if it was voluntary. A significant majority (89 per cent) have concerns about the CDCT (up from 77 per cent), and a significant majority (82 per cent) say they experience no benefits from the CDCT (up from 65 per cent expecting no benefit).10
Many submitters also discussed the additional fees and costs associated with the Cashless Debit Card. Professor Matthew Gray and Dr Rob Bray noted in their submission:
Additionally a range of factors associated with the BasicCard/Indue card involved directly increased costs for those placed on the system. These costs include the imposition by some merchants of credit card surcharges on purchases which directly increase costs, or of minimum purchase requirements which involve having to purchase additional items when small purchases are made.11
The Australian Greens have serious concerns that the Cashless Debit Card will make people’s lives harder. We also have strong concerns that harsh and punitive compliance programs, such as compulsory income management, could be contributing to the growing number of people disengaging from the social security system.
At the Alice Springs hearing, several witnesses discussed how some people disengage with the social security system after being subject to compulsory income management.
Mr John Adams, General Manager NT, Jesuit Social Services said:
I think people really struggle engaging with the system generally. A couple of years ago I was working in a demand reduction program around alcohol. Consistently, people who had severe addiction issues with alcohol would have BasicsCards with substantial money on them. They’d lose the card or they wouldn’t access it. They didn’t deal with Centrelink. There’s definitely a problem.12
Ms Deborah Di Natale, Chief Executive Officer, Northern Territory Council of Social Service, discussed their ongoing investigations into the numbers of people dropping off income support:
But that’s work that NTCOSS are trying to get some evidence around so that we can get some numbers to demonstrate how many people who are eligible for any type of social security payment but are not receiving any, or those that have been breached, and the measures have been very punitive and it’s very hard to get back on, and as a result of that, it’s all too hard, so they are in fact not receiving any income support at all from government.13
Concerns of this nature have also been raised at the current Senate inquiry into the adequacy of Newstart and related payments and alternative mechanisms to determine the level of income support payments in Australia.
The Australian Greens have serious concerns that extension of compulsory income management by the introduction of the Cashless Debit Card in the Northern Territory could see more First Nations peoples disengaging from the social security system due to its punitive and discriminatory nature.
Perverse outcomes of compulsory income management
Many witnesses and submissions discussed the perverse outcomes of compulsory income management that are harming communities and individuals.
There are claims by proponents of compulsory income management that it will stop so-called humbugging, however the evidence that was received indicates that it doesn’t and can make it worse.
Ms Sandy Marty, Board Member, MoneyMob Talkabout Limited, spoke about the impact of humbugging on communities:
A lot of young people humbug family for money because they don’t work. Because they don’t work and have been cut off from Centrelink, they ask for money all the time. If they get cut off from CDP they don’t re-engage, so there’s no money around. Some of them want money for gunja or grog and get very angry if they don’t get it. The situation happens to a lot of people who are aged, have disabilities or mental health issues. The quarantining of welfare payments has not stopped this.14
Professor Sven Silburn noted in his submission that welfare restrictions can make humbugging worse:
In the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children dataset, family members who moved from no welfare restrictions to welfare restrictions were almost 100% more likely to report an incident of harassment for money and family arguments (in which children are involved).15
Mr David Tennant, Chief Executive Officer, FamilyCare and Accountable Income Management Network, discussed how the Cashless Debit Card could see people disengaging with the banking system:
I think there’s a real possibility that a much broader rollout might do really perverse things. It might, for example, reduce the number of people in Australia who are connected to basic transaction accounts. Almost 97½ per cent of our population are banked. We didn’t get that way by accident; we got that way by providing a range of services that people can engage with on just terms. This winds that back. If the only choice available to people is to disengage entirely, they might take that choice.16
The Cashless Debit Card could impact the viability of small businesses being trialled which are cash based. Mr Liam Flanagan, General Manager Community Services, Arnhem Land Progress Aboriginal Corporation, discussed the harmful impact on small business:
These incubators are supporting Yolngu entrepreneurs to transition from welfare to small-business ownership, at the same time as bringing new products and services to market within their communities. At this stage, all these businesses are cash based, with the majority currently lacking the sophistication or the economic viability to move to an ecommerce platform to accept the Indue card. This new barrier could impact severely on the viability of these businesses, particularly if the board of director’s fear comes to fruition and the amount of money quarantined is increased at a later date.17
The Australian Greens share these concerns that the continuation of compulsory income management, especially through the introduction of Cashless Debit Card in the Northern Territory, could have unintended consequences that harm communities.
Government’s approach flawed and contradictory
The Australian Greens have strong concerns about the Government’s blanket approach towards the transition from compulsory income management to the Cashless Debit Card in the Northern Territory and Cape York.
Aboriginal Peak Organisations Northern Territory (APO NT) noted in its submission:
Extending compulsory income management in the NT perpetuates the imposition of a one-size fits all policy on income recipients that largely targets Aboriginal people. It is, in every way, a top-down policy which, in the case of the NT, will be imposed on a significant number of Aboriginal people regardless of their circumstances.18
Many witnesses gave evidence about how the Government’s imposition of compulsory income management contradicts its commitment to Closing the Gap Refresh.
Mr John Paterson, Chief Executive Officer, Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance Northern Territory, said at the Darwin hearing:
The establishment of the joint council and commitment from all governments to a partnership approach to a renewed closing the gap strategy stands in stark contrast to the government’s approach in imposing the cashless debit card on us. This measure is likely to undermine progress on closing the gap.19
Dr Josie Douglas, Manager Policy and Research, Central Land Council, said at the Alice Springs hearing:
Time and time again, the Aboriginal residents of the Northern Territory have been subjected to top-down imposed policies. Compulsory income management typifies this approach. It is not consistent with the collaborative and consultative spirit of the next phase of Closing the Gap or the broad reform agenda of the NIAA seeking to return decision-making and control to Aboriginal people across a range of sectors, including health, housing and education.20
Ms Liza Balmer, Chief Executive Officer, NPY Women’s Council, articulated how the Cashless Debit Card is at odds with the Government’s commitment to the Empowered Communities initiative:
We are also one of the key partners in the Empowered Communities initiative in this region, which is very much around the empowerment of Aboriginal people, self-determination, local decision-making, governance, coming up with their own solutions to meet their own needs, which is also very well supported by the Commonwealth government. So I find it interesting that, on the flip side, this very disempowering initiative would also be running in parallel to that.21
The Australian Greens share these concerns that the continuation of compulsory income management will undermine the Closing the Gap Refresh process.
One of the Government’s supposed aims in the use of compulsory income management is addressing over consumption of alcohol however witnesses point out that this ignores the fact that many remote communities are dry communities.
Ms Havnen, Chief Executive Officer, Danila Dilba Health Service said at the Darwin hearing:
By the way, most remote communities don’t have alcohol sales, so it’s not like you can go down to the local supermarket and buy a carton of beer or whatever. Only the people who have alcohol permits are able to have access to alcohol. By and large, for people in Central Australia, for example, there are no alcohol outlets, there isn’t a licensed club and you don’t have takeaway sales. Why are we continuing to manage the money of people who aren’t out there doing that stuff?22
In addition many witnesses and submitters noted that a reduction in alcohol harm in the Northern Territory can not be linked to compulsory income management but is clearly as a result of other reforms such as the banned drinker register and implementation of the recommendations of the Alcohol Policies and Legislation Review (also known as the Riley Review).
Ms Georgia Stewart, Senior Policy Officer, Central Land Council highlighted the impact of these reforms at the Alice Springs hearing:
In summary, with the combination of the floor price of $1.30, the police auxiliary liquor inspectors—which are not in every site; they’re predominantly in Alice Springs, Tennant Creek and, I think, now Katherine, but not Darwin—and the reintroduction of the banned drinkers register, there is a 26 per cent decrease in alcohol related assaults in the Northern Territory; a 21 per cent decrease overall in domestic violence incidence in the Northern Territory; a 43 per cent reduction in alcohol related assaults and a 38 per cent reduction in domestic violence in Alice Springs.23
This Government ignores this evidence.
Inadequate consultation with First Nations communities
Both in the submissions and at the hearings, an overwhelming number of witnesses from across the Northern Territory were critical of the lack of consultation over the rollout of the Cashless Debit Card and noted they were not consulted on the Bill. The Australian Greens have strong concerns about the lack of consultation and the absence of free, prior and informed consent of First Nations peoples, who will be disproportionately impacted by this Bill.
At the Darwin hearing, Ms Clara Mills, Managing Civil Solicitor, North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency said:
In brief, the bill is a major legislative decision that imposes significant restrictions on at least 22 and a half thousand individuals in the Northern Territory. Given this, it is deeply concerning that it has been rushed through parliament without a strong evidence base and without proper consultation.24
APO NT said in their submission:
The proposal has not been widely discussed nor explained to income recipients across the NT. It is our understanding from briefings with staff from the Department of Social Services, that consultations undertaken focused on the logistics of when and how the changes will be implemented. Many people currently on income management are unlikely to be aware of the planned changes until they are delivered a notification letter or receive a card from Indue.25
Arnhem Land Progress Aboriginal Corporation said they were unable to fully consult with their members in the short timeframes given for the inquiry:
Alongside the lack of evidence there has been little to no consultation undertaken in the Northern Territory to date. ALPA has been unable to fully consult across our membership footprint in the time allotted to prepare this submission. To consult properly in our region means sitting down with individual families and clans, translating words and concepts between languages and dialects.26
Dr Douglas, Manager Policy and Research, Central Land Council said at the Alice Springs hearing:
Information sessions or briefings being conducted by DSS staff do not constitute consultation, a lesson that should have been learned by governments long ago. Following this week’s meeting of 90 CLC Aboriginal delegates, it is abundantly clear that very few people are aware that the change is coming or understand the details.27
The Australian Greens reject the committee view that the Department of Social Services is ‘actively engaging with stakeholders’. We are concerned about the fundamental lack of genuine consultation with First Nations communities. The Government’s paternalistic approach to income management is further evident through the short inquiry process and absence of hearings in remote communities in Northern Territory or Cape York. This demonstrates the Government is ignoring calls from First Nations peoples for meaningful co-design, self-determination and collaboration on measures that affect their lives.
Previous supporters are now calling for income management to be voluntary
When compulsory income management was initially rolled out in the Northern Territory, Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (NPY) Women’s Council supported this approach to address particular issues in the community.28 However, the NPY Women’s Council have now withdrawn their support for compulsory income management and reject the introduction of the Cashless Debit Card in their community.
Ms Liza Balmer, Chief Executive Officer, NPY Women’s Council, said at the Alice Springs hearing:
I suppose our primary concern is the mandatory nature of this and the lack of empowerment that creates for people—that they are not able to make their own decisions. In the past, we have certainly supported any voluntary income management, where people can determine that that’s what they want and need themselves. We definitely don’t support any form of mandatory income management.29
Mrs Maimie Bulter, Chairperson, NPY Women’s Council, discussed her opposition to the Cashless Debit Card and the lack of consultation:
If this card comes along, it’ll just really put us down. We wouldn’t know where we’re heading. Already it’s a shock to us, because we don’t know nothing about government changes, you know. We just live along every day, every second day. It’s the day—how we live. These changes have been frustrating for us, you know. We just don’t know happening to us. What’s happening? If this card does come along, it’ll take us right back to when our ancestors first walked into the mission and were fed by rations.30
The Australian Greens urge the Government to listen to the communities who have lived through compulsory income management and do not support it.
Broader application than existing income management provisions in the Northern Territory
One of the key concerns raised by witnesses and submitters was that this Bill expands income management to a broader number of people in the Northern Territory. Under existing income management provisions, there are different categories with specific eligibility criteria for the BasicsCard. For example, under the Long Term Welfare Recipient category you must have been receiving a Category E payment for at least 52 weeks in a 104 week period.
Under this Bill, there is no restriction based on the time a person has been receiving an income support payment. This means both short and long term income support recipients will be placed onto the Cashless Debit Card.
Accountable Income Management Network said in its submission:
Rather than a person’s length of time on social security being a key trigger, it will simply be a question of which category of social security payment they are receiving.31
The Australian Greens have concerns that this removes current safeguards in place that target income management in the Northern Territory. Instead, this Bill applies a blanket approach subjecting all people on income support payments to the Cashless Debit Card.
Ministerial discretion to change the amount of income quarantined
This Bill allows the Minister to make a notifiable instrument that increases the amount of income quarantined on the Cashless Debit Card from 50 per cent to 100 per cent. Several submitters expressed their strong opposition to the Minister having such a broad power.
There are concerns from a human rights perspective that this would further restrict access to cash availability through income support payments, which is particularly problematic in remote communities.
Dr Shelley Bielefeld said at the Canberra hearing:
If there was the discretion to put the quarantine portion up to 100 per cent, I think that would be really problematic based on the types of consumer problems that I’ve mentioned that arise for people. Because then they don’t even have a small component of cash to be paying for legitimate expenses in a not quite cashless society that we are living in.32
Adrianne Walters, Senior Solicitor, Human Rights Law Centre, said at the Darwin hearing:
Increasing the percentage that is quarantined is a decision to impose an even greater denial of a fundamental freedom, and that’s something that should come before the parliament and be rigorously scrutinised by parliament.33
The Department of Social Services clarified that increasing the proportion of income quarantined would be considered at the request of the community. However, at the Canberra hearing the Department of Social Services explained they had not done any work around what form this would take nor had they discussed this issue with communities.34
This is deeply concerning as under the current system in the existing Cashless Debit Card trial sites, the process for decision making on the percentage quarantined is secretive, lacks transparency and accountability.
The Australian Greens hold significant concerns about the Minister’s power to vary the amount of income quarantined to 100 per cent. We note that this provision only applies to the Northern Territory. It further restricts the nature by which First Nations peoples in the Northern Territory can access income support payments and should be removed from the Bill.
The Australian Greens believe that further clarification about the Minister’s discretionary powers as recommended by the committee will not go far enough.
Decisions are not reviewable by the Secretary or the Administrative Appeals Tribunal
The Australian Greens have concerns that this Bill removes the ability of the Secretary and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to review certain decisions relating to trial participation.
The Accountable Income Management Network noted in its submission:
In effect, this means that an individual cannot seek a review from the Secretary or the AAT at the time that they are placed on the scheme (for example, because they think that they have been placed on it in error) and will instead need to apply for an exemption or exit to the scheme.
This is highly concerning and appears to be in direct contradiction to procedural fairness afforded to other income support recipients not subject to welfare quarantining. We note that the application of this measure in the Northern Territory will disproportionately target Indigenous peoples, who are well documented to have more trouble accessing exemptions than non-Indigenous participants.35
The Human Rights Law Centre noted the removal of this right to review a decision will mean people who are referred to the Cashless Debit Card in error will need to rely on the exemption and exit provisions,36 which are fraught with difficulties.
The Australian Greens believe the removal of a right to review decisions to place people on the Cashless Debit Card is unjustified and will disproportionately impact First Nations peoples.
Changes to evaluation provisions
This Bill maintains the requirement for any review of the Cashless Debit Card trials to be evaluated. However, it removes the requirement for such an evaluation to be completed within 6 months of the Minister receiving the review and removes the requirement for the evaluation to be conducted by independent experts. It also removes the requirement for the independent experts to consult trial participants.
The Government claims this will ‘improve the workability of the evaluation process’. However, it was clear from the inquiry that this will weaken the evaluation process and its independence. The proposed use of desktop evaluations is not appropriate for a trial that has no credible evidence to support its continuation.
Central Australian Aboriginal Congress noted in its submission:
Given the lack of objective evidence about the effects of the CDC trial in Ceduna and the East Kimberly and its expense, it is worrying that the Bill proposes to reduce the requirements for evaluation to a desktop exercise.37
The Australian Greens have serious concerns with the watering down of the evaluation process, especially given the Cashless Debit Card is now being trialled on an additional 23 000 people. The Government has a responsibility to ensure this transition is evaluation independently and rigorously.
Broadening of information sharing powers
This Bill provides the Secretary with additional powers to obtain information and documentation to determine whether a person should or should not be a trial participant. The Australian Greens echo the concerns of submitters38 about the breadth of information sharing powers under these new provisions. The fact that personal information can be shared between federal governments, state and territory governments and community panels has serious implications on a person’s right to privacy.
No support from the Northern Territory Government
The Northern Territory Government does not support the introduction of the Cashless Debit Card in the Northern Territory:
The Northern Territory Government does not support the roll out of Cashless Debit Card in the Northern Territory unless it is a voluntary scheme or unless it is consistent with existing Northern Territory Government policies and legislation whereby an individual is referred to the program by a court or an authorised practitioner.39
Conclusion
Compulsory income management has been trialled in the Northern Territory for 12 long years, it has not reduced social harm, it has not reduced disadvantage, the evaluation of the approach showed it met none of its objectives. It has in fact caused harm and distress to many. The continuation of compulsory income management through the introduction of the Cashless Debit Card is not supported by the evidence, is not supported by the community and will cause further distress and potential harm. It is time that compulsory income management was abandoned.
Recommendation
The Australian Greens recommend that the Bill not be passed.
Senator Rachel Siewert

>It is time that compulsory income management was abandoned.
Recommendation
The Australian Greens recommend that the Bill not be passed.
Senator Rachel Siewert”

read all that, took a while

transition said:

>It is time that compulsory income management was abandoned.
Recommendation
The Australian Greens recommend that the Bill not be passed.
Senator Rachel Siewert”

read all that, took a while

It did. But you have probably already done better than most.

Sometimes I think it is sad Barry Jones never became PM. He was an exceptional speed reader. Pretty good at retaining it. Wasted as a numbers man.

Around 700 banking cards are held and accessed by community staff on behalf of Aboriginal residents of Ngaanyatjarraku Shire in remote Western Australia because they cannot use the cards to access money.

Warburton community adviser and shire president Damian McLean said six communities in the shire were affected, with whole families unable to access funds in their accounts

“It’s doing enormous harm to communities who don’t have access to basic services,” he says.
Read Next

televison Portrait of a painter Graeme Blundell

“You have to get your keycard activated via SMS security to a phone you may not have anymore.

“Replacing cards, activating them and dealing with SMS security in order to access money are all a problem.”

Mr McLean said comments by WA Aboriginal Affairs Minister Ben Wyatt in The Australian on Wednesday accurately reflected the huge problem for Aboriginal users of banking cards and cashless welfare cards.

In his opinion piece, Mr Wyatt said that during a recent visit to Warburton he saw the community’s office staff helping a single mother contact a distant call centre hoping to have her bank account reactivated after she keyed in the wrong pass code.

“Unable to produce the required evidence to identify herself, she was told to travel 1000km to Alice Springs to front in person. She was desperate and broken.”

Another mother sought emergency relief to feed her children after her income was suspended by Centrelink for breaching work-for-the-dole conditions.

Mr Wyatt also said Ngaanyatjarra people were being “ensnared” by the cashless welfare card when they visited Kalgoorlie and other Goldfields towns that are part of the card trial: “They are joining the increasing number of destitute people who rely on their impoverished families to survive.”

He said the Warburton community council had been forced to “establish its own quasi banking system” to assist people to “navigate a social security income and banking system that to anyone appears impossibly complex”.

Mr McLean said community office staff should not, in principle, have access to hundreds of bank accounts: “There is a privacy issue but people generally don’t have online access at home. If they make a mistake then their access is cancelled.”

He said Centrelink had stopped sending cheques four years ago “without any understanding of the impact online banking would have on remote communities”.

On top of problems with bank access, around 40 Warburton residents had been conscripted into using a cashless welfare card during periods when they had left the community temporarily.

“If people spend time somewhere else and go into a Centrelink office and make an inquiry, they quickly wind up on the cashless card and it’s impossible to get off,” Mr McLean said.

He said the card operating company, Indue, received $12,500 per head to sign up individuals to receive the cashless welfare card: “These are huge incentives to get people on to the card. Everything about the current welfare reform is like a train that stops 200m short of the station.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/hundreds-trapped-in-welfare-card-limbo/news-story/abe75e87575e7ac1325dfe3007aa90d8

It seems the Nasties are doing what they do best: being nasty.

sarahs mum said:

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/hundreds-trapped-in-welfare-card-limbo/news-story/abe75e87575e7ac1325dfe3007aa90d8

Wow, an article in The Australian that is saying the Indue Card is not a good thing? How did that happen?

“Progressive and collective social struggle is the path out of neoliberalism” by John Falzon.

Mon 18 Nov 2019.

The UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Prof Philip Alston, has criticised the Australian government’s robodebt fiasco in a paper examining the worrying global emergence of the digital welfare state.

This is characterised by increasing levels of surveillance, punishment and control over the lives of people who have been left out or pushed out, with the added feature of outsourcing and privatising these functions so that you get real neoliberal bang for the erstwhile public buck: punishment and profit!

In Alston’s words:

The world is stumbling zombie-like into a digital welfare dystopia, where the real motives are all too often to slash welfare spending, set up intrusive government surveillance systems and generate profits for private corporate interests.

The cashless welfare card, cheerfully championed by a mining magnate and rolled out by a private company with ties to the Liberal party, is another example of what Alston condemned as being “unduly punitive and unduly harsh”.

There is growing empathy for those on Newstart. The dynamics of welfare politics are changing.

Apart from being punitive, disempowering, profiteering and perplexing, policies including robodebt, cashless welfare cards and mandatory drug-testing all meet another really important neoliberal need. Instead of doing anything to address the grinding inequality experienced by the people they are imposed on, they exacerbate it.

Apparently, in these cases, it is more than OK to do unto others as you would never cop them doing unto you.

So how would we go about building a path out of the neoliberal way of doing policy? Here are a few suggested principles:

1. Begin with the bleeding obvious.

Be wary when you are told that a problem is too complex to fix. Or that by focusing on the bleeding obvious you won’t fix everything. This is usually accompanied by: “It’s not enough to just throw money at the problem. We have to think smarter.” (Code for: let’s cut spending on ordinary people so we can give tax cuts to wealthy people.)

The 2015 reform of the federation white paper consultation on housing began with the burning question of commonwealth/state relations rather than the obvious need for an urgent increase in the quantum of social housing. Similarly, the 2017 McClure review of welfare was keen on system simplification and income quarantining.

Astonishingly, we were told that an increase to Newstart was not within the review panel’s purview. It was as if every effort was being made to erase the bleeding obvious question of income adequacy.

It was a stunning exemplar of the old joke about the person asking directions and being told by their interlocutor, “Well, I wouldn’t start from here!”

The here is always the concrete situation people are in, not some secondary question or deliberate distraction.

Which leads to the second principle …

2. Lay bare the destination
Always question the stated purpose. It is sometimes a lie. Look for the context.

When a government says it wants to lift people out of poverty, alongside the assertion that “welfare dependence” is the primary cause of poverty, it isn’t hard to work out that, pious platitudes aside, the real aim is to reduce social expenditure.

When, in 2016, Christian Porter, announced an overhaul of the welfare system, he began with the cost of our social security system (instead of the human, social and economic cost of poverty and inequality).

3. Do not artificially sever the connections.

Everything is connected to everything else. There’s usually another destination that multiple connected policy roads lead to.

This does not mean that you have to address everything in one go but it does mean that if you look at a problem in isolation from the connected issues you are asking for trouble.

Trouble, that is, for the people impacted.

To analyse the social security system it helps to consider what is happening in the labour market and industrial relations. Stagnant wages, increased casualisation, the standardisation of precarity, wage theft and a systematic war on the legitimacy of the union movement should all be seen alongside the attacks on unemployed workers and other people who exercise their right to use the social security system, people who are made to live not only in poverty but in the misery of deliberate disempowerment and neopaternalistic control.

Forcing people to jump through hoops in the social security system is of a piece with the attempted de-collectivisation of people in paid work.

The fear of being unemployed is a constant disciplinary reminder to the low-paid, underpaid, precariously employed and casually contracted.

The nightmare of Australia’s welfare system: ‘At the push of a button, my working life was erased’.

What emerges are two policy roads, one neoliberal destination. As long as you do not artificially sever the connections. As the poet and theorist Audre Lorde reminds us:

There’s no such thing as a single-issue struggle for we do not lead single-issue lives.

4. The best policy comes from collective struggles by ordinary people.

I cannot think of a single instance in which a progressive social change did not originate collectively with the people on the ground, sometimes literally taking to the streets.

From women’s reproductive rights to First Nations people’s rights, from workers’ rights to tenants’ rights; from marriage equality to the climate emergency; from the struggle against patriarchy to the struggle against continuing colonisation; the policies that best address the problems are those that arise from the collective analysis and agitation of the people affected by them, in other words … the actual policy experts!

When policy, no matter how well-meaning, is developed apart from, instead of by, the people affected, it will not hit the mark. The presumption that people are incapable of analysing their own situation is inherently disrespectful and disempowering.

Progressive social change does not come from above. It is formed in the crucible of organised analysis and agitation, collectively, under the guiding stars of struggle and hope.

• Dr John Falzon is senior fellow in inequality and social justice at Per Capita. He is a sociologist, poet and social justice advocate and was national chief executive of the St Vincent de Paul Society in Australia from 2006 to 2018

sarahs mum said:

“Progressive and collective social struggle is the path out of neoliberalism” by John Falzon.

Mon 18 Nov 2019.

The UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Prof Philip Alston, has criticised the Australian government’s robodebt fiasco in a paper examining the worrying global emergence of the digital welfare state.

This is characterised by increasing levels of surveillance, punishment and control over the lives of people who have been left out or pushed out, with the added feature of outsourcing and privatising these functions so that you get real neoliberal bang for the erstwhile public buck: punishment and profit!

In Alston’s words:

The world is stumbling zombie-like into a digital welfare dystopia, where the real motives are all too often to slash welfare spending, set up intrusive government surveillance systems and generate profits for private corporate interests.

The cashless welfare card, cheerfully championed by a mining magnate and rolled out by a private company with ties to the Liberal party, is another example of what Alston condemned as being “unduly punitive and unduly harsh”.

There is growing empathy for those on Newstart. The dynamics of welfare politics are changing.

Apart from being punitive, disempowering, profiteering and perplexing, policies including robodebt, cashless welfare cards and mandatory drug-testing all meet another really important neoliberal need. Instead of doing anything to address the grinding inequality experienced by the people they are imposed on, they exacerbate it.

Apparently, in these cases, it is more than OK to do unto others as you would never cop them doing unto you.

So how would we go about building a path out of the neoliberal way of doing policy? Here are a few suggested principles:

1. Begin with the bleeding obvious.

Be wary when you are told that a problem is too complex to fix. Or that by focusing on the bleeding obvious you won’t fix everything. This is usually accompanied by: “It’s not enough to just throw money at the problem. We have to think smarter.” (Code for: let’s cut spending on ordinary people so we can give tax cuts to wealthy people.)

The 2015 reform of the federation white paper consultation on housing began with the burning question of commonwealth/state relations rather than the obvious need for an urgent increase in the quantum of social housing. Similarly, the 2017 McClure review of welfare was keen on system simplification and income quarantining.

Astonishingly, we were told that an increase to Newstart was not within the review panel’s purview. It was as if every effort was being made to erase the bleeding obvious question of income adequacy.

It was a stunning exemplar of the old joke about the person asking directions and being told by their interlocutor, “Well, I wouldn’t start from here!”

The here is always the concrete situation people are in, not some secondary question or deliberate distraction.

Which leads to the second principle …

2. Lay bare the destination
Always question the stated purpose. It is sometimes a lie. Look for the context.

When a government says it wants to lift people out of poverty, alongside the assertion that “welfare dependence” is the primary cause of poverty, it isn’t hard to work out that, pious platitudes aside, the real aim is to reduce social expenditure.

When, in 2016, Christian Porter, announced an overhaul of the welfare system, he began with the cost of our social security system (instead of the human, social and economic cost of poverty and inequality).

3. Do not artificially sever the connections.

Everything is connected to everything else. There’s usually another destination that multiple connected policy roads lead to.

This does not mean that you have to address everything in one go but it does mean that if you look at a problem in isolation from the connected issues you are asking for trouble.

Trouble, that is, for the people impacted.

To analyse the social security system it helps to consider what is happening in the labour market and industrial relations. Stagnant wages, increased casualisation, the standardisation of precarity, wage theft and a systematic war on the legitimacy of the union movement should all be seen alongside the attacks on unemployed workers and other people who exercise their right to use the social security system, people who are made to live not only in poverty but in the misery of deliberate disempowerment and neopaternalistic control.

Forcing people to jump through hoops in the social security system is of a piece with the attempted de-collectivisation of people in paid work.

The fear of being unemployed is a constant disciplinary reminder to the low-paid, underpaid, precariously employed and casually contracted.

The nightmare of Australia’s welfare system: ‘At the push of a button, my working life was erased’.

What emerges are two policy roads, one neoliberal destination. As long as you do not artificially sever the connections. As the poet and theorist Audre Lorde reminds us:

There’s no such thing as a single-issue struggle for we do not lead single-issue lives.

4. The best policy comes from collective struggles by ordinary people.

I cannot think of a single instance in which a progressive social change did not originate collectively with the people on the ground, sometimes literally taking to the streets.

From women’s reproductive rights to First Nations people’s rights, from workers’ rights to tenants’ rights; from marriage equality to the climate emergency; from the struggle against patriarchy to the struggle against continuing colonisation; the policies that best address the problems are those that arise from the collective analysis and agitation of the people affected by them, in other words … the actual policy experts!

When policy, no matter how well-meaning, is developed apart from, instead of by, the people affected, it will not hit the mark. The presumption that people are incapable of analysing their own situation is inherently disrespectful and disempowering.

Progressive social change does not come from above. It is formed in the crucible of organised analysis and agitation, collectively, under the guiding stars of struggle and hope.

• Dr John Falzon is senior fellow in inequality and social justice at Per Capita. He is a sociologist, poet and social justice advocate and was national chief executive of the St Vincent de Paul Society in Australia from 2006 to 2018

Funny the poor get watched yet here in WA some high up public servant rorted many millions for numerous years before getting caught.

Blackfulla Revolution
1 hr ·

For those of you withOUT an ‘Australian’ subscription:

“Arriving at Warburton, population about 500 people, I visited the community’s administration office and became instantly immersed in the madness people there were dealing with. A single mother was desperately contacting a distant call centre hoping to have her bank account reactivated after keying the wrong pass code given to her. Unable to produce the required evidence to identify herself she was told to travel a thousand kilometres to Alice Springs to front in person. She was desperate and broken.

Another woman with children to feed sought emergency relief after her income was suspended by Centrelink for breaching her work-for-the-dole conditions un­der the Community Development Program. At the counter a range of community people queued, demanding that overwhelmed staff help them navigate a social security ­income and banking system that to anyone appears impossibly complex.

This happens regularly, I was told repeatedly, where people have their income cancelled if they fail to report to Centrelink fortnightly on any changes to their living circumstances, miss a monthly report to Jobactive, which runs the CDP scheme, or do not comply with the requirement to work 20 hours a week for the dole all year round.

Given that English is generally not Ngaanyatjarra people’s first language, lack of phone access and the real­ity that people move between communities for all sorts of cultural and social reasons, the numbers of people denied social security payments is, of course, growing.

Other people complained they could not access funds from their bank because they had been conscripted on to the commonwealth’s income management debit card scheme — usually while spending time in Kalgoorlie — without fully understanding the consequences. The scheme, which quarantines 80 per cent of social security payments to a special bank card that can be used only at certain vendors and cannot be used to buy alcohol and gamble, is being rolled out in Kalgoorlie and the Goldfields as part of a national trial. The grog-free Ngaanyatjarra lands are not part of the trial and Ngaanyatjarra people who have been ensnared in the scheme through their visits to Kalgoorlie and other Goldfields towns are joining the increasing number of destitute people who rely on their already impoverished families to survive.

A line of these cards is kept behind the office reception in an attempt by the community’s administration to, somehow, turn these cards, inoperable in the lands, into cash. Clearly there has been significant problems in implementing the scheme, with its Canberra-based designers having no idea how the Goldfields and Ngaanyatjarra Lands operate as an integrated region.

Visiting these communities I was struck by an overwhelming sense that people are disempowered and punished by a digital world of faceless and distant ­bureaucratic controllers.

Centrelink no longer posts cheques, and financial transfers to personalised bank accounts assume people have access to computers and banks. There are no banks in ­remote communities.

This, combined with declining finances coming into the lands through increased payment cancellations as punishment and the increasing conscriptions on to the cashless card scheme has meant the Warburton community council has had to establish its own quasi banking system through recirculating money from the community store.

This situation is unsustainable. There is already a crisis of ­financial security in Warburton and other Ngaanyatjarra communities. I sense the next phase of this crisis is community implosion resulting in a major population relocation to towns such as Kalgoorlie and Laverton if policies aimed at supporting remote communities don’t change; a ­dynamic that would be replicated throughout remote Australia.

The commonwealth has shown it has no interest in sustaining remote communities in Western Australia. In recent years the commonwealth has transferred its long-held responsibilities for housing and essential and municipal services to the state. And its legal responsibility to administer social security payments for people living in remote communities is operated punitively through the CDP and cashless debit card scheme.

Promoters of this approach say it is the most effective way to address passive welfare and to protect children and women in communities — and, to a certain extent, I am attracted to this rationale. Removing the never-ending humbugging between generations is a worthy aim, but removing cash from a vast landmass with no supporting technology is not working.

It is time we have a genuine dialogue about securing the ­future of remote communities and work towards establishing a long-term partnership between Aboriginal communities and state and commonwealth governments. That partnership should incorporate strategies that break the institutionalised ghetto status of these communities and also understand how communities interact with each other. It should also involve best-practice governance models and vastly improved service delivery. To me Ngaanyatjarra would be an ideal trial site for such an approach.”

sarahs mum said:

Blackfulla Revolution
1 hr ·

For those of you withOUT an ‘Australian’ subscription:

“Arriving at Warburton, population about 500 people, I visited the community’s administration office and became instantly immersed in the madness people there were dealing with. A single mother was desperately contacting a distant call centre hoping to have her bank account reactivated after keying the wrong pass code given to her. Unable to produce the required evidence to identify herself she was told to travel a thousand kilometres to Alice Springs to front in person. She was desperate and broken.

Another woman with children to feed sought emergency relief after her income was suspended by Centrelink for breaching her work-for-the-dole conditions un­der the Community Development Program. At the counter a range of community people queued, demanding that overwhelmed staff help them navigate a social security ­income and banking system that to anyone appears impossibly complex.

This happens regularly, I was told repeatedly, where people have their income cancelled if they fail to report to Centrelink fortnightly on any changes to their living circumstances, miss a monthly report to Jobactive, which runs the CDP scheme, or do not comply with the requirement to work 20 hours a week for the dole all year round.

Given that English is generally not Ngaanyatjarra people’s first language, lack of phone access and the real­ity that people move between communities for all sorts of cultural and social reasons, the numbers of people denied social security payments is, of course, growing.

Other people complained they could not access funds from their bank because they had been conscripted on to the commonwealth’s income management debit card scheme — usually while spending time in Kalgoorlie — without fully understanding the consequences. The scheme, which quarantines 80 per cent of social security payments to a special bank card that can be used only at certain vendors and cannot be used to buy alcohol and gamble, is being rolled out in Kalgoorlie and the Goldfields as part of a national trial. The grog-free Ngaanyatjarra lands are not part of the trial and Ngaanyatjarra people who have been ensnared in the scheme through their visits to Kalgoorlie and other Goldfields towns are joining the increasing number of destitute people who rely on their already impoverished families to survive.

A line of these cards is kept behind the office reception in an attempt by the community’s administration to, somehow, turn these cards, inoperable in the lands, into cash. Clearly there has been significant problems in implementing the scheme, with its Canberra-based designers having no idea how the Goldfields and Ngaanyatjarra Lands operate as an integrated region.

Visiting these communities I was struck by an overwhelming sense that people are disempowered and punished by a digital world of faceless and distant ­bureaucratic controllers.

Centrelink no longer posts cheques, and financial transfers to personalised bank accounts assume people have access to computers and banks. There are no banks in ­remote communities.

This, combined with declining finances coming into the lands through increased payment cancellations as punishment and the increasing conscriptions on to the cashless card scheme has meant the Warburton community council has had to establish its own quasi banking system through recirculating money from the community store.

This situation is unsustainable. There is already a crisis of ­financial security in Warburton and other Ngaanyatjarra communities. I sense the next phase of this crisis is community implosion resulting in a major population relocation to towns such as Kalgoorlie and Laverton if policies aimed at supporting remote communities don’t change; a ­dynamic that would be replicated throughout remote Australia.

The commonwealth has shown it has no interest in sustaining remote communities in Western Australia. In recent years the commonwealth has transferred its long-held responsibilities for housing and essential and municipal services to the state. And its legal responsibility to administer social security payments for people living in remote communities is operated punitively through the CDP and cashless debit card scheme.

Promoters of this approach say it is the most effective way to address passive welfare and to protect children and women in communities — and, to a certain extent, I am attracted to this rationale. Removing the never-ending humbugging between generations is a worthy aim, but removing cash from a vast landmass with no supporting technology is not working.

It is time we have a genuine dialogue about securing the ­future of remote communities and work towards establishing a long-term partnership between Aboriginal communities and state and commonwealth governments. That partnership should incorporate strategies that break the institutionalised ghetto status of these communities and also understand how communities interact with each other. It should also involve best-practice governance models and vastly improved service delivery. To me Ngaanyatjarra would be an ideal trial site for such an approach.”

I don’t think this thing will play well for Scummo at the upcoming election.

Ian said:

sarahs mum said:

Blackfulla Revolution
1 hr ·

For those of you withOUT an ‘Australian’ subscription:

“Arriving at Warburton, population about 500 people, I visited the community’s administration office and became instantly immersed in the madness people there were dealing with. A single mother was desperately contacting a distant call centre hoping to have her bank account reactivated after keying the wrong pass code given to her. Unable to produce the required evidence to identify herself she was told to travel a thousand kilometres to Alice Springs to front in person. She was desperate and broken.

Another woman with children to feed sought emergency relief after her income was suspended by Centrelink for breaching her work-for-the-dole conditions un­der the Community Development Program. At the counter a range of community people queued, demanding that overwhelmed staff help them navigate a social security ­income and banking system that to anyone appears impossibly complex.

This happens regularly, I was told repeatedly, where people have their income cancelled if they fail to report to Centrelink fortnightly on any changes to their living circumstances, miss a monthly report to Jobactive, which runs the CDP scheme, or do not comply with the requirement to work 20 hours a week for the dole all year round.

Given that English is generally not Ngaanyatjarra people’s first language, lack of phone access and the real­ity that people move between communities for all sorts of cultural and social reasons, the numbers of people denied social security payments is, of course, growing.

Other people complained they could not access funds from their bank because they had been conscripted on to the commonwealth’s income management debit card scheme — usually while spending time in Kalgoorlie — without fully understanding the consequences. The scheme, which quarantines 80 per cent of social security payments to a special bank card that can be used only at certain vendors and cannot be used to buy alcohol and gamble, is being rolled out in Kalgoorlie and the Goldfields as part of a national trial. The grog-free Ngaanyatjarra lands are not part of the trial and Ngaanyatjarra people who have been ensnared in the scheme through their visits to Kalgoorlie and other Goldfields towns are joining the increasing number of destitute people who rely on their already impoverished families to survive.

A line of these cards is kept behind the office reception in an attempt by the community’s administration to, somehow, turn these cards, inoperable in the lands, into cash. Clearly there has been significant problems in implementing the scheme, with its Canberra-based designers having no idea how the Goldfields and Ngaanyatjarra Lands operate as an integrated region.

Visiting these communities I was struck by an overwhelming sense that people are disempowered and punished by a digital world of faceless and distant ­bureaucratic controllers.

Centrelink no longer posts cheques, and financial transfers to personalised bank accounts assume people have access to computers and banks. There are no banks in ­remote communities.

This, combined with declining finances coming into the lands through increased payment cancellations as punishment and the increasing conscriptions on to the cashless card scheme has meant the Warburton community council has had to establish its own quasi banking system through recirculating money from the community store.

This situation is unsustainable. There is already a crisis of ­financial security in Warburton and other Ngaanyatjarra communities. I sense the next phase of this crisis is community implosion resulting in a major population relocation to towns such as Kalgoorlie and Laverton if policies aimed at supporting remote communities don’t change; a ­dynamic that would be replicated throughout remote Australia.

The commonwealth has shown it has no interest in sustaining remote communities in Western Australia. In recent years the commonwealth has transferred its long-held responsibilities for housing and essential and municipal services to the state. And its legal responsibility to administer social security payments for people living in remote communities is operated punitively through the CDP and cashless debit card scheme.

Promoters of this approach say it is the most effective way to address passive welfare and to protect children and women in communities — and, to a certain extent, I am attracted to this rationale. Removing the never-ending humbugging between generations is a worthy aim, but removing cash from a vast landmass with no supporting technology is not working.

It is time we have a genuine dialogue about securing the ­future of remote communities and work towards establishing a long-term partnership between Aboriginal communities and state and commonwealth governments. That partnership should incorporate strategies that break the institutionalised ghetto status of these communities and also understand how communities interact with each other. It should also involve best-practice governance models and vastly improved service delivery. To me Ngaanyatjarra would be an ideal trial site for such an approach.”

I don’t think this thing will play well for Scummo at the upcoming election.

What upcoming election?

And do people care?

(I do think if white Australian old aged pensioners are put on the card they will begin to care.)

sarahs mum said:

Ian said:

sarahs mum said:

Blackfulla Revolution
1 hr ·

For those of you withOUT an ‘Australian’ subscription:

“Arriving at Warburton, population about 500 people, I visited the community’s administration office and became instantly immersed in the madness people there were dealing with. A single mother was desperately contacting a distant call centre hoping to have her bank account reactivated after keying the wrong pass code given to her. Unable to produce the required evidence to identify herself she was told to travel a thousand kilometres to Alice Springs to front in person. She was desperate and broken.

Another woman with children to feed sought emergency relief after her income was suspended by Centrelink for breaching her work-for-the-dole conditions un­der the Community Development Program. At the counter a range of community people queued, demanding that overwhelmed staff help them navigate a social security ­income and banking system that to anyone appears impossibly complex.

This happens regularly, I was told repeatedly, where people have their income cancelled if they fail to report to Centrelink fortnightly on any changes to their living circumstances, miss a monthly report to Jobactive, which runs the CDP scheme, or do not comply with the requirement to work 20 hours a week for the dole all year round.

Given that English is generally not Ngaanyatjarra people’s first language, lack of phone access and the real­ity that people move between communities for all sorts of cultural and social reasons, the numbers of people denied social security payments is, of course, growing.

Other people complained they could not access funds from their bank because they had been conscripted on to the commonwealth’s income management debit card scheme — usually while spending time in Kalgoorlie — without fully understanding the consequences. The scheme, which quarantines 80 per cent of social security payments to a special bank card that can be used only at certain vendors and cannot be used to buy alcohol and gamble, is being rolled out in Kalgoorlie and the Goldfields as part of a national trial. The grog-free Ngaanyatjarra lands are not part of the trial and Ngaanyatjarra people who have been ensnared in the scheme through their visits to Kalgoorlie and other Goldfields towns are joining the increasing number of destitute people who rely on their already impoverished families to survive.

A line of these cards is kept behind the office reception in an attempt by the community’s administration to, somehow, turn these cards, inoperable in the lands, into cash. Clearly there has been significant problems in implementing the scheme, with its Canberra-based designers having no idea how the Goldfields and Ngaanyatjarra Lands operate as an integrated region.

Visiting these communities I was struck by an overwhelming sense that people are disempowered and punished by a digital world of faceless and distant ­bureaucratic controllers.

Centrelink no longer posts cheques, and financial transfers to personalised bank accounts assume people have access to computers and banks. There are no banks in ­remote communities.

This, combined with declining finances coming into the lands through increased payment cancellations as punishment and the increasing conscriptions on to the cashless card scheme has meant the Warburton community council has had to establish its own quasi banking system through recirculating money from the community store.

This situation is unsustainable. There is already a crisis of ­financial security in Warburton and other Ngaanyatjarra communities. I sense the next phase of this crisis is community implosion resulting in a major population relocation to towns such as Kalgoorlie and Laverton if policies aimed at supporting remote communities don’t change; a ­dynamic that would be replicated throughout remote Australia.

The commonwealth has shown it has no interest in sustaining remote communities in Western Australia. In recent years the commonwealth has transferred its long-held responsibilities for housing and essential and municipal services to the state. And its legal responsibility to administer social security payments for people living in remote communities is operated punitively through the CDP and cashless debit card scheme.

Promoters of this approach say it is the most effective way to address passive welfare and to protect children and women in communities — and, to a certain extent, I am attracted to this rationale. Removing the never-ending humbugging between generations is a worthy aim, but removing cash from a vast landmass with no supporting technology is not working.

It is time we have a genuine dialogue about securing the ­future of remote communities and work towards establishing a long-term partnership between Aboriginal communities and state and commonwealth governments. That partnership should incorporate strategies that break the institutionalised ghetto status of these communities and also understand how communities interact with each other. It should also involve best-practice governance models and vastly improved service delivery. To me Ngaanyatjarra would be an ideal trial site for such an approach.”

I don’t think this thing will play well for Scummo at the upcoming election.

What upcoming election?

And do people care?

(I do think if white Australian old aged pensioners are put on the card they will begin to care.)

There’s always another one coming up.

In the event of a natural disaster, even your government emergency cash payment for vital life supplies and fuel will be put on the card too!

Personal insight from Jodie McNally Hinkler Indue card trial zone.

“ I have always had rather good coping mechanisms for dealing with times of acute stress and/or anxiety. It usually involves me going into a highly logical “planning” mode, where I put aside emotional thinking and reactions, and start making a plan on how to get out of the situation. There’s usually plenty of time to break down once it’s over.

However, when I was placed on the Indue card, and I started using my coping mechanisms – in the form of seeking a well-being exemption due to mental health – I didn’t realise that they were about to be stretched to the limit.

Week after week of agonising anxiety, waiting for a call, an email, a letter, anything asking for proof or information or something I could do to put forward my case. I finally received a letter in the mail over 2 months later rejecting my request, stating basically that all my concerns regarding the Indue card were “easily solved by simply changing how I do everything regarding my budget”. That I would have no problems with direct debits (false), that I would have no problems paying my rent (false), and that it worked “just like any other bank card” (also very false).

This is where my mental health really started to decline. It unfortunately coincided with my re-aggravating an injury to my back, which left me in constant excruciating pain.

I was trapped. My physical health was deteriorating due to several chronic and degenerative conditions. I was in constant, endless pain which was completely unaffected by pain medication due to being nerve pain.

My self autonomy and self-determination had been robbed from me. My right to presumption of innocence until proven guilty had been taken. I had been relegated to the status of someone with less rights than a criminal – despite never having committed a crime.

There was no way off the card that I could see. I was incapable of working full time, my exemption had been rejected, my application for the new opt-out legislation went ignored for weeks, months. (It has been over 4 months since I applied for the opt out, and still have yet to hear any kind of determination.)

Suffering from a further decline in my mental health, I was forced to resort to seeking further medication to deal with my now extremely severe depression, anxiety and stress. I have never required to be so heavily medicated before.

I realise now, it’s precisely because I was trapped that my until-now adequate coping mechanisms had failed. I had no way I could “plan” my way out of it. I was rendered powerless, and thus failed the systems that had worked my whole life. With no escape, I was trapped in the emotionless logical thinking part, with no release after the situation had passed, since I was trapped for so long.

This forced income management “trial” has directly and severely had a devastating affect on my mental, emotional and physical health. I have been forced to seek out medication I have never before required. I have been driven to the absolute limits of my mental endurance. All for the ridiculous ideological beliefs that just because I am poor, means I am incapable of managing my own finances. Just because I am disabled, I am undeserving of being treated like an equal member of society. Just because of bad luck and an accident, I am granted fewer rights than a criminal.

I still fail to see any benefit I have gained from being a forced participant in this trial, other than one – I have met so many amazing people in the fight against this injustice, many who are suffering terribly under the weight of this burden just like I am. I have been moved to fight against this extreme injustice and speak out for those who are too afraid to speak for themselves.

I will not stop fighting until this despicable farce of a “trial” is destroyed, and I will not be a “quiet Australian”, no matter the lashback I get from those who refuse to see the truth that is so obviously blatant to me.

The Say NO Seven
53 mins ·

🌿#HEADS_UP_EVERYONE We have first person testimony from a resident elder from the Western Desert region that up to 150 people not 70 as reported by the ABC, have been placed on Indue Cards by the DSS in their region, after VISITING Kalgoorlie.

This is occurring in full breach of the Social Security Act and CDCT legislation therein. People are returning home from Kalgoorlie and finding the card in their letterboxes, some with some without DSS letters. This is a SERIOUS breach of the law.

This is occurring at the same time as Kalgoorlie CEO’s bring shepherd attack dogs ( drug dogs are normally beagles and spaniels etc) into the community and have added over one million dollars to ramp up policing hours and numbers there.

Wilson can find no money for reliable bus services, no money for water, housing, legal aid or shelters, yet he can fund tools of terror.

First Nations people from Alice Springs – now flooded with armed tactical squads – to Kalgoorlie, are expressing desperate fears for their future.

This comes after elders in both regions have asked that weapons be removed from police officers on country, so it is a blatant disrespect and slap in the face to the Aboriginal communities by the Morrison government.

Combined with recent closures of several Aboriginal health and key DV, legal and other services over the last two months, Something very shifty is going on. We feel these increases in policing activity are not just tied to recent events on country, they may in fact be preparatory events for an expected backlash in the event of forced Indue Card roll outs if the current bill passes Senate.

Please stay awake and alert. You wont hear this on Murdoch press.

SNS stands with ALL First Nations communities.

The Say NO Seven
5 hrs ·

✊💜🔥 #THIS_WEEK and beyond.

Good evening folks.

The ‘bill that must not pass’ – Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Income Management to Cashless Debit Card Transition) Bill 2019 – is #5 on the House Of Representatives business sheet for tomorrow.

The Say NO Seven
1 hr ·

#update – CDC did not get a mention today guys. Today was the 70th anniversary of the Geneva conventions and the begining of a week of exposing violence against women. Much fuss and many fairy words were
spoken today about illuminating the housing and homeless crisis..so it was unlikely we were to get a look in given the Indue card is an abuse of human rights laws, has made so many homeless and has impacted women fleeing DV and sole parents and children more than any other group of people. The bill is still listed, so we will be keeping tabs tomorrow during the conference. It will be a sad irony to hear the same speakers who spoke so eloquently about humanity and rights today, attempt to justify removing rights and humanity from forced card holders tomorrow.

- SNS

https://www.facebook.com/kerryn.a.griffis/videos/10217669875997722/

sarahs mum said:

https://www.facebook.com/kerryn.a.griffis/videos/10217669875997722/

Those Facebook warriors that were denigrated in Parliament today are so bad that they are organising Christmas parties for those on Indue cards so their kids can have a Christmas.

7NEWS can confirm Jacqui Lambie will not be supporting the government’s planned extension of the cashless debit card scheme this year.

The Federal Government wants to expand the program across the entire Northern Territory.

It’s currently operational in a handful of locations across the country.

It quarantines welfare payments, so cash cannot be used to purchase alcohol or drugs.

But the proposed roll-out of the initiative has drawn criticism from community members who fear thousands of Aboriginal people will be disproportionately affected.

With Centre Alliance likely not to support the legislation, and One Nation in favour of it, the deciding vote falls on Lambie.

7NEWS understands Lambie spoke with the Social Services Minister Anne Ruston in Parliament on Tuesday night, and told her she will not support the expansion this fortnight, effectively killing off the legislation.

The Government are pushing to persuade Senator Jacqui Lambie to back welfare tests.

She’ll travel to the Northern Territory with Centre Alliance MP Rebekha Sharkie in January to speak with community members and get a better understanding of what is needed.

But it’s understood she wants more mental health services for indigenous Australians before even considering voting for the bill.

In a slight win for the government in the Senate this week, Jacqui Lambie has confirmed she will vote in favour of the ensuring integrity bill, securing the numbers for the Coalition, unless controversial union boss John Setka resigns.

The bill will effectively see unions which incur a large amount of demerit points for breaking the law, deregistered.

https://7news.com.au/politics/governments-extension-for-cashless-debit-card-dead-as-lambie-also-stands-firm-of-union-bill-c-576070

——-

She is good at missing the point. Actually they are all good at missing the point. They are happy to punish the innocent.

I would be so much happier if she was saying that she couldn’t even think about voting yes until the reporting comes in. Until the Uni of SA reports happen. Actually I would happier if only the people found to have a problem were punished and they had rehab options.

Andrew Wilkie MP – Independent Member for Clark
1 hr

The cashless welfare card is unnecessary. Here’s a link to my speech slamming the Government’s roll out of this card.

https://www.facebook.com/andrewwilkiemp/videos/424176338468405/

——-

So good.

sarahs mum said:

Andrew Wilkie MP – Independent Member for Clark
1 hr

The cashless welfare card is unnecessary. Here’s a link to my speech slamming the Government’s roll out of this card.

https://www.facebook.com/andrewwilkiemp/videos/424176338468405/

——-

So good.

We need more Andrew Wilkies.
It would be a very worthwhile exercise to contact Jacquie Lambie to say that it would be a waste of taxpayer dollars to further roll out the cashless welfare card, when the hard working taxpayer has to fork out an extra $10,000 plus to administer it. And surely the LNP want to lessen red tape and bureaucracy, not add more? She needs to help them.

ruby said:

sarahs mum said:

Andrew Wilkie MP – Independent Member for Clark
1 hr

The cashless welfare card is unnecessary. Here’s a link to my speech slamming the Government’s roll out of this card.

https://www.facebook.com/andrewwilkiemp/videos/424176338468405/

——-

So good.

We need more Andrew Wilkies.
It would be a very worthwhile exercise to contact Jacquie Lambie to say that it would be a waste of taxpayer dollars to further roll out the cashless welfare card, when the hard working taxpayer has to fork out an extra $10,000 plus to administer it. And surely the LNP want to lessen red tape and bureaucracy, not add more? She needs to help them.

I did email Jacqui. I begged.

Jacqui said yesterday she is voting no. Not for any good reasons tho. I do think she fails to wee the extent of the evil.

ruby said:

sarahs mum said:

Andrew Wilkie MP – Independent Member for Clark
1 hr

The cashless welfare card is unnecessary. Here’s a link to my speech slamming the Government’s roll out of this card.

https://www.facebook.com/andrewwilkiemp/videos/424176338468405/

——-

So good.

We need more Andrew Wilkies.

It would be a very worthwhile exercise to contact Jacquie Lambie to say that it would be a waste of taxpayer dollars to further roll out the cashless welfare card, when the hard working taxpayer has to fork out an extra $10,000 plus to administer it. And surely the LNP want to lessen red tape and bureaucracy, not add more? She needs to help them.

Yes. However the species is critically endangered : /

Robodebt ruled unlawful in federal court.

https://www.araratadvertiser.com.au/story/6515311/robo-debt-ruled-unlawful-in-federal-court/?cs=9397

The Morrison government is close to securing support from Senate crossbencher Jacqui Lambie to repeal the so-called medevac laws.

Senator Lambie said on Wednesday afternoon she recognised the government’s concerns about the laws which give doctors a much greater say in bringing refugees in from offshore detention to Australia for medical treatment.

She has proposed a single condition in exchange for her support but has not revealed publicly what that is.

“If that condition is met, I will vote in favour of the repeal of medevac,” Senator Lambie said in a statement.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/jacqui-lambie-will-vote-to-scrap-medevac-laws-on-one-condition
—-

And this is why I don’t really trust Lambie.

I did take the Human’s Rights tack in my email. But I don’t think she cares about them.

The Say NO Seven
50 mins ·

🌿👉#HEADS_UP_KUNUNURRA

Context and Clarification to an earlier spotlight post: ABC and Wunan Foundation are heading up pro card propaganda in East Kimberly.

Hi folks, as I was driving back this morning I was listening to Radio National ABC, and Ian Trust (Wunan Foundation) was being quoted by the station spewing all the Government propaganda and soundbites on the cashless card.

Given every other elder in Kununurra has now WITHDRAWN their support PUBLICLY for the roll out I am seriously concerned about the impact of such statements by this government allied spokesperson on the community itself and knock on impacts for cardholders in the region. There has been enough harm caused and there is too much tinder for this kind of flint striking.

It makes absolutely no sense to us, for any Aboriginal representative of any kind anywhere to be actively promoting the removal of Aboriginal Rights and Human Rights in the community for ANY reason – let alone to be going so far off page and attempting to ‘speak for all Aboriginal people” in the region – which Ian does not. It also makes no sense to us for Ian to be actively diverting people and press away from the growing unity of voices from national Aboriginal groups and communities who are calling for VOLUNTARY CDC roll out only – if a roll out must occur at all.

I have rung Radio National and confirmed that the person quoted was Ian Trust, who most people would know since the early Tudge days has been a regular token pro LNP card spruiker. As most people also know by now, there is a significant backlash to the card in Kununurra and anyone needing verification of that #FACT need only revisit the public hearings of last month to hear their voices first hand. 👉 See: : https://www.aph.gov.au/…/CashlessCardTransi…/Public_Hearings

All Kununurra elders who were actually authorised by members of the community to speak on their behalf on card matters, have now withdrawn support for the CDC in the East Kimberly region. Mr Trust does not appear to be speaking for cardholders of Kununurra and appears to be being used as a replacement hawker by the LNP for Mr Lawford Benning who, being the last local elder in support of the card who was authorized to speak on behalf of others, also withdrew his consent for CDC continuation in 2017 👉 See: https://www.theguardian.com/…/aboriginal-leader-withdraws-s…

Mr Benning reaffirmed his regret for supporting the roll outs of CDC and confirmed his withdrawal of consent publicly, only months ago. 👉 See: https://www.sbs.com.au/…/leader-who-helped-introduce-cashle…

As the ABC veers more and more to the right, we must remind them that they are and will be held accountable for any harm that comes from active bias. We will be closely monitoring ALL their cashless card news items and feel today’s limited, and partisan reporting was obvious and beneath them.

🌿 The ABC news item in question :

“Push to expand cashless debit to NT, Cape York faces Senate hurdles” – By Gavin Coote

LINK: https://www.abc.net.au/…/push-to-expand-cashless-d…/11744438

Please note the fact that there was NO need at all to even include any comment from Ian Trust in this piece that was about the SENATE roadblock, as that issue has nothing to do with Ian Trusts’ PERSONAL OPINION on the CDC.

To include Ian without including Lawford Benning or any other non partisan contrary viewpoint is contemptible and an act of bias. Ian Trust does not speak for the people of Kununurra or all aboriginal people yet this brief piece sans any context of is role gives that very impression.

That lack of inclusion and needless card promotion, is what turned this piece from a simple news/info report into active CDC propaganda.

Not ‘ok’ and certainly, not good enough from OUR ABC.

- SNS2

Researchers say people living in cashless debit card trial sites in WA and SA have been leaving town faster than those in similar towns across the outback.

Researchers believe there’s a link between the cashless welfare card and population drops in the West and South Australian towns involved in the scheme’s trial.

A joint paper from Macquarie University, the University of Melbourne and the Australian National University released on Thursday said one trial area in WA lost 5.2 per cent of its population.

Towns in South Australia lost up to 2.2 per cent of their populations.

Using census data, the researchers compared towns in the trial sites to nearby areas based on factors like remoteness, population, Aboriginal population and employment rates.

READ MORE
Labor fears cashless welfare cards will just make life tougher for those already struggling.
National rollout of cashless welfare card will make life harder: Labor

They have called on policymakers to pay attention to the effect the cards have on regional populations, especially on Aboriginal people.

The report says the trial sites targeted Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders disproportionately, making up at least two-thirds of the population in both sites.

“The implementation of the card trial in the East Kimberley was swift and disorderly, taking many of the people who would be put on the card by surprise,” the report says.

Researchers spoke to locals who reported people leaving town – some by the busload – after the announcement of the trials.

“These stories came from not only people who were put on the card, but also various service providers who noticed people missing,” the report says.

Researchers also said the population drops may be attributed to the trial areas being stigmatised.

The report comes as crossbench senators plan to travel to the remote communities in the Northern Territory to see how people feel about the government wanting to force them on the cards.

The underpinning legislation passed the lower house on Wednesday and is now ready for the Senate, but Centre Alliance MP Rebekha Sharkie wants the government to hold off on the upper house debate.

“I’m intending to travel to the Northern Territory to undertake consultations directly so that I can hear on-the-ground concerns with members,” she told the lower house before voting against the bill.

“We want to ensure that there’s consultation in the Northern Territory before this bill becomes law and before the card is rolled out further.”

Ms Sharkie’s colleagues hold two crucial Senate votes.

Their fellow crossbench senator Jacqui Lambie also plans to tour trial sites for the cashless welfare card before deciding if she will support the government’s plan to extend it to other areas.

Labor will attempt to change the bill in the Senate so the scheme is voluntary in the Top End.

Some people in the NT are currently on another income management tool which quarantines 50 per cent of welfare payments so it can’t be spent on alcohol or drugs.

The cashless welfare card quarantines 80 per cent of payments.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/researchers-believe-the-cashless-welfare-card-is-leading-to-a-population-exodus

https://www.facebook.com/MalarndirriMcCarthySenate/videos/793764017711701/

“ Linda Burney addressed the House of Representatives on the Government’s amendments to the cashless debit card transition bill – Wednesday, 27 November 2019

The Morrison Government yesterday revealed their real plan to quarantine more of people’s social security payments in the Northern Territory.

Earlier this year, the Liberals promised they would not increase how much of a person’s payment would be quarantined:

“For existing participants on the Income Management and BasicsCard program, there will be no change to the operating principles, including the percentage to be quarantined, which will remain at 50 per cent.”

But yesterday in the Parliament, the Government moved amendments that will allow the Minister to increase the amount of money restricted on the proposed Cashless Debit Card in the Northern Territory to 80 per cent.

This has been the Liberals’ plan all along.

It’s only a matter of time before the Liberals ramp-up their unfair and discriminatory social security quarantining on Territorians.

It’s exactly what they have done in other parts of the country – like Ceduna, Bundaberg, the East Kimberley and the Goldfields.

12 years after the Intervention – it is absolutely clear that compulsory broad-based income management in the Territory has not worked.

It has not improved the lives and circumstances of First Nations people.

In fact, it’s marginalised, stigmatised and made everyday life much, much harder for Territorians.

The Government’s proposed Cashless Debit Card has been plagued with technical problems that have left people unable to buy the basics, and it is pointlessly easy to circumvent.

The Liberals’ plan is discriminatory and will hurt First Nations people the most.

Labor opposes the rollout of the Cashless Debit Card across the Territory and we oppose broad-based compulsory income management.

Labor voted against the Bill in the House of Representatives and against the Liberals’ cynical amendments.

Territorians haven’t asked for this card. They haven’t asked for more failed income management. And they haven’t been consulted.

This is top-down bureaucracy imposed by people who really don’t understand what life is like in the Top End or Central Australia.

What the Government should be doing is investing in jobs and economic development, access to clean water and secure food supplies, and better health and education services. “

sarahs mum said:

“ Linda Burney addressed the House of Representatives on the Government’s amendments to the cashless debit card transition bill – Wednesday, 27 November 2019

The Morrison Government yesterday revealed their real plan to quarantine more of people’s social security payments in the Northern Territory.

Earlier this year, the Liberals promised they would not increase how much of a person’s payment would be quarantined:

“For existing participants on the Income Management and BasicsCard program, there will be no change to the operating principles, including the percentage to be quarantined, which will remain at 50 per cent.”

But yesterday in the Parliament, the Government moved amendments that will allow the Minister to increase the amount of money restricted on the proposed Cashless Debit Card in the Northern Territory to 80 per cent.

This has been the Liberals’ plan all along.

It’s only a matter of time before the Liberals ramp-up their unfair and discriminatory social security quarantining on Territorians.

It’s exactly what they have done in other parts of the country – like Ceduna, Bundaberg, the East Kimberley and the Goldfields.

12 years after the Intervention – it is absolutely clear that compulsory broad-based income management in the Territory has not worked.

It has not improved the lives and circumstances of First Nations people.

In fact, it’s marginalised, stigmatised and made everyday life much, much harder for Territorians.

The Government’s proposed Cashless Debit Card has been plagued with technical problems that have left people unable to buy the basics, and it is pointlessly easy to circumvent.

The Liberals’ plan is discriminatory and will hurt First Nations people the most.

Labor opposes the rollout of the Cashless Debit Card across the Territory and we oppose broad-based compulsory income management.

Labor voted against the Bill in the House of Representatives and against the Liberals’ cynical amendments.

Territorians haven’t asked for this card. They haven’t asked for more failed income management. And they haven’t been consulted.

This is top-down bureaucracy imposed by people who really don’t understand what life is like in the Top End or Central Australia.

What the Government should be doing is investing in jobs and economic development, access to clean water and secure food supplies, and better health and education services. “

Nods.

>Researchers say people living in cashless debit card trial sites in WA and SA have been leaving town faster than those in similar towns across the outback.

probably fits well with the sort of effects that were intended

transition said:

>Researchers say people living in cashless debit card trial sites in WA and SA have been leaving town faster than those in similar towns across the outback.

probably fits well with the sort of effects that were intended

try telling that to the locals at Broome or Derby.

Opposition to the Cashless Debit Card Trial in Hinkler has increased

A QCOSS survey on the Cashless Debit Card Trial (CDCT) in Hinkler has found that even more people are opposed to the card now that the trial has been running in the region for several months.

Eighty one per cent of respondents opposed the CDCT outright, compared to 65 per cent before the card was introduced.

The federal government introduced compulsory income management through the Cashless Debit Card Trial (CDCT) to the Hinkler electorate, including Hervey Bay and Bundaberg, in January 2019. The trial is intended to target youth unemployment, and the reduction of consumption of alcohol, drugs and gambling, by quarantining 80 per cent of people’s income support onto a restricted debit card. The government has claimed strong community support for the introduction of CDCT in the region.

QCOSS ran two Cashless Debit Card Trial (CDCT) surveys in Hinkler. The first in December 2018 to January 2019 and a follow-up survey ran from September to October 2019.

The follow-up survey had strong engagement from the community with 182 responses, (up 42 per cent on the 128 responses to our first survey). These responses were primarily from individuals (92 per cent). More than half of respondents are either on the CDCT themselves or have family on the CDCT. Of the respondents from organisations, 36 per cent have clients in scope for the cashless debit card.

People with experience of being on the card reported problems with health or mental health issues, rent problems, stigma and discrimination, cards being declined and cash-only opportunities missed.

“My card’s declined at supermarkets and petrol stations, I’ve been publicly shamed when using my card, rents declined, missed out on second-hand goods, can’t shop at roadside stalls or markets, my kids have missed out on tuck shop and fundraiser school events” “I feel embarrassed to pull my card out and pay at places so I will often avoid shopping on busy days as the added stress makes my anxiety unmanageable” “I personally have been called a junkie and a dole bludger at the supermarket”

The results of these two surveys make it clear that contrary to claims made by the federal government, there is strong community opposition to the CDCT in Hinkler. This opposition has grown since the card was introduced in the region in January 2019. People with lived experience of being on the CDCT, are even more strongly opposed to it.

QCOSS remains opposed to the implementation of the CDCT. We believe addressing complex health and social issues, such as alcohol, drug and gambling problems, through the welfare system is fundamentally flawed. Evidence indicates that the CDCT is ineffective, expensive, harmful, unsupported, discriminatory and paternalistic.

https://www.qcoss.org.au/cashless-debit-card-trial-hinkler-follow-up-survey-results/

No Cashless Welfare Debit Card Australia
11 hrs ·

🌿 #HOUSE_KEEPING THE BILL

Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Income Management to Cashless Debit Card Transition) Bill 2019

Where things stand.

1. Please be aware that the Bill will proceed to the senate this week.

As you know by now, last Tuesday, 26 November 2019, despite NO evaluation or evidence of policy efficacy and significant evidence against the extension and expansion of the CDC, the House of Representatives voted 72/63 against ALP amendments to drop the bill and voted to send the bill to Senate.

That night, Senator Jacqui Lambie made a public announcement that she will ‘withhold’ any vote in the Senate until after she had visited NT regions to be impacted by the card.

It was held that this decision effectively shut down the likelihood of a senate vote until return of parliament next year as Jacqui’s is considered the deciding/swing vote.

Rebekah Sharkie of Center Alliance, voted NO to the bills passage in the HoR and also confirmed publicly she will visit the NT prior to making a voting decision for CA, meaning Senators Sterling Griff and Rex Patrick would also be withholding their votes until the new year and results of the ‘tour’ of outback regions.

Combined, this would deny the gov three critical senate votes it needs to pass the bill.

🛑However, we have since been informed the bill will head to Senate THIS WEDNESDAY for a ‘second reading’.

FYI: Votes are taking on the THIRD reading.

The bill will be read in Senate this coming week. Whether there is a vote or not is anyone’s guess, though we can say that as late as Friday evening Jacqui Lambie was sticking with her commitment to visit the NT before voting.

So it is ‘likely’ the bill will be pulled after the second reading and before the voting / third reading. We cannot guarantee that this will be the case.

If the bill proceeds to the vote this week, then at this stage given Jacqui’s postion, it will mean that one of the Center Alliance senators has made a private deal with LNP.

We do NOT KNOW if they have made any deals, we are not saying they have made any. It is more likely Gov is simply trying to get the ‘procedure’ and process out of the way prior to third reading when parliament resumes, hoping for a quick passage after horsetrading.

So we are left to observe what happens and wanted to give you all fair warning what was coming up.

For your information:

👉These are the members of the House of Representatives who voted YES to passing the bill:

https://www.aph.gov.au/…/Chamber_doc…/HoR/Divisions/details…

—

👉These are the members of the House of Representatives who voted NO to passing the bill:

https://www.aph.gov.au/…/Chamber_doc…/HoR/Divisions/details…

🌿 Please note that Ms Zali Steggall OAM, MP member for Warringah, New South Wales chose to vote with the LNP to pass the bill through HoR, despite the positions opposing the CDC of the Australian Law Society, RANZP and the Australian Human Rights Commissioners.

We find Zali Steggall’s position on the CDC to be contrary to sense and reason, and to her claims to have run for office on the basis of mental health and honest government. We feel incredibly let down by her vote given the impact of the CDC on peoples mental health, how many have ended their lives, and how many are suffering serious mental health declines since being placed on the card – much less the issue of NO EVIDENCE and the systemic political corruption inherent to this policy. Another freshman senator voting without knowledge. It is so frustrating.

Members in Warringah we hope you take these issues to Ms Steggall either at her office, or at the ballot box. This hypocrisy is indicative of a lack of policy education or potentially, a partisan shift to wards the LNP and both must be addressed and clarified/countered.

So we sit tight and keep track of the last week of the sitting year. It’s going to be a doozy.

- SNS2

https://www.facebook.com/SAYNOSEVEN/videos/514602499330579/

Can’t pay rent. Her mother in Tasmania is paying it from a victims of crime payment.
On tankwater. Only one water carrier takes the Indue card. It is the most expensive quote.
Tuckshop at school does not take cards only cash.
45 minutes drive to nearest Indue shopfront.

https://www.facebook.com/notowelfarecard/videos/476860956281480/

“I’m in Ceduna SA all single mums here have been put on this indue card…I’m not sure what to do for Christmas for my 3 under 4 years.. the toy shop hear is also the newsagent my card is not excepted because they also sell lotto…so no toys for Christmas…but they have taken it a step further by putting a sign up at my front door…I live in a government housing house due to DV..I am not aloud to remove…my Nana and Papa and nephews see this” .

This housing is for victims of Domestic Violence and completely shreds peoples privacy in the community, undermines their security IN the community as well as degrading manipulating and humiliating people who have done no wrong, may not even use drugs or drink and have nowhere else to go.

How dare they do this! Have they NO common sense as to the RISK this poses to single women with kids running from violence? All a perpetrator has to do is look for these signs to re-abuse their victims! This is a SERIOUS mistake!

This poverty shaming exercise that will no doubt negatively impact the decision of women to LEAVE violent situations is NOT ACCEPTABLE in the slightest!

This ABUSE HAS to stop!

Is Center Care planning to roll this out across the country or are the limiting it to DV victims in cashless card zones?

We also know that the newsagent CAN take the Indue card in Ceduna, so why is the card STILL defaulting and declining? The roll out there is in its FOURTH YEAR! Too long for ‘teething troubles’ Senator Anne Ruston! How can you do this to parents at Christmas time. Absolutely DEPLORABLE!
https://www.facebook.com/SAYNOSEVEN/photos/a.275354549526033/888542241540591/?type=3&theater

sarahs mum said:

“I’m in Ceduna SA all single mums here have been put on this indue card…I’m not sure what to do for Christmas for my 3 under 4 years.. the toy shop hear is also the newsagent my card is not excepted because they also sell lotto…so no toys for Christmas…but they have taken it a step further by putting a sign up at my front door…I live in a government housing house due to DV..I am not aloud to remove…my Nana and Papa and nephews see this” .

This housing is for victims of Domestic Violence and completely shreds peoples privacy in the community, undermines their security IN the community as well as degrading manipulating and humiliating people who have done no wrong, may not even use drugs or drink and have nowhere else to go.

How dare they do this! Have they NO common sense as to the RISK this poses to single women with kids running from violence? All a perpetrator has to do is look for these signs to re-abuse their victims! This is a SERIOUS mistake!

This poverty shaming exercise that will no doubt negatively impact the decision of women to LEAVE violent situations is NOT ACCEPTABLE in the slightest!

This ABUSE HAS to stop!

Is Center Care planning to roll this out across the country or are the limiting it to DV victims in cashless card zones?

We also know that the newsagent CAN take the Indue card in Ceduna, so why is the card STILL defaulting and declining? The roll out there is in its FOURTH YEAR! Too long for ‘teething troubles’ Senator Anne Ruston! How can you do this to parents at Christmas time. Absolutely DEPLORABLE!
https://www.facebook.com/SAYNOSEVEN/photos/a.275354549526033/888542241540591/?type=3&theater

“Centre Care” catholic charity group putting signs on people’s doors in housing trust homes in Ceduna!

The Say NO Seven
1 hr ·

⚠💜🐦 A post to the wider community.

Problems with Indue and the CDCT – cashless debit card trials.

We call the wider Community’s attention to our following concerns:

Aside from the larger issue of the privatisation of the National Social Security payment systems * via the outsourcing of these systems to the Indue Ltd corporation ( CDCT) and Serco corporation ( Telephone call centers) we draw the communities attention to the issue of the privatisation of Social Security *payments themselves and the loss of legal authority over these payments that occurs when a person is placed onto the “Indue card trial”.

We inform you, that by placing funds ordinarily earmarked for the private bank accounts of Social Security recipients into Indue Ltds private accounts, the Department is circumventing Social Security Laws intended to protect recipients from predatory trade practices. They have done this by making amendment changes to the Social Security (Admin) Act 1999, and have done this without adding any protections for forced trial participants from such practices.

These fundamental changes, ones that alter the very nature of ‘ who owns what’ have not been debated in parliament or exposed in media nor has any effort to inform the public at large been made. This awareness is not yet ‘common knowledge’. Yet these changes have already been made and exist within the current legislative framework. They are in place right now.

Peoples incomes are not simply being held outside of ability their control or access, legal ownership of the income itself is being transferred into the hands of a private corporate entity.

This is a ‘ big deal’.

We refer you to the Guide to Social Security Law Version 1.241, released 5th February 2018, and to Article 8.4.3 “Protection of Payment” therein which states:

“Once a social security payment has been paid into a recipient’s bank account it is no longer a social security payment under the Act. It becomes part of the recipient’s funds”.

However, despite the existence of this law, the redirection of payments to Indue Ltd itself for third party ‘management’ means that these lawful entitlements no longer legally become the property of Social Security recipients at all under the CDC/CDCT legislation.

Instead, these funds are transferred to Indue Ltd accounts, therefore belong solely to Indue Ltd and thus the entire system of Social Security payments is effectively transformed into a system of Credit.

This issue has never been addressed by this Senate and we are compelled to ask, why?

We assert that transferring individual Social Security payments to this corporation is a breach of Article 8.4.3 “Protection of payment” and that the Department, are literally handing hundreds of millions and potentially multiple billions of dollars in what they are calling “free money” to a politically friendly, unsecured corporate entity, that remains unaccountable to almost all industry codes and remains unaccountable to this Senate itself.

We find this usurping of the Social Security Laws that are specifically intended to protect recipients from just this form of predatory trade practice, and this action as a whole that completely strips legal ownership of Social Security payments from the hands of forced trial participants, is simply unconscionable.

We have sought an explanation and legal justification for this action from the Department. None has been forthcoming.

●●●

• We contend that the latest amendments made to the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999, will tacitly authorise an incremental nation wide roll-out of the Cashless Debit Card as a program deployment, before all pertinent data has been accumulated and assessed, and that this presents unacceptable social, financial and physical risks to people within target cohort.

• It is an uncontested fact that the CDCT regime engages and limits a range of human rights. We refer people to the following statement by the Parliamentary Joint Committee that the CDCT legislation must provide:

‘… existence of a legitimate objective must be identified clearly with supporting reasons and, generally, empirical data to demonstrate that important.’

And that:

‘To be capable of justifying a proposed limitation of human rights, a legitimate objective must address a pressing or substantial concern and not simply seek an outcome regarded as desirable or convenient. Additionally, a limitation must be rationally connected to, and a proportionate way to achieve, its legitimate objective in order to be justifiable in international human rights law.‘

We hold that the Cashless Debit Card legislation meets neither obligation.

We share our deep concern with many, that when combined with recent classification changes, the removal of existing stipulated trial end dates and midstream expansion efforts do and will undermine trial legitimacy, and will mean that any pretense of the CDCT being a dedicated investigative “trial” is being abandoned.

We uphold and support the Human Rights Commission submission to this Senate in November 2017 18 and 19, that states the current legislation fails to justify the infringements upon Human Rights, and so, it fails to meet provisions under the Act for any continuance much less any expansion.

●●●

• We reject unsupported media claims that the CDCT has been a “success” when abundant evidence exists including multiple submissions of the lived experiences of forced trial participants made to this Senate in 2017, that demonstrate unchecked and largely unacknowledged breaches of privacy, human and civil rights and consumer rights.

We hold that the Orima Research Evaluation results are in fact contrary to the reports own conclusions and to remarks contained within the Executive Summary.

• We assert that the Orima Wave 2 reports findings themselves demonstrate clearly that the return of essential funding to local services and more effective coordination of resources by these services, rather than the efficacy of imposed forced income management itself, has been the key factor in the few observable productive results reported within Orima Wave 2.

• We hold that the CDC is at root, a structure of socio-economic apartheid, that intentionally segregates in the majority, people who are not considered “at risk” within the “welfare class” from equality of access to the rights, privileges, protections and freedoms enjoyed under law by general society, without just cause.

We hold that this is in itself an act of collective punishment, and that any institutional or structural apartheid structure, intentionally created or not, is wholly wrong and immoral and works actively against the principles and values of the Australian way of life.

• We, along with the nations leading Drug and Alcohol advisors as spelled out in the 2015 Drug and Alcohol report, hold that issues of addiction and social violence are health and policing issues and are not a direct product of, or exclusive to, the receipt of centrelink payments.

We find that the presumption of causation being presented to the community by pro-card politically invested groups is born of social and media generated stereotypes and is not represented in related data. We hold that available data has been utilized as a pretext and marketing tactic by the LNP and their representatives within the Department in order to further the agenda of the CDC as a policy.

Further, we add that contrary to the views held by Keith Pitt MP and the Department, the reality of increasing numbers of people seeking assistance and support for addictions, gambling and drug/alcohol is not a negative outcome at all, rather, it is evidence of the success of media and social activism designed specifically to bring people into the community view so they can access help and support services when needed.

We hold that to use any data collected from that effort in such a manner that undermines participants human, civil, privacy and economic rights; or that excludes them from full and active participation in community as the CDCT does, is an inappropriate use of data and an abuse of power and position. It is manipulative and deceptive.

●●●

• We remind the Community that significant conflicts of interest remain regarding the corporation managing the CDCT payments systems and these have not been acknowledged or addressed by this Senate at all.

Aside from ongoing concerns regarding the relationship of Larry Anthony with the Indue LTD Corporation as one time CEO, there are issues relating to SAS Holdings, who until August 2018, were Indue Ltd’s primary industry lobbyist to government.

There are also some basic problems and issues that have arisen with Indue Ltd as facilitator of the card program itself that do require attention and addressing as well and to proceed with expansion while these matters are outstanding would be negligent and a significant breach of duty of care.

These include:

(a) The fact that Indue Ltd is not a bank, and as as shareholder based for-profit ADI, they are not able to provide the full range of banking protections or services to their clients let alone to place the complex issues of active Social Welfare above corporate profit making. They a re not held to the same standards as banks, nor regulated in the same manner as banks are.

(b) Indue Ltd is not a subscriber to the Centrelink Code of Operation.

© Indue Ltd is not a subscriber to any industry code of conduct, like the Code of Banking Practice or the Customer-owned Banking Code of Practice.

(d) Indue Ltd does not have any experience in retail banking.

(e) Indue Ltd does not have any experience in social welfare or working with people in poverty or in crisis situations.

(f) Indue Ltd is an unelected, non representative body acting as a government agent, yet they remain unaccountable to our Senate and have been granted an informal ( on the nod) exemption from existing consumer laws.

(g) Indue Ltd has already made significant errors with payment handling in the current trial zones that have created significant distress for forced trial participants. Indue Ltd has not been held accountable for any card decline issues.

(h) The LNP’s intimate relationship with unelected, unqualified corporate entity Mr Andrew Forest and his charity Mindaroo regarding ongoing and related issues of Land Rights abuses and racial discrimination within CCDT targeted communities.

●●●

• We call the Communities attention to the issue of negative consumer impacts , and the reality that the Department have failed to address in any meaningful or respectful manner any report of distress being experienced by forced trial participants to date in any trial area; this, despite two prior Senate inquiries and the vocal and visible presentation of details of this duress and distress presented by submissions and petitions to ministers, councils, media, the Senate and to the general public.

We draw your attention to the fact that reported suicides, self injury, fiscal complaints and family hardships and the personal lived experience of negative impacts of the CDCT in and upon the lives of forced trial participants have been routinely negated, and dismissed by the LNP and the Department, often in the rudest, most disrespectful and vilifying manner.

This distress and evidence of significant hardship across all CDCT sites includes but is not limited to:

◦ Increase in successful suicides and over 474 cases of reported self injury that have not been addressed. No ongoing monitoring and reporting process is in place addressing this issue.

◦ Loss of income: increased bank fees and new $10 “inbound fees” that are being applied to participant emergency transfers.

◦ Inability to flee violence, DV.

◦ Inability to engage in every day cultural practices.

◦ Minimum spends at local shops impacting cash portion and quarantined portions of income.

◦ Indue LTD has not been investigating lost payments or late payments. People are unable to pay council rates.

◦ The acute distress of forced participants not being taken seriously by government representatives.

◦ Hunger strikes.

◦ Miscarriage

◦ Marriage break ups

◦ Homelessness

◦ Inability to access basic shopping services such as Woolworths and Coles online.

◦ The refusal of many people to activate cards leaving the most vulnerable in extreme and abject poverty, ‘off grid’ entirely.

◦ Entire communities in Ceduna and Goldfields were not consulted at all (example: Kambalda WA)

◦ Increased social and financial predatory behavior inflicted upon those on CDCT by other community members and visiting criminals including: rape, fiscal manipulation, card on selling, child rape and physical abuse, street assaults, theft, grafting by store owners.

◦ Increases in mental health distress.

◦ Increases in youth crime and disaffection.

◦ Impact of aggressive policing, move on orders, leading to the isolation of many communities and individuals within communities.

◦ The bullying, stalking, doxxing and active ‘trolling’ of anti-card dissenters by minsters of this Parliament, paid political activists, and certain allied members of the general public.

◦ Reports from participants of increasing inability to cope with simple budget management given the complexity of split incomes.

◦ Indue Ltd transfer restrictions and the reality of ‘no joint access’ on couples who must ‘financially divorce’ to continue to receive payments and pay bills, along with a plethora of other stress inducing issues being reported widely in media and in community forums by CDCT participants themselves.

◦ Experiences of the bullying and ‘strong arming’ of local shop owners, service groups and businesses by the Department in trial regions and targeted regions.

◦ Inconstancy: Indue LTD staff at shop fronts in trial locations saying one thing to CDCT participants and the Department saying another.

◦ Increases in Domestic Violence.

◦ Increased racism and racial attacks.

◦ Increases in crime.

◦ Increases in “3 evils” behaviors and alternative drug use.

◦ Loss of dignity and equality.

◦ Inability to purchase life saving medical equipment.

◦ Segregation/ongoing social exclusion from every day cash only family outings.

●●●

• We reaffirm to the Community that the Indue Ltd Cashless Debit card is not “just like any other visa debit card’ because:

◦ Normal visa debit cards: Can be used to purchase gift cards, digital currencies and motel stays. The CDC cannot.

◦ Normal visa debit cards: Are not driving their users to suicide or to prostitute themselves for access to cash. The CDC is.

◦ Normal visa debit cards: Do not subject the card user to social stigma, demeaning or dehumanising abuse from store keepers or the general public. The CDC does.

◦ Normal visa debit cards: Can be used to make purchase on Gumtree, Amazon, Kindle, Ebay, Pay Pal. The CDC cannot.

◦ Normal visa debit cards: Do not remove or impinge upon a card users Banking/Economic/Consumer Rights or impinge upon a users Human Rights, Privacy and Civil rights. The CDC does.

◦ Normal visa debit cards: Have fraud, charge back and investigation/redress protections that apply to all card users equally. The CDC does not.

◦ Normal visa debit cards: Do not require you to be subject to third party partitioning of your income, that restricts spending transfers and payments to nominated ‘categories’ you did not choose for yourself. The CDC does.

◦ Normal visa debit cards: Cannot be forced onto you by coercion and duress. The CDC can and is.

◦ Normal visa debit cards: Do not block your access to cash advances and freedom of bank transfers between accounts. The CDC does.

◦ Normal visa debit cards: Do not undermine your life long credit rating, limit banking choices and housing opportunities. The CDC does.

◦ Normal visa debit cards: Do not require card users to ask for permission from the State, to spend, transfer or redirect personal income. The CDC does.

◦ Normal visa debit cards: Are not an instrument of ideology or government policy. The CDC is.

◦ Normal visa debit cards: Do not remove a card users political agency in their community. The CDC does.

◦ Normal visa debit cards: Do not morally judge or presume a card users fiscal, physical, social or moral competency. The CDC does.

◦ Normal visa debit cards: Do not impinge upon a person’s right to autonomy. The CDC does.

◦ Normal visa debit cards: Do not usurp legal ownership of your income. The CDC does.

These 28 examples, of over 150 plus similar examples available, sufficiently demonstrate that there are indeed substantial practical, ethical and functional differences between the CDC and “a regular visa debit card” the most disturbing of which, is the simple fact that the CDC financially segregates Australian tax paying citizens from their communities and the rights held by every other Australian citizen.

●●●

The Say No Seven Community recommends;

• As this legislation does not meet Human Rights standards and has been sufficiently proven to be an ineffective mechanism in meeting its stated objectives, we recommend that all CDC trials be halted immediately and forced participants returned to regular payments systems.

• That if it must remain in any form, the CDC transition to a voluntary program offered on an ‘opt in’ basis until legislation can be formally repealed.

• That forced third party income management of any kind, should be only imposed upon a person when that person has undertaken an individual assessment, has consented, or is clearly shown to be unable to manage their income or in need of direct intervention by a court of law. Even then, with severe Senate oversight, maximum duration/sunset clauses and with the offering of wrap around individually tailored services.

• That compensation be paid to forced trial participants under the current CDCT program for economic losses and personal suffering including an inquiry into CDC related suicides.

• That all sums earmarked for CDCT and CDC expansion be directed instead to rebuilding the infrastructure of the social services networks in communities; for engagement program development; building of Youth centers and diversion programs; anti-poverty programs; for social housing and social inclusion groups, and to those registered social welfare and health agencies specialising in the aid of persons with addiction problems and those in need of more intensive employment support.

In conclusion, the Indue Ltd Cashless Debit Card cannot and does not address individual or wider structural social and economic problems, including those underlying and causing, addiction, ‘welfare dependency’, under and unemployment, violence and sexual abuse impacting our communities and children today. In any authentic cost/benefit evaluation, the CDC falls desperately short of meeting any reasonable expectation of fairness, efficacy and efficiency.

The Say No seven community supports and affirms the 2017 submission to the Senate by the St Vincent de Paul Society , an excerpt of which states:

“Instead of paternalistic and ideologically driven measures such as income management, we need a comprehensive set of policies that are grounded in evidence of what works, and that tackle the underlying causes of poverty and inequality.”

We too insist that:

“…the considerable resources expended on the cashless welfare card and other paternalistic measures could be better spent on improving the adequacy of income support payments, investing in education and job creation and funding appropriate and effective services for struggling individuals and families.”

Thank you for your time.

The Say No Seven Community
.

sarahs mum said:

The Say NO Seven
1 hr ·

⚠💜🐦 A post to the wider community.

Problems with Indue and the CDCT – cashless debit card trials.

We call the wider Community’s attention to our following concerns:

Aside from the larger issue of the privatisation of the National Social Security payment systems * via the outsourcing of these systems to the Indue Ltd corporation ( CDCT) and Serco corporation ( Telephone call centers) we draw the communities attention to the issue of the privatisation of Social Security *payments themselves and the loss of legal authority over these payments that occurs when a person is placed onto the “Indue card trial”.

…………/really big cut by transition/…….

“…the considerable resources expended on the cashless welfare card and other paternalistic measures could be better spent on improving the adequacy of income support payments, investing in education and job creation and funding appropriate and effective services for struggling individuals and families.”

Thank you for your time.

The Say No Seven Community
.

read half that..

if there’s any corruption, in my opinion, it’s that a private entity (company) is being granted liability exemptions by the state that exceed even that of the state, or state bureaucracy (department)

so, again, in my opinion, immunity from liability, conferred so, by way of dissolving aspects of the state social security system is dubious

my guess is they’d (the masters governing) would like to change the name, get away from welfare, social security, even if these are more historical terms, because those terms have associated with them liability, previously probably involved and implied social responsibility, so they are inclined to bastardize that history

welfare will be privatized and commercialized out of existence, of its previous form (still partially existing), that’s the plan

again, all my personal opinion above, nothing more, i’ll say it’s wrong to be safe, everything I wrote is wrong

but it won’t matter, the bigger picture these days is a flood of issues, to encourage a flood of issues, it’s strategically useful to the larger players, all carving out something. Politics is largely ablative these days, for politicians, and the little guys, the voters

nobody really gets anything serious done with 500 issues in the aether

Young farming families on Cashless Debit Card now told by Banks they are no longer able to keep their existing home loans.

—-

No Cashless Welfare Debit Card Australia
No Cashless Welfare Debit Card Australia this happened to a farming family in Bundaberg, they were forced to refinance their loan only to find out they still couldn’t pay their mortgage with card, even after changing to comply with legislation set down with regard to mortgages

—-

No Cashless Welfare Debit Card Australia what link do you want, this is what is happening to people with redraw or offset mortgages,you are not allowed to have such a mortgage if you are on the card and have to find a way to refinance to a fixed term higher interest loan

——

most is not in legislation but in the actual use of card then find out oh you cant pay that way cant buy that. The woolies and coles on line shopping 1/2 price sales cant use card. Things like that. ——

No Cashless Welfare Debit Card Australia you have to ask DSS for permission regards your mortgage, access to cashless like products such as digital currency, money orders or redraw facility mortgages are banned under indue card,

——

Cashless Debit Card operators refuse to release funds from their account to the person’s landlord when due.
Forced Homelessness.
—-

Literally perfectly a week late every time

sarahs mum said:

Young farming families on Cashless Debit Card now told by Banks they are no longer able to keep their existing home loans.

—-

No Cashless Welfare Debit Card Australia
No Cashless Welfare Debit Card Australia this happened to a farming family in Bundaberg, they were forced to refinance their loan only to find out they still couldn’t pay their mortgage with card, even after changing to comply with legislation set down with regard to mortgages

—-

No Cashless Welfare Debit Card Australia what link do you want, this is what is happening to people with redraw or offset mortgages,you are not allowed to have such a mortgage if you are on the card and have to find a way to refinance to a fixed term higher interest loan

——

most is not in legislation but in the actual use of card then find out oh you cant pay that way cant buy that. The woolies and coles on line shopping 1/2 price sales cant use card. Things like that. ——

No Cashless Welfare Debit Card Australia you have to ask DSS for permission regards your mortgage, access to cashless like products such as digital currency, money orders or redraw facility mortgages are banned under indue card,

——

And it is costing taxpayers $10,000 plus for each card….how good is privatisation of welfare!

The Say NO Seven
2 hrs ·

🌿👉#INsight The Tangled Web.

An insightful thread by JommyTee. @jommy_tee popped up today. You can find this thread here: https://twitter.com/jommy_tee/status/1215859780763422721

A glimpse into the corporate/government collusion between Mindaroo and the LNP we keep speaking of around here.

It is good to see CDCT being discussed more widely and it seems people are waking up to the tangled web of spin and lies of omission Indue cashless card promotions are hiding.

Great to see such a vital discussion taking place so openly, and we haven’t even started our disclosures on Indue Ltd’s history, yet…

- SNS

——

This from JommyTee, via Twitter with related images attached below:

👉 “Well, well I knew they did a YouTube promoting the cashless debit card …. but looks like ads on Google and the Book of Faces were part of the mix as well. Explains why the Minderoo Foundation registered with the Australian Electoral Commission as a political campaigner.”

👉 “Ammo, the company used by Minderoo to run Facebook ads, also worked on the Liberal Party ads in WA during the 2019 Federal election”

👉 “Ammo Marketing is run by Cam Sinclair. Who was once formerly employed by the Libs in WA, and previously worked for Cormann for a short time.”

👉 “Ammo Marketing is only a business trading name for a discretionary trading trust: “The Trustee for Running Buffalo” “

👉 “Back to the cashless debit card – a Twiggy (Minderoo) paternalistic device – wholeheartedly embraced by the LNP government. He seeks to impose restrictions for those on welfare, yet had no hesitation in giving a job to convicted insider trader, 3 months post his sentence ending.”

👉 “The insider trader (later turned ASIC witness to convict another insider trader) became and still is Twiggy’s COO at the Minderoo Fdn. I’m all for rehabilitation, but it appears Twiggy applies different standards to those who come from a different socio-economic background.”
——

And this nugget from Ben Eltham @beneltham

In short, while Minderoo is a large and active philanthropic corporation, making all sorts of active investments and partnering w the Commonwealth to quarantine people’s welfare, it remains a vehicle entirely controlled by the Forrest family, with little external oversight.
——

And:

Cam Irwin – The Fly🦗 in the Ointment @ici_cam :

‘Cashless Debit Card Technology Report in 2017 by Forrest’s Minderoo Foundation & its working group of senior execs from banking (!!) & retail. They were the ones who set out a blueprint for the Govt. Originally envisaged as the ‘healthy welfare card”.

The Say NO Seven
21 hrs ·

🌿👉#Transition_Bill_2019
Mid-break updates and responding to a few questions emailed:

- We are awaiting word on Jacqui and Rebekah’s trip to the NT, with consideration that Ms Sharkie’s electorate is currently under fire impact. No formal news yet.

- The earmarked “ roll out date” for the “ transition” bill is April 2019. This means the bill must pass the Senate prior to this date, so we expect an early Feb push.

- Despite outright denials when we confronted the minister that it was to be included at all, the 2019 Transition bill’s Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights (PJCHR) report itself lists Age Pension ( a Category P payment) as part of the NT/Cape York “trial”.

See image attached, and to read the report, see the link below, bottom right under NOTES section: https://www.aph.gov.au/…/Bills…/Bills_Search_Results/Result…

👉 PTN: – Since publishing this video on the bill LNP have put forward ‘further amendments’ that appear on surface to remove Age Pension from inclusion within the trial.
They do this via addition of single line of text added to each sub section they are proposing.

THIS ADDED STATEMENT DOES NOT ALTER THE AMENDMENT ITSELF, it simply adds an easily removable ‘tag line’ that can be altered by instrument at any time without notice – as can almost every feature of this bill if it is passed.

We are not convinced that age pensions will be protected by these further amendments as this tag line does nothing to alter the payments Category P status and still leaves the minister entitled to add or exclude literally anyone on a centrelink payment based on obscure ‘vulnerability’ clauses and it still leave the minsters powers to raise quarantine rates up to 80%- 100% at any time in tact, without oversight or qualification.

See the further amendments here: https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/…/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22leg…

From the PJCHR report:

Preliminary international human rights legal advice

Rights to privacy, social security, and equality and non-discrimination

1.126 The cashless welfare arrangements outlined in this bill engage and limit a number of human rights, including the:
• right to privacy;22
• right to social security;23 and
• right to equality and non-discrimination.24 1.127

The bill engages and limits the right to privacy and right to social security as it significantly intrudes into the freedom and autonomy of individuals to organise their private and family lives by making their own decisions about the way in which they use their social security payments.

The right to privacy is linked to notions of personal autonomy and human dignity. It includes the idea that individuals should have an area of autonomous development; a ‘private sphere’ free from government intervention and excessive unsolicited intervention by others.

The right to social security recognises the importance of adequate social benefits in reducing the effects of poverty and in preventing social exclusion and promoting social inclusion.25

————

So it is clear, that this bill imposes and restricts the HUMAN RIGHTS of Australian citizens. There can be and is NO DOUBT of this fact, or the need to oppose it moving forward.

On human rights issues, the LNP have gone from denial of the impacts, to arguing a case for “positive human rights” (PHR) a tactic of orwellian proportions that ultimately means YOUR human rights as an individual will only to be upheld and given primacy, dependent on someone else’s human rights.

So even if you personally have no children etc you can end upon this card simply because someone else’s child thousands of kms from you “might” be at risk. Much like the concept of “ community consent” this is a farce and quite literally scrubs your individual rights as a human being off the table. Unacceptable.

To rely upon PHR is both unfair, irreconcilable to common sense and is a divide and conquer tactic last/best used by German representatives at Nuremberg to justify their atrocities. It sadly seems the PJCHR has fallen for it hook and line.

This abusive and presumptive judgment is still permeating CDCT debate:

“Accordingly, we consider that the cashless welfare measures contained in the bill include a number of positive human rights by reason that they provide welfare payment recipients with the ability to ensure that a higher portion of their payments are directed to essential living costs such as food and household bills, whilst prohibiting expenditure on alcohol and gambling. “ -PJCHR report 2019.

HOW DARE THESE PEOPLE CONTINUE TO ASSUME WE DO NOT ALREADY PAY OUR BILLS BUY FOOD! HOW DARE THEY ASSUME – AGAIN, THAT WE ARE ALL DRUNKEN DRUG ADDICTED NEGLECTFUL PARENTS!

We so sick of this hyper-religious moral assumption and judgement upon our lives and characters. It is DISCRIMINATION, one based on THEIR assumption of OUR need to be in receipt of centrelink entitlements.

To know as we do that the agencies and committees meant to defend and protect us are in fact buying into this specious discriminating lie, is deeply DEEPLY concerning to us. It is an attempt to justify atrocity. It is, religious and moral judgment, not based in ANY fact or science/data.

- We are aware that the LNP are in the NT and Cape York regions at present running closed meetings making deals with rep and non representative groups. ALP and Aus Greens need to get up to speed and be aware of the full nature of these ‘sweet deals’ and act accordingly.

- WE still have no response from ALP as to our primary question to them at this time “ Will ALP vote NO if their proposed amendments (not yet disclosed) are voted down?” We want and need a commitment, we do not want April 2019 all over again. We cannot throw our full throat support for ALP’s amendments out there until we have the answer to this question.

—

We have a hard fight ahead. At present, it does not look good and LNP are drawing in every lawyer and sleazy political trick and slight of hand action to ensure they get their way. From what we have heard on the ground, they are up there lying to communities about impacts and risks, lying by omission about the nature of Indue Cards and this bill, and its clear they are using the NT’s remoteness to pedal sheer bullsh*t . People do need to remain alert and be prepared to make the calls and stomp the feet by early Feb at the latest.

There is a protest at Parliament on Feb 4th listed in our events, we suggest if you can you DO go, don the purple shirts and get there if you can. If you want visibility, you can also use a white shirt and paint on a red hand if you have to; raise the signs against the Indue Cashless Card and take pictures we can amplify.

If we cannot raise the profile of this struggle we may just lose it. We need to keep pressure on ALP to fight this with all they have, and we DO need to include LNP members in our phone sheets. They need to know a vote for this bill is a vote to anyone but them in 2022.

We have 2 weeks until we formally kick off 2020 here on page and we really need that time to rest and restore. Several of us and our members are also engaged in fire recovery efforts as well right now so we need that time. We thank everyone for their kindness and commitment. We aim to be back on page by the 26th.

- SNS Admins.

Ahhh, Indue have a website.
INDUE
POWERING PAYMENTS

From the Indue Annual Report 2018-2019
‘Indue is a for-profit entity and primarily operates in the payment services industry offering white labelled and transactional products to commercial business, government departments and financial institutions’
https://www2.indue.com.au/our-story/regulatory-disclosures/

Some interesting reading in that alone for you, sarahs mum. No wonder it’s costing upwards of $10k per card. Is the taxpayer getting value for money? Is it risky, given the amount of money they are dealing with? And why do we need it (apart from giving money to some well connected people)?

ruby said:

Ahhh, Indue have a website.
INDUE
POWERING PAYMENTS

From the Indue Annual Report 2018-2019
‘Indue is a for-profit entity and primarily operates in the payment services industry offering white labelled and transactional products to commercial business, government departments and financial institutions’
https://www2.indue.com.au/our-story/regulatory-disclosures/

Some interesting reading in that alone for you, sarahs mum. No wonder it’s costing upwards of $10k per card. Is the taxpayer getting value for money? Is it risky, given the amount of money they are dealing with? And why do we need it (apart from giving money to some well connected people)?

welcome to the (increasingly) transactional world

ruby said:

And why do we need it (apart from giving money to some well connected people)?

Since when do our governments (especially L/NP govts) need any other reason?

ruby said:

Ahhh, Indue have a website.
INDUE
POWERING PAYMENTS

From the Indue Annual Report 2018-2019
‘Indue is a for-profit entity and primarily operates in the payment services industry offering white labelled and transactional products to commercial business, government departments and financial institutions’
https://www2.indue.com.au/our-story/regulatory-disclosures/

Some interesting reading in that alone for you, sarahs mum. No wonder it’s costing upwards of $10k per card. Is the taxpayer getting value for money? Is it risky, given the amount of money they are dealing with? And why do we need it (apart from giving money to some well connected people)?

Under the existing scheme the client is the welfare recipient.
Under Indue the client is the government.

transition said:

ruby said:

Ahhh, Indue have a website.
INDUE
POWERING PAYMENTS

From the Indue Annual Report 2018-2019
‘Indue is a for-profit entity and primarily operates in the payment services industry offering white labelled and transactional products to commercial business, government departments and financial institutions’
https://www2.indue.com.au/our-story/regulatory-disclosures/

Some interesting reading in that alone for you, sarahs mum. No wonder it’s costing upwards of $10k per card. Is the taxpayer getting value for money? Is it risky, given the amount of money they are dealing with? And why do we need it (apart from giving money to some well connected people)?

welcome to the (increasingly) transactional world

I have no idea what a white labelled product is, but there seems to be an awful lot of them about, according to the Internet.

The Rev Dodgson said:

transition said:

ruby said:

Ahhh, Indue have a website.
INDUE
POWERING PAYMENTS

From the Indue Annual Report 2018-2019
‘Indue is a for-profit entity and primarily operates in the payment services industry offering white labelled and transactional products to commercial business, government departments and financial institutions’
https://www2.indue.com.au/our-story/regulatory-disclosures/

Some interesting reading in that alone for you, sarahs mum. No wonder it’s costing upwards of $10k per card. Is the taxpayer getting value for money? Is it risky, given the amount of money they are dealing with? And why do we need it (apart from giving money to some well connected people)?

welcome to the (increasingly) transactional world

I have no idea what a white labelled product is, but there seems to be an awful lot of them about, according to the Internet.

A white-label product is a product or service produced by one company (the producer) that other companies (the marketers) rebrand to make it appear as if they had made it.

The Say NO Seven
1 hr ·

🌿👉#ONTHEWIRE: Kalgoorlie meeting with Senator Jacqui Lambie reveals Indue LTD to quit within 6 months, Big 4 banks gear up to to take over Social Security Cards and forced income management program.

Thanks to some quick behind the scenes arrangements, Jacqui Lambie digressed from her guided tour today and met with NO Card Kalgoorlie representatives.

( Monday 20/1/2020):

Brief run down/feedback from meeting attendees:

👉Jacqui stated all current Indue functions will be replaced by the big 4 banks*. She was adamant that Indue Ltd were employed only for the “trial’ portion of the experiment.

If found to be true, this move will represent a MASSIVE intrusion of the Big 4 banks into the private lives of Australian citizens, one that will enable them to infringe upon our human rights directly without penalty, enable them to avoid consumer and privacy laws and to radically discriminate against vulnerable populations.

This will grant major banks the ability to sanction social security entitlements, to deny or approve funding for cash transfers and to control every aspect of our private lives through our income arrangements. Your local bank manager will become your DSS agent, your income management officer.

👉 Jacqui stated that a nation wide roll out was always the plan via the big 4 banks from the beginning, and that Indue will not be running the CDC within 6 months time due to infrastructure/technology limitations and age.

👉 Jacquie stated clearly and aggressively ( despite existing legislation) that the entire country will be on Indue Cashless Cards within 2 years with no opt outs unless you are critically disabled.

👉 Jacquie’s list of demands to Government for her CDCT vote are:

*Gov gets into the NT and consults communities

*All centrelink staff sacked to be replaced/restored

*That drug and alcohol services in regions impacted by the card are put in place.

👉 Jacqui stated that the Ceduna roll out is working so well and there are so many services out there it is like “ being wrapped in a blanket of love” .

This means Jacqui is ignoring the chaos of cardholders having no power during fires and storms of recent weeks; ignoring the regional development fund rorting and corruption, and ignoring feedback through several senate submissions and from locals on cards themselves.

👉 Jacqui stated that Hervey Bay people are ‘dealing with it’ better so its ‘not so bad’.

This means Jacqui is intentionally ignoring Hinkler NO Card team feedback, ignoring the published QCOSS survey results, dismissing senate testimony by speakers Doctors Klein,Hunt and Beifield in Canberra in November, and dismissing all 500 members of the Hinkler trial zone support group and their feedback tabled to senate that reported significant hardships, suicide attempts and grave financial problems resulting from Indue cards in this region.

We are deeply concerned by the Senators comments and claims that cannot be verified through other political sources at this time. These comments and statements appear very ‘led’ and are seemingly devoid of any awareness or recognition whatsoever of existing banking regulations, current senate documents, informed senate testimonies and on the ground realities and feedback from forced trial participants themselves.

🌿👉 Via Sylvia Asusaar in Kalgoorlie: “Overall I think I left with a feeling that Jacqui can see a lot of problem especially with small communities and the services available ,but I really felt like this whole cashless card thing is no longer about so much drugs alcohol or any of that this is just a stealth excuse to completely change the welfare system and the government dont care who they steam roll in the process. “

We are of a similar mind and deeply disappointed.

👉 Further feedback is being sought from NT and Goldfields we will update this post and provide more feed back soon. In the interim, you can visit NO card Kalgoorlie page here : https://www.facebook.com/groups/174774006658281/ for direct feedback from attendees and locals.

👉A reminder to all that Wespac, the bank recently caught out for money laundering and child trafficking, is an Indue corporate partner.

SNS

The Say NO Seven 🌿👉Our view. This will ultimately roll out SNAP in Australia , which is a card that is product locked tied to a bank and third party controlled by that bank. It means your access to high grade meat, even veg can be dictated by remote control at the flick of a switch.

The Say NO Seven 🌿👉 PTN: If Jacqui Lambie does not vote with government to pass the current bill the Indue card trials in EVERY location END on July 2020. Never have so many lives, depended on the integrity of just one woman

The Say NO Seven 🌿👉 Via Sylvia Asusaar in Kalgoorlie who attended the meeting: “ I heard no opt outs under new legislation unless your severely disabled , i heard national roll out in 2 years to all bar veterans and aged pensions ,i heard in 6mnths no indue it will run through the banks ,but i also heard she wont vote for it if Jacqui doesn’t get proper wrap around services and better centerlink staffing”

The Say NO Seven 🌿👉⚡️#HEADS_UP_Everyone: What we are going to find out now, is if Jacqui has been set up by LNP and Mindaroo lobbyists, or her information is indeed ‘good’. We know already and have since the beginning of this fight, that Westpac, recently caught out for money laundering and child trafficking issues, is an Indue LTD corporate partner, as are Macquarie and several US and EU banks. So we knew banks were always close by this issue, but this news makes a huge difference. It means the current bill in parliament is not a transition from income management to Cashless Debit Card as we know it at all, or as the bill states it is, but rather it represents the beginning of a wholesale transition from government to banking sector run social security entitlements management, and that with the passage of this bill, this could end up a reality before the next federal election. In a sense Jacqui has basically given us all a quick heads up. So think what you will, remain cautious and dubious sure, but please give her credit for the fact that LNP can no longer hide behind their wall of silence and plotting now..and that matters – a lot. – SNS 2

sarahs mum said:

The Say NO Seven 🌿👉Our view. This will ultimately roll out SNAP in Australia , which is a card that is product locked tied to a bank and third party controlled by that bank. It means your access to high grade meat, even veg can be dictated by remote control at the flick of a switch.

The Say NO Seven 🌿👉 PTN: If Jacqui Lambie does not vote with government to pass the current bill the Indue card trials in EVERY location END on July 2020. Never have so many lives, depended on the integrity of just one woman

The Say NO Seven 🌿👉 Via Sylvia Asusaar in Kalgoorlie who attended the meeting: “ I heard no opt outs under new legislation unless your severely disabled , i heard national roll out in 2 years to all bar veterans and aged pensions ,i heard in 6mnths no indue it will run through the banks ,but i also heard she wont vote for it if Jacqui doesn’t get proper wrap around services and better centerlink staffing”

The Say NO Seven 🌿👉⚡️#HEADS_UP_Everyone: What we are going to find out now, is if Jacqui has been set up by LNP and Mindaroo lobbyists, or her information is indeed ‘good’. We know already and have since the beginning of this fight, that Westpac, recently caught out for money laundering and child trafficking issues, is an Indue LTD corporate partner, as are Macquarie and several US and EU banks. So we knew banks were always close by this issue, but this news makes a huge difference. It means the current bill in parliament is not a transition from income management to Cashless Debit Card as we know it at all, or as the bill states it is, but rather it represents the beginning of a wholesale transition from government to banking sector run social security entitlements management, and that with the passage of this bill, this could end up a reality before the next federal election. In a sense Jacqui has basically given us all a quick heads up. So think what you will, remain cautious and dubious sure, but please give her credit for the fact that LNP can no longer hide behind their wall of silence and plotting now..and that matters – a lot. – SNS 2

read that and previous

if any truth in it, and I wouldn’t like to be party to the idea it’s going to happen, but the reality is every word uttered re such a thing ushers it toward reality, even those that oppose such things help it into existence, anyway, I doubt the banks would be involved in (m)any direct engagements with clients re restrictions, but would be happy to have the $$$$$$$$$$$ from the slow spend imposed, whatever the arrangement

probably make a nice little sorry about the royal commission

transition said:

sarahs mum said:

The Say NO Seven 🌿👉Our view. This will ultimately roll out SNAP in Australia , which is a card that is product locked tied to a bank and third party controlled by that bank. It means your access to high grade meat, even veg can be dictated by remote control at the flick of a switch.

The Say NO Seven 🌿👉 PTN: If Jacqui Lambie does not vote with government to pass the current bill the Indue card trials in EVERY location END on July 2020. Never have so many lives, depended on the integrity of just one woman

The Say NO Seven 🌿👉 Via Sylvia Asusaar in Kalgoorlie who attended the meeting: “ I heard no opt outs under new legislation unless your severely disabled , i heard national roll out in 2 years to all bar veterans and aged pensions ,i heard in 6mnths no indue it will run through the banks ,but i also heard she wont vote for it if Jacqui doesn’t get proper wrap around services and better centerlink staffing”

The Say NO Seven 🌿👉⚡️#HEADS_UP_Everyone: What we are going to find out now, is if Jacqui has been set up by LNP and Mindaroo lobbyists, or her information is indeed ‘good’. We know already and have since the beginning of this fight, that Westpac, recently caught out for money laundering and child trafficking issues, is an Indue LTD corporate partner, as are Macquarie and several US and EU banks. So we knew banks were always close by this issue, but this news makes a huge difference. It means the current bill in parliament is not a transition from income management to Cashless Debit Card as we know it at all, or as the bill states it is, but rather it represents the beginning of a wholesale transition from government to banking sector run social security entitlements management, and that with the passage of this bill, this could end up a reality before the next federal election. In a sense Jacqui has basically given us all a quick heads up. So think what you will, remain cautious and dubious sure, but please give her credit for the fact that LNP can no longer hide behind their wall of silence and plotting now..and that matters – a lot. – SNS 2

read that and previous

if any truth in it, and I wouldn’t like to be party to the idea it’s going to happen, but the reality is every word uttered re such a thing ushers it toward reality, even those that oppose such things help it into existence, anyway, I doubt the banks would be involved in (m)any direct engagements with clients re restrictions, but would be happy to have the $$$$$$$$$$$ from the slow spend imposed, whatever the arrangement

probably make a nice little sorry about the royal commission

Are you saying I should ignore it and it will go away?

sarahs mum said:

transition said:

sarahs mum said:

The Say NO Seven 🌿👉Our view. This will ultimately roll out SNAP in Australia , which is a card that is product locked tied to a bank and third party controlled by that bank. It means your access to high grade meat, even veg can be dictated by remote control at the flick of a switch.

The Say NO Seven 🌿👉 PTN: If Jacqui Lambie does not vote with government to pass the current bill the Indue card trials in EVERY location END on July 2020. Never have so many lives, depended on the integrity of just one woman

The Say NO Seven 🌿👉 Via Sylvia Asusaar in Kalgoorlie who attended the meeting: “ I heard no opt outs under new legislation unless your severely disabled , i heard national roll out in 2 years to all bar veterans and aged pensions ,i heard in 6mnths no indue it will run through the banks ,but i also heard she wont vote for it if Jacqui doesn’t get proper wrap around services and better centerlink staffing”

The Say NO Seven 🌿👉⚡️#HEADS_UP_Everyone: What we are going to find out now, is if Jacqui has been set up by LNP and Mindaroo lobbyists, or her information is indeed ‘good’. We know already and have since the beginning of this fight, that Westpac, recently caught out for money laundering and child trafficking issues, is an Indue LTD corporate partner, as are Macquarie and several US and EU banks. So we knew banks were always close by this issue, but this news makes a huge difference. It means the current bill in parliament is not a transition from income management to Cashless Debit Card as we know it at all, or as the bill states it is, but rather it represents the beginning of a wholesale transition from government to banking sector run social security entitlements management, and that with the passage of this bill, this could end up a reality before the next federal election. In a sense Jacqui has basically given us all a quick heads up. So think what you will, remain cautious and dubious sure, but please give her credit for the fact that LNP can no longer hide behind their wall of silence and plotting now..and that matters – a lot. – SNS 2

read that and previous

if any truth in it, and I wouldn’t like to be party to the idea it’s going to happen, but the reality is every word uttered re such a thing ushers it toward reality, even those that oppose such things help it into existence, anyway, I doubt the banks would be involved in (m)any direct engagements with clients re restrictions, but would be happy to have the $$$$$$$$$$$ from the slow spend imposed, whatever the arrangement

probably make a nice little sorry about the royal commission

Are you saying I should ignore it and it will go away?

no, i’ve seen the bullshit turning since JH was PM

they have ways of manipulating opposition to things, was really my only point

JL, for all I know, could be being manipulated, part of the trojan horse of privatization and planned extinction of social security

transition said:

sarahs mum said:

transition said:

read that and previous

if any truth in it, and I wouldn’t like to be party to the idea it’s going to happen, but the reality is every word uttered re such a thing ushers it toward reality, even those that oppose such things help it into existence, anyway, I doubt the banks would be involved in (m)any direct engagements with clients re restrictions, but would be happy to have the $$$$$$$$$$$ from the slow spend imposed, whatever the arrangement

probably make a nice little sorry about the royal commission

Are you saying I should ignore it and it will go away?

no, i’ve seen the bullshit turning since JH was PM

they have ways of manipulating opposition to things, was really my only point

JL, for all I know, could be being manipulated, part of the trojan horse of privatization and planned extinction of social security

True.

sarahs mum said:

transition said:

sarahs mum said:

Are you saying I should ignore it and it will go away?

no, i’ve seen the bullshit turning since JH was PM

they have ways of manipulating opposition to things, was really my only point

JL, for all I know, could be being manipulated, part of the trojan horse of privatization and planned extinction of social security

True.

the incremental approach, strategy, works sort of as follows

they put forward a change, with certain information, get various interests to do parts of it, the dirty work, politics always involves getting others to do some of the dirty work

if you represented the objective on a scale , say 1 to 10, you get the various parties to see the change, conceptualize it as being further progressed than it is. So people might conceptualize it on the scale at position 7, but really it’s only progressed to 4, you can argue against it and bring it back to 6, which is really an incremental progression forward that got it over the line

caramel biscuit, very nice, you may not have one

kettle on the flame

einstein’s back from the farm

The Say NO Seven
55 mins ·

🤬👉#OPT_OUT_FAILURE

Conscious cruelty in action as Jodie calls CDC hotline to find out what is happening to her exit application which has now been in limbo for over SIX MONTHS. Jodie has met all demands, had her interviews and still she waits for approval.

To date NOT ONE forced trial participant exit application has been approved and the departments patronising excuse that applications are ‘in progress’ with no time frame being offered is NOT acceptable!

Jodie is 100% right – if any other business took this long to process a simple application they’d be broke or in front of an ombudsman.

Jodie struggles on just $4.00 a day for food, as Indue’s 28 day payment cycle forces her to use her cash portion and ‘extra’ $200 allocation of cash per month to cover her rent just so she doesn’t get evicted.

Hundreds of millions in public money has been wasted on this policy, promised ‘wrap around services’ funding has not been spent, and emotional and psychological support is non existent. Staff do not seem aware of the 28 day rent cycle issue at all and the ping pong between departments is just cruel.

As you can hear, heart breaking despair increases as people who have no choice but to remain on ‘trigger’ payments are continuously being, in Jodie’s precise word, “stonewalled” by a remote and detached bureaucracy that doesn’t seem to care the impacts or crisis it is enabling.

This pain, this confusion, anger and frustration is compounded as every time people call the department they are directed to this hotline number and every time people call this number they are told they can’t comment on centrelink issues.

No one is being held accountable, no one is acting in the best interests of forced trial participants. No one is formally documenting forced trial participant distress..no one seems to care.

Worse, the department is hiding its blatant discrimination against people in poverty and especially, people with disabilities living in poverty behind the use of ‘payment types’, which all but removes people in Jodie’s position from exercising their right to progress a Disability discrimination case via the Human Right Commission.

Is Jacqui right and this entire process is just a scam to entertain and keep forced trial participants and card resistors quiet?

Jodie, thank you for posting this, for brave the call and letting people hear your voice and the reality of your circumstances.

We will join you in making loud noises and keep fighting with you.

- SNS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-3y71jDp9E&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2cQ2BjIeNmw3T7D9xCuO_cdGE8EGWf3kxQrY3GHKcu_d-q12GawevoLYI

sarahs mum said:

The Say NO Seven
55 mins ·

🤬👉#OPT_OUT_FAILURE

Conscious cruelty in action as Jodie calls CDC hotline to find out what is happening to her exit application which has now been in limbo for over SIX MONTHS. Jodie has met all demands, had her interviews and still she waits for approval.

To date NOT ONE forced trial participant exit application has been approved and the departments patronising excuse that applications are ‘in progress’ with no time frame being offered is NOT acceptable!

Jodie is 100% right – if any other business took this long to process a simple application they’d be broke or in front of an ombudsman.

Jodie struggles on just $4.00 a day for food, as Indue’s 28 day payment cycle forces her to use her cash portion and ‘extra’ $200 allocation of cash per month to cover her rent just so she doesn’t get evicted.

Hundreds of millions in public money has been wasted on this policy, promised ‘wrap around services’ funding has not been spent, and emotional and psychological support is non existent. Staff do not seem aware of the 28 day rent cycle issue at all and the ping pong between departments is just cruel.

As you can hear, heart breaking despair increases as people who have no choice but to remain on ‘trigger’ payments are continuously being, in Jodie’s precise word, “stonewalled” by a remote and detached bureaucracy that doesn’t seem to care the impacts or crisis it is enabling.

This pain, this confusion, anger and frustration is compounded as every time people call the department they are directed to this hotline number and every time people call this number they are told they can’t comment on centrelink issues.

No one is being held accountable, no one is acting in the best interests of forced trial participants. No one is formally documenting forced trial participant distress..no one seems to care.

Worse, the department is hiding its blatant discrimination against people in poverty and especially, people with disabilities living in poverty behind the use of ‘payment types’, which all but removes people in Jodie’s position from exercising their right to progress a Disability discrimination case via the Human Right Commission.

Is Jacqui right and this entire process is just a scam to entertain and keep forced trial participants and card resistors quiet?

Jodie, thank you for posting this, for brave the call and letting people hear your voice and the reality of your circumstances.

We will join you in making loud noises and keep fighting with you.

- SNS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-3y71jDp9E&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2cQ2BjIeNmw3T7D9xCuO_cdGE8EGWf3kxQrY3GHKcu_d-q12GawevoLYI

But you must be realistic about this. Very few if any would vote LNP and therein lies the problem.

sarahs mum said:

The Say NO Seven
55 mins ·

🤬👉#OPT_OUT_FAILURE

Conscious cruelty in action as Jodie calls CDC hotline to find out what is happening to her exit application which has now been in limbo for over SIX MONTHS. Jodie has met all demands, had her interviews and still she waits for approval.

To date NOT ONE forced trial participant exit application has been approved and the departments patronising excuse that applications are ‘in progress’ with no time frame being offered is NOT acceptable!

Jodie is 100% right – if any other business took this long to process a simple application they’d be broke or in front of an ombudsman.

Jodie struggles on just $4.00 a day for food, as Indue’s 28 day payment cycle forces her to use her cash portion and ‘extra’ $200 allocation of cash per month to cover her rent just so she doesn’t get evicted.

Hundreds of millions in public money has been wasted on this policy, promised ‘wrap around services’ funding has not been spent, and emotional and psychological support is non existent. Staff do not seem aware of the 28 day rent cycle issue at all and the ping pong between departments is just cruel.

As you can hear, heart breaking despair increases as people who have no choice but to remain on ‘trigger’ payments are continuously being, in Jodie’s precise word, “stonewalled” by a remote and detached bureaucracy that doesn’t seem to care the impacts or crisis it is enabling.

This pain, this confusion, anger and frustration is compounded as every time people call the department they are directed to this hotline number and every time people call this number they are told they can’t comment on centrelink issues.

No one is being held accountable, no one is acting in the best interests of forced trial participants. No one is formally documenting forced trial participant distress..no one seems to care.

Worse, the department is hiding its blatant discrimination against people in poverty and especially, people with disabilities living in poverty behind the use of ‘payment types’, which all but removes people in Jodie’s position from exercising their right to progress a Disability discrimination case via the Human Right Commission.

Is Jacqui right and this entire process is just a scam to entertain and keep forced trial participants and card resistors quiet?

Jodie, thank you for posting this, for brave the call and letting people hear your voice and the reality of your circumstances.

We will join you in making loud noises and keep fighting with you.

- SNS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-3y71jDp9E&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2cQ2BjIeNmw3T7D9xCuO_cdGE8EGWf3kxQrY3GHKcu_d-q12GawevoLYI

probably a misuse of bureaucracy in there, beware what words you use, bureaucracies can be very good at delivering services, in this case it’s a destruction of an instrument of welfare delivery

Yes Minister didn’t do bureaucracy much credit, but you know poms would be speaking German probably if they didn’t have a very effective one during WW2

transition said:

sarahs mum said:

The Say NO Seven
55 mins ·

🤬👉#OPT_OUT_FAILURE

Conscious cruelty in action as Jodie calls CDC hotline to find out what is happening to her exit application which has now been in limbo for over SIX MONTHS. Jodie has met all demands, had her interviews and still she waits for approval.

To date NOT ONE forced trial participant exit application has been approved and the departments patronising excuse that applications are ‘in progress’ with no time frame being offered is NOT acceptable!

Jodie is 100% right – if any other business took this long to process a simple application they’d be broke or in front of an ombudsman.

Jodie struggles on just $4.00 a day for food, as Indue’s 28 day payment cycle forces her to use her cash portion and ‘extra’ $200 allocation of cash per month to cover her rent just so she doesn’t get evicted.

Hundreds of millions in public money has been wasted on this policy, promised ‘wrap around services’ funding has not been spent, and emotional and psychological support is non existent. Staff do not seem aware of the 28 day rent cycle issue at all and the ping pong between departments is just cruel.

As you can hear, heart breaking despair increases as people who have no choice but to remain on ‘trigger’ payments are continuously being, in Jodie’s precise word, “stonewalled” by a remote and detached bureaucracy that doesn’t seem to care the impacts or crisis it is enabling.

This pain, this confusion, anger and frustration is compounded as every time people call the department they are directed to this hotline number and every time people call this number they are told they can’t comment on centrelink issues.

No one is being held accountable, no one is acting in the best interests of forced trial participants. No one is formally documenting forced trial participant distress..no one seems to care.

Worse, the department is hiding its blatant discrimination against people in poverty and especially, people with disabilities living in poverty behind the use of ‘payment types’, which all but removes people in Jodie’s position from exercising their right to progress a Disability discrimination case via the Human Right Commission.

Is Jacqui right and this entire process is just a scam to entertain and keep forced trial participants and card resistors quiet?

Jodie, thank you for posting this, for brave the call and letting people hear your voice and the reality of your circumstances.

We will join you in making loud noises and keep fighting with you.

- SNS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-3y71jDp9E&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2cQ2BjIeNmw3T7D9xCuO_cdGE8EGWf3kxQrY3GHKcu_d-q12GawevoLYI

probably a misuse of bureaucracy in there, beware what words you use, bureaucracies can be very good at delivering services, in this case it’s a destruction of an instrument of welfare delivery

Yes Minister didn’t do bureaucracy much credit, but you know poms would be speaking German probably if they didn’t have a very effective one during WW2

I wonder what sort of resources are allocated, enough to process claims within an acceptable time frame and they are incompetent or not enough and they are also incompetent or even worse deliberate slow action. It really shouldn’t take long at all if the system are digital

transition said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-3y71jDp9E&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2cQ2BjIeNmw3T7D9xCuO_cdGE8EGWf3kxQrY3GHKcu_d-q12GawevoLYI

probably a misuse of bureaucracy in there, beware what words you use, bureaucracies can be very good at delivering services, in this case it’s a destruction of an instrument of welfare delivery

Yes Minister didn’t do bureaucracy much credit, but you know poms would be speaking German probably if they didn’t have a very effective one during WW2

The opt out clause happened because the the labor party added the clause and then helped vote the bill through. Oh..they thought they were so clever.