Independent senator Jacquie Lambie says “the government has a problem” with the rollout of its controversial cashless debit card, after her fact-finding visit to the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

Lambie visited several remote Aboriginal communities to “get a view from the ground on how the card is functioning, before voting on the government’s proposed changes for its future”, she said. Most of the people she spoke to “didn’t know any change was being proposed at all”.

“Those that do know about it are scared and angry about the prospect of a big policy change that hasn’t been properly explained to them. Some of that’s down to confusion, some of that’s not.



“The government has a problem here. They assured me these communities had been consulted, yet almost all the people I spoke to with had no idea the Basics card was going to be replaced.”

The Basics card is the income management regime introduced under the Intervention 12 years ago. Half a person’s income is held on the card, and there are restrictions on what the card can be used for. Cardholders cannot use it to withdraw cash from automatic teller machines or EFTPOS terminals, or to buy alcohol, tobacco, pornography or gambling products.

The government plans to replace it with the cashless debit card (CDC), being trialled in Ceduna in South Australia, East Kimberley in Western Australia, the Goldfields in WA and Hervey Bay in Queensland with mixed results.

“Anecdotally I would agree with the minister that for some trial sites the news is good,” Lambie said. “I know the card is controversial, but honestly you go and talk to these people and you’ll see it for yourself. They’re literally fearful of a future without the card.”

But Lambie said the real aim should be “to get people off the card altogether”.

“That doesn’t happen if there aren’t the jobs. And you don’t get people who’ve been unemployed for a generation into a job if you don’t invest in them. We’re on a hiding to nothing if we’re not building up their skills and confidence. All we’re doing is changing what it’s like to be on welfare.



“And the rhetoric from every politician that talks about this is that they’re investing in the services, but I’ll tell you, come up here and see for yourself ... Almost all of the sites I visited – and I visited a few – said they’d been promised healthcare, jobs training, careers counselling, rehab services, you name it. And they’re not happy, because they’re on those cards, and they’re still waiting for help for them to get off it.”

There are more than 21,000 people on income management in the NT and 83% of them are Indigenous, according to social services data.

Labor senator Malarndirri McCarthy travelled with Lambie across central Australia and the top end. “I’m really pleased that Senator Lambie came to the NT to spend the time that she did,” McCarthy said. “All I’m urging the crossbenchers to do is listen to the people and see the evidence for yourself in the Northern Territory.”

The social services minister, Anne Ruston, also visited the NT last week, in the wake of Lambie’s tour. “I’m not going to second guess what Jacquie Lambie might do but I’m reasonably confident with the consultation that’s occurred,” Ruston told ABC Radio in Alice Springs.

“Consulting and getting people to understand are two different things. I am still hoping to get legislation through in February.”

Labor said it would not support the card unless it was voluntary. McCarthy questioned why, in rolling out the CDC, the government appeared to be removing restrictions on the purchase of tobacco and pornography currently in place in the NT.

When the intervention began in 2007, the Howard government said it was necessary to restrict these items to protect children in communities that were allegedly vulnerable to sexual exploitation.

“That’s a real concern,” McCarthy said. “It’s something I raised in October at Senate estimates … and the department couldn’t give me an explanation as to why the decision was made. There’s no evidence base, there’s no research, there’s no policy decision. It’s just porn’s now available, same as smoking.”

Ruston said the change was to keep consistency across trial sites. “When the CDC first rolled out it was community harm, not individual harm, that was one of the biggest drivers,” she said on ABC Radio.

The cashless debit card would roll out over nine months and she had “already decided to make some changes based on this visit”, she said. But the anecdotal evidence that it was working was “very, very strong”.

An independent review of the CDC, by researchers at the University of Adelaide, is due to be released next week.