Welfare recipients to trial Healthy Welfare Card
A new income management trial, which starts tomorrow, will see welfare recipients have 80 per cent of their payments restricted to a specialised debit card that cannot be used to withdraw cash, buy alcohol or gamble online.
By TRAVIS JONES
A new income management trial will see welfare recipients have 80 per cent of their payments restricted to a specialised debit card that cannot be used to withdraw cash, buy alcohol or gamble online.
The Healthy Welfare Card trial, beginning on March 15, will affect Kununurra and Wyndham in Western Australia, and Ceduna in South Australia.
The card will apply to Newstart, disability support pensions, parenting payments and carers' payments.
The new system, which passed Federal Parliament last October with bipartisan support, does not reduce the amount of the welfare payment. Instead, these cards limit access to money that could be spent fuelling addictions or gambling.
Ceduna Mayor Allan Suter said he was confident the trial would meet these goals.
“We see this trial as an opportunity to help some people that desperately need help … I’m very confident that we will get the ideal outcome.”
Extra funding will be given to local addiction support programs, including $1 million in Ceduna.
In the original plan, which was proposed by mining magnate Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest, 100 per cent of the funds were to be assigned to the card, moving welfare into an entirely cashless system.
Mr Suter said this would have been unfair. "There is a need for some amount of cash,” he said.
The Greens have criticised the trials for discriminating against unemployed people and Aboriginal communities.
Australian Unemployed Workers' Union president Owen Bennett labelled the program “economic apartheid" for its focus on communities with large indigenous populations.
“What else would you call subjecting one section of society to being able to spend their money the way that they want, and another section of poor, vulnerable people not being able to spend their money where they want?” he said.
During a protest against the trial on Saturday, Mr Bennett said it was a retread of the "basics card", a program in the Northern Territory covering 17,500 welfare recipients, of which 90 per cent identify as Aboriginal.
Mr Suter said the comments were “totally ludicrous” and that the program in Ceduna, which is almost 25 per cent indigenous, only came about after a rigorous consultation process with community leaders.
“The same group of people is against every form of process … they can live in a cave and hunt mammoths if they choose,” he added.
Should the trial prove successful it is likely that it will be implemented nationwide, according to the Federal Government.
