The cashless welfare card proposed by the mining magnate Andrew Forrest would only make life more difficult for Australia’s poor and send the message that they cannot be trusted with cash, say community and Indigenous groups.

In a joint statement the 37 groups – including Mission Australia, Homelessness Australia, St Vincent de Paul Society, the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait lslander Legal Services and several state councils of social service – called on the federal government not to accept the recommendation from Forrest’s review into Indigenous jobs and training.

The groups welcomed the “increased investment in early childhood education, comprehensive case management for vulnerable families, increased engagement between schools and parents and demand-led employment approaches” in the Forrest report.

However, they were “united” in opposition to the “healthy welfare card”, which they believed would be “demeaning, invasive, unworkable and bureaucratic, creating an entire subclass of millions of people in the Australian community”, read the statement.

“The objectives of welfare reform should be to ensure payments are adequate to meet basic living costs, support employment participation, target assistance according to need and to ensure that the administration of payments respects the dignity of people relying on income support.”

The proposed welfare card, modelled on the Basics Card which operates in some areas, would quarantine payments on to a card which can be used in shops where there is credit or Eftpos payment systems, except alcohol and gaming outlets, in an effort to “block those goods and services – such as alcohol, drugs and gambling – that damage health, family wellbeing and ability to enter or return to work”, the review said.

Critics, including the community organisations, point to the common $10 minimum spend in shops and instances such as school excursions which would cause problems for the recipient.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/dec/14/indigenous-and-community-groups-condemn-cashless-welfare-card-plan

It was a view reinforced by the four white media spokespeople on ABC’s The Drum last night, who all apparently still believe Abbott truly has the best interests of blackfellas at heart, despite everything he has ever done pointing in the opposite direction. 


Tudge’s social media promotion of CDP is just one part of this campaign. 


The Community Development Programme (CDP), may sound deceptively similar to the Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP), an Aboriginal devised and controlled employment scheme from the 70s, but it is far from it. 


In reality CDP is the re-badged incarnation of the Remote Jobs and Communities Programme (RJCP), which replaced CDEP in remote areas after the Howard government began dismantling the successful Aboriginal devised ‘work for the dole’ programme, with Labor finishing it off. 


Toughening the requirements of RJCP was the first recommendation adopted by the Abbott government from mining magnate Andrew Forrest’s Creating Parity review. 


The $1.5 billion work-for-the-dole programme has been operating in 60 remote communities since July 2013. Earlier this year, Indigenous affairs minister Nigel Scullion announced he would be making the provisions of the programme even stricter – rather than working 16 hours a week for Newstart wages, RJCP participants would instead by required to work 25 hours for five days a week, over 52 weeks in order to receive those payments, or risk having them cut off.

It lead to immediate criticism across the country that the Abbott government was condemning Aboriginal workers to the days before equal wages, with remote area participants receiving under award wages of less than $10 an hour.

In fact, the peak body for Australian workers – the ACTU – have been one of the most vocal opponents of the programme. 


Instead of looking at alternatives - more community-controlled solutions to Aboriginal employment, even re-visiting CDEP and nutting out some of the problems - Scullion has instead simply renamed the programme, changing it to the CDP