Leaders of three communities that are expected to be announced as the new trial sites for the cashless welfare card have met Andrew Forrest in Perth as the Western Australian parliament released new data casting doubt on the effectiveness of the card in the East Kimberley.
The mayors of Logan in Queensland and Port Hedland in WA, along with the president of Laverton shire in WA, have joined the mining magnate to lobby the Turnbull government for the rollout of the cashless debit card program to their communities.
The human services minister, Alan Tudge, will introduce legislation to parliament on Thursday that will allow the trial of the card to be expanded beyond the two existing trial sites in the East Kimberley and the South Australian town of Ceduna. It will also lift the expiry date of the trials, allowing them to continue indefinitely.
In a joint interview with Guardian Australia, the local government leaders and Wyndham Aboriginal leaders Bianca Crake and Jean O’Reeri, who have supported the rollout of the card in East Kimberley, said the income management tool was the best available option to reduce alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence, and sexual abuse in their communities.
But data released to the Greens MP Robin Chapple in the WA Legislative Council suggested that rates of some crimes had increased in Kununurra, which is one of two towns in the East Kimberley trial site, since the card was introduced in April 2016.
The data from WA police showed a 77% increase in charges for threatening behaviour, a 19.9% increase in charges for offences against property and a 41% increase in theft offences.
The increases were in line with crime data from other Kimberley communities, including Broome, Derby, Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing.
In contrast, Wyndham, the other town in the East Kimberley trial site, showed no change in the number of threatening behaviour offences, an 18% decrease in the number of offences against property, and a 34% decrease in the number of theft offences. Fitzroy Crossing also reported a 15% decrease in theft offences.
A Melbourne University researcher, Dr Elise Klein, who has been conducting a research project on the impact of the card in Kununurra, said the federal government had not produced sufficient evidence to justify expanding the cashless welfare card trials.
At an inquest into Indigenous suicide in the Kimberley this week, Klein said the card had become “a symbol of disempowerment and oppression” in Kununurra and added to the feeling of “hopelessness” of many in the community.
The card is given to all people within the trial area who rely on welfare or income support payments, except for aged pensioners or veterans. It quarantines 80% of their fortnightly payments into a card that cannot be used to buy alcohol or take part in gambling.
Klein told Guardian Australia she was “extremely critical” of the decision to extend the card’s trial, saying the government’s own evaluation did not make the case for it continuing.
The government announced in April that it would extend the trial on the back of an independent evaluation which found the card had been “effective to date” but also that 49% of people on the card said it had made their lives worse, while only 22% said it had made their lives better.
“The card has become a symbol of disempowerment and frustration,” Klein said. “There’s a reason why people call it ‘the white card’ even though it’s grey. It’s seen a symbol of neo-colonialism, of oppression, of a return to the ration days.”
O’Reeri, who sits on the Wyndham advisory group for the cashless debit card, said she “totally supports” the card.
“There has actually been a reduction in violence and crime and the ambulance been going out,” she said. “It’s not going to solve all our problems but at least it’s a good thing that we think changes in our community … So critics like you and others that are saying things about our community should come over to our township and find out what’s happening in our town.”
O’Reeri said the card had “empowered us, more than anything”.
“We have so much programs owing out and they have failed us, so we have this cashless debit card that’s giving us the tools to work on it and equipping us better to make differences in our community,” she said.
Bruce Smith, an Aboriginal elder who met Tudge when he visited WA’s Goldfields this year, said he believed the cashless debit card was “the only way we can see of helping our people” and invited its critics to visit his community. “Then you’ll be able to understand, understand our position, in terms of the outcry that we’re having. We need this to work.”
The Laverton shire president, Patrick Hill, said: “We see this as one avenue ... one positive avenue that we want to see introduced as quickly as possible. Hopefully tomorrow.”
Logan’s mayor, Luke Smith, said his first discussions about the card “has been with Andrew Forrest and his wife, Nicola”, but he was impressed by what he’d heard. If it was supported by a local consultation process “we will absolutely stand side-by-side with the chairman of Fortescue Metal Group in front of the prime minister to call on a trial in the city of Logan”, he said.
Forrest has been criticised for not disclosing his role in developing the card in videos produced by the Minderoo Foundation, which describe it as a community-led initiative.
He called the Greens “the party for paedophiles” after the WA senator Rachel Siewert criticised the foundation’s latest video, shown to the prime minister, which described some communities in the Pilbara, including Port Hedland, as a “war zone” and suggested the card would reduce child sexual abuse.
Malcolm Turnbull flagged a national roll-out of the card last year.
Speaking on ABC’s AM on Thursday, Tudge said the card would be rolled out to new communities in “the next few weeks”.
“We’ve done a lot of work on the ground in those communities and we’re rolling them out in places where there’s been a lot of community support and where there’s a demonstrable need,” he said.
He did not criticise Forrest’s comments, or the description of communities as a “war zone”, but said: “That’s not the language that I’d use.”
“I’ve spent a lot of time in these communities … some of them are very damaged communities, where the crime rate is off the charts, the sexual abuse rates are off the charts, the assaults of women are off the charts, and a lot of that is fuelled by alcohol paid for by the taxpayer,” he said.
Tudge said the card was “not a panacea” but was reducing alcohol abuse and gambling.
Klein said it the video had been “marketed to create hysteria” and made “claims that need to be further investigated”.
“There’s no evidence that a silver debit card can address the problems that they say it will,” she said.
Port Hedland’s mayor Camilo Blanco, who also appeared in the video, dismissed the criticism, saying “unconfirmed reports from within Canberra” suggested that the final evaluation report of the first 12 months of the trial in Ceduna and the East Kimberley – which is yet to be released – “far exceeds the government’s expectations” and was “going to give us some really good figures”.
- Editor’s note: this article was amended on 24 August. The original version wrongly said there had been an 18% increase in the number of offences against property in Wyndham.
