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“Driver’s licenses for workers to be restricted for the common good”

By Tina Clausen

The Cashless Debit Card – Income Management Scheme

Currently a bill is up for voting in Parliament in order to extend the existing ongoing years long ‘trials’ already happening in many places. This is to be done via imposing this draconian scheme on anyone of any age on any kind of social security benefit or pension, beginning with the Northern Territory (for now). (See links provided below).

The income management scheme is advertised as being a way to stop people using social security benefits/pensions on alcohol, gambling products and drugs, but not to worry as everything else is business as usual.

Nothing could be further from the truth. It restricts so much more than that, it is not just like an ordinary debit card in any other way.

Stripping away people’s right to manage their own finances, making them second-class citizens, having to endure abuse and stigmatisation, being automatically branded as drug/alcohol abusers, being financially worse off due to extra fees and charges for using the card, plus penalties for when Indue fail to pay bills set up for direct debit is all OK by you?

Being denied opportunities to make ends meet by accessing cheaper options via markets, garage sales, eBay, buy/sell groups, many online stores, cash in hand sales/repairs etc, is OK by you?

Many people don’t seem to realise that eBay, Gumtree, a large proportion of on-line businesses as well as many physical stores selling ordinary goods, plus local eating and entertainment places are on ‘Indue’s block list as you could potentially buy alcohol from them. Other excluded businesses have just not bothered to apply to be on Indue’s ‘Approved Merchants’ list. A number have even deliberately decided not to be on it in order to exclude people on Centrelink benefits from accessing their services. Some of these include motels and caravan parks. This has had devastating consequences for some people fleeing domestic violence situations. It is also pure discrimination.

Having to justify to Indue why you should be allowed to spend money (and how much) on items like e.g., specialty bras, some trade services, text books, spare parts, specialised medical equipment needs, school excursions, second hand cars, someone to mow your lawn, attending a school fete, cash needed for transport on regional buses, buying second-hand uniforms, emergency replacement of a second hand fridge or washing machine, emergency car repairs, etc (many being situations where cash is generally asked for) then having to wait days for approval (or not) after submitting an affidavit, photos and a letter that the vendor has to supply, all that is still okay by you?

Having your financial/credit rating destroyed by Indue whenever they fail to pay your rent or bills in time or fail to process them at all, is okay by you? Potentially becoming homeless because of this, having your rental history destroyed and real estate agents blacklisting you for non or late rental payments, and/or at the very least, once again continually incurring financial penalties and extra fees and charges is all okay by you?

All in the name of ‘punishing’ those few who may ‘waste’ some of their social security benefit on alcohol or drugs, for example.

Everyone on any kind of social security payment (not just job seekers but also carers, people on the Disability Support Pension, students, single parents, veterans etc, all now just have to put up with this ‘inconvenience’ for the sake of the common good?

In that case, I have a great idea for making our streets and communities safer.

Many workers are caught drink driving, some lose their licenses as a result (equivalent to someone losing their Newstart allowance if they don’t fulfil their mutual obligations). Others are given restricted licenses, e.g. can only drive during set hours for work or during the day. (A bit like the touted spending restrictions of the Cashless Debit Card. Except of course that people forced onto the income management scheme have never been convicted of any actual wrongdoing, they are just automatically presumed ‘guilty’ due to the very ‘crime’ of receiving any kind of social security payment. Hmm, also let’s not quibble about the fact that people spending money on alcohol or gambling products is not actually illegal to begin with in this country).

Dangerous drunk/drug driving is a scourge on our roads and communities; it causes untold damage, destruction of lives and families, increased financial costs due to everyone’s insurance costs going up. I could go on and on.

Now, it would seem to me (using the logic of our politicians) that in the name of the common good all workers should immediately be placed on restricted licenses as there are obviously too many workers who can’t properly appreciate the privilege of having a driver’s license and having permission to drive on our roads. Now, you may protest that you don’t take drugs or drink alcohol in an irresponsible manner so why should you be treated like a second-class citizen, punished and ‘inconvenienced’ for the wrongdoing of a few workers?

Well, that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?

Are some people deemed more worthy of basic human rights than others in our society?

Be informed. The Bill for this has been put forward by our Government, look out all aged pensioners and anyone else on any type of social security payment. It was supposed to be about drugs and alcohol, but everyone is now arbitrarily targeted for the very crime of being a student, carer, job seeker, disabled, single parent, aged etc.

Recommended reading

“The Say NO Seven” Facebook group and their legislation fact sheet.

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

Text of the Bill

The explanatory memorandum

Submissions received (Out of the 172 submissions the Senate committee received the vast majority were against the card and had major concerns about how it operated and its negative effects on people. Our government chose to ignore those).

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14 comments

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  1. New England Cocky

    Uhm ….. so the Morriscum Liarbral nat$ misgovernment is imposing a “nanny state” on the unemployed deemed to be drunks, druggies and layabouts while allowing alcoholic, adulterous, politicians like Barnyard Joyce to swan around the country without submitting reports on the so-called “work” he is alleged to be doing while all the time plundering the Parliamentary Allowances Scheme with impunity?

    Well I guess that makes sense to the misgovernment because the Indue card is a nice big earner for the former leader of the nat$, Laurie Anthony, who lost the family political sinecure thanks to the metropolitan tree-changers demanding metropolitan standard medical, transport and education services that were then unavailable in the regional N NSW Richmond electorate.

    Even the pre-election promise of the Ballina By-Pass was insufficient bribery from then Minister for Transport John Anderson, now in retirement as the Chairman of another government fiasco, the Northern Inland Railway, that the NIR financial cost benefit analysis shows will NOT return the initial investment of about $700 MILLION within 50 years.

    It is fast becoming time for every good person to stand up and be counted in favour of Australian egalitarian democracy.

  2. Keitha Granville

    They had their chance to stand up democracy in May, they didn’t. They voted for self interest, they voted on fear, they voted for lies.

    There is no democracy, there is nothing.

  3. Baby Jewels

    I couldn’t agree more, New England Cocky. People forget it is WE who have the power but only when we work together. Sadly, I’m now convinced that Australians are too lazy and apathetic to get out of their own way so those of us who do something every single day of our lives to try to make things right, are going to be stuck in a third world despotic country run by religious zealots and fascists, or move elsewhere.

  4. Keitha Granville

    We had the chance for democracy in May, we threw it away

  5. IAN SMEDLEY

    What a brilliantly written article and in my opinion this is exactly how this stigma of Indue works. if the right-wing lunatics wish to be so vile and ruthless, then the way to go is exactly what has been said, indeed everyone holding a Licence should be put on a restriction because of the way the LNP would have us believe, that everyone has or is about to commit some type of crime and our wonderful Lying Nasty Party would just love to have complete control over everyone, especially those that rely on welfare. A disgrace to the Human race, and may all the inhumane, toxic Fascists rot in hell. This needs to be said by our so-called Partys that we voted for, but excellent article Tina Clausen, thank you.

  6. Phil Pryor

    There has never been a law to make people slut proof, decent, honest, responsible, so, if you want to be a sensible and successful crook, get into politics, military, police, corporate control, media maggoting or any contrived protected area of exploitation. You can make some things illegal, but you can’t make them unpopular and unattracive to the cunning, ruthless, non-moral, unethical, indecent. The world is stuffed and fallen because of criminality in religious superstition, political perversion, anti-social self indulgence, egomaniacal misbehaviouir and individual shortcoming of clarity of observation and pursuit of honesty. We seem not to give a fat rat’s date, and get leaders of that appearance, ringlike. The future??…more ego, crime, exploitation, dishonesty, pollution, stupidity and…horrible leaders.

  7. Kitty

    “The Say NO Seven” Facebook group is wonderful resource.

    This explains the full horror on the cashless welfare card.

    A full run down on the how the Indue cashless welfare card works
    If you are placed on a Cashless Debit Card

    As does this.
    Indue Cashless Debit Card Failure to Pay Rent
    •Sep 26, 2019

    What a nightmare!!!!

  8. Matters Not

    Re:

    the Indue card is a nice big earner for the former leader of the nat$, Laurie Anthony,

    Really? How much? Or is it just groundless speculation? Nothing beyond normal commercial arrangements? Rick Morton writing in The Saturday Paper stated:

    Larry Anthony ceased his directorship of Indue in October 2013, long before the most recent contracts were entered into with the government.

    Apparently he departed before the (supposed) big dollars hit the table. How very strange? Perhaps his ‘big earner’ comes via SAS, a political lobbying group whose first Chair was Con Sciacca – a doyen of the Labor Party? Again Morton informs re Anthony:

    continues as the group director of SAS Consulting Group, which kept Indue as a client until late 2017

    One wonders why Indue did not retain the services of SAS beyond 2017? (Perhaps because Sciacca – a real ALP power broker was dead? And the Chair of Indue – Petie – was then free of perceived obligation? etc)

    Personally, I would love to see some real, hard evidence And so would certain factions within the ALP. But to date it’s nothing more that speculation. Perhaps you can help with some links etc?

  9. Wobbley

    I hope everybody saw the the stitch up on 730 last night, what a wonderful piece of propaganda from the state run television station. Talk about lying by omition, the indue card is so so good that “everyone on welfare is rushing out to volunteer” for this insidious card, lol. If you think it’s right for the fascists to force every recipient of a government benefit on this bullshit then this country is no worse than a former fascist state in Europe in the thirties and forties. What has this country become??????

  10. Kaye Lee

    “Indue: Owned by COBA members – credit unions, banks mutuals.

    Larry Anthony:

    👉 Directed and chaired Indue LTD – stepped down 2013.

    👉 CEO of SAS holdings ( who were sole lobbyists for Indue LTD until August 2018).

    👉 Directed the industry body overseeing COBA members who own Indue Ltd.

    👉 Advisor to the US bank Bank of America currently underwriting Indue LTD.

    👉 Founding director of Australia’s largest Australian Government lobby group.

    👉 Sitting president of the National party – a political party in power pushing for Indue LTD cashless card roll outs.

    Says he has “no conflict of interest”? Really?

    We’re fully aware there is a large gap between unethical conflicts and illegal ones, yet it remains Larry Anthony’s implicit and explicit political influence, his corporate interests and financial influences via the Anthony Family Trust, SAS Holdings and Illallangi PTY LTD are beyond what can be considered reasonably ‘acceptable’ in today’s Parliament.”

  11. paul walter

    Yes, I gave up years ago on getting back my licence.

    Like the emu I am now a bird evolved to non flight, if it refers to owning and driving automobile. Maybe I am lucky, given the dumpster-load of regulations and expenses now involved in owning and running a car.

  12. blair

    umm, you forgot to mention that Indue is owned by Lib/Nat apparatchniks and donate to the Lib/Nat parties, not to mention Indue charges over $10K to administer the $13K a dole recipient receives, thereby almost doubling the cost to the taxpayer of anyone on the card!

  13. Brozza

    ‘blair’, you don’t have to worry about the administration costs for the indue cards.
    I’m sure the gummint can backdoor legislate the costs being passed onto the card recipients, so indue can automatically recoup their costs before the card is used.
    Of course, I’m only joking, but I’ll bet that it probably has been discussed in lying nazi party H.Q. ( The Führerbunker?)

  14. Gangey

    Oh come on people. Give moronscum and his pack of rats a go. they owe so much money to talcum turncoat for 2016, and will need even more to pay for the yellow ads in the next federal election. 60 mil wont cut it in 2022/3.
    https://thekeyz.wordpress.com/2017/03/27/how-the-australian-government-makes-billions-from-the-poor/
    Let us dole bludgers pay for everything, its about time we paid for our lifestyle. I mean, I could get a job, but I don’t qualify for a 457/8 visa, and since Australia doesn’t make anything any more, my areas of expertise are past their useby.
    I must say though, I have found it amusing that out of all of the recently emergency recalled cars, not one single model was built in Australia, but apparently we are to expensive for government assistance and subsidy.
    Sad really.

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