Senator threat to welfare hopes

CRUCIAL Senate crossbencher Jacqui Lambie is threatening to torpedo two controversial plans targeting welfare recipients.

The Government wants to expand cashless welfare card trials and drug test thousands of Newstart and Youth Allowance recipients.

Senator Lambie initially indicated she would “absolutely” support the drug-testing trials if federal politicians were also screened for illicit substances.

However, the Tasmanian senator has now backflipped, and wants to see proof more rehabilitation centres are established.

“I won’t be supporting it unless I can see the rehabilitation services and the services that these people need to kick their habit are actually set up,” she told the Nine Network yesterday.

The legislation includes a $10 million “treatment fund” to boost rehabilitation services across the trial sites.

Senator Lambie has also softened her support of the Government’s plans to extend cashless welfare card trials to other sites across the country.

“It’s not ready to be rolled out nationally yet – it’s still got tweaks to the card – so until that’s perfected properly it cannot be rolled out anyway,” she told reporters in Canberra.

“It certainly has good intentions, though.”

The Australian Council of Social Service is urging Parliament to reject the Government’s “demeaning, expensive” drug-testing plan and the expansion of the “impractical” cashless welfare card.

“Cashless debit and drug testing compound the sense of shame many people feel about being unemployed,” ACOSS senior adviser Charmaine Crowe said.

Cashless welfare cards, which quarantine 80 per cent of payments so they can only be spent on essentials, are currently in use across four trial sites in South Australia, West

I WON’T BE SUPPORTING IT UNLESS I CAN SEE THE REHABILITATION SERVICES ARE ACTUALLY SET UP ...

ern Australia and Queensland.

Deputy opposition leader Richard Marles confirmed Labor remained opposed to a nationwide rollout.

“It’s for the Government to actually explain the basis on which it sees a benefit in this being rolled out,” he told the ABC. “The auditor-general has been scathing about the effectiveness of this where it has been tried.”

However, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson is confident the cards are working. “It’s actually cut back on domestic violence, people on drugs, people who are actually on alcohol. Kids are going to school, so it has worked in areas,” she said.