Better services please

Lambie ties welfare card support to improved facilities for the poor

JACQUI Lambie has walked back support for a cashless welfare card trial national rollout unless more support services are put in place.

The Senate powerbroker, pictured, says Ceduna is “going great guns” and has “really cleaned up” since its trial began in 2016 but won’t back a wider rollout, flagged by Scott Morrison in September.

“I believe the card will work if they put 110 per cent into it rather than 50 per cent,” Senator Lambie said after her first trip to Ceduna in three years this week.

The Tasmanian senator called for Australia’s big four banks to find their “social conscience” and offer cashless cards to remove stigma over the Indue cards for participants.

“The good thing about Ceduna is everybody is glad to have it,” Senator Lambie said.

But she was “disappointed” to see support services had not improved more since she last visited.

More mental health services, drug rehabilitation facilities and vocational education opportunities were needed in town, she said. A sobering-up facility also needed more funding.

“There’ll be no national rollout going on today or tomorrow, I can tell you that much,” she said.

But she said the card, which quarantines 80 per cent of welfare payments so it cannot be used for alcohol, drugs or gambling, was “close” to working if support services and technical issues were addressed.

Last month, it was reported she would likely back a national rollout. Senator Lambie will visit the West Australian and the Queensland trials in coming months.

Centre Alliance MP Rebekha Sharkie has not ruled out backing a national rollout after her first visit to Ceduna this week with Senator Lambie but will wait to see a University of Adelaide review of the trial, to be released later this year or early 2020.

“My takeaway was Ceduna is a beautiful place,” Ms Sharkie said.

“I have heard from other people in the community who are not on the card that the town centre has been reinvigorated and that the foreshore is a family friendlier place now.

“Whether the card has been effective in transitioning people to employment, I don’t have that data yet.”

Ms Sharkie also said there were mixed views of the trial in town and that the card alone was not a “panacea” for broader anti-social behaviour issues in the region.

Social Services Minister Anne Ruston said the Federal Government was assessing support services available to ensure they meet community needs ahead of a proposed Northern Territory and Cape York rollout, “as we would with any further roll out of the program”.