Payments quarantined

THOUSANDS of Australian families are greatly relieved that their addicted family member has had 80% of their dole payments quarantined for healthy essentials. Now they can feed their families.

Many of these families pressured the former Coalition government to “do something” about dole payments being squandered on drugs, alcohol and gambling. That pressure came from several groups, primarily indigenous groups and parents of drugaddicted children who themselves have children.

This led to the introduction of the Cashless Debit Card which quarantined 80% of dole payments for healthy essentials.

In communities where the card is being trialled (originally just Indigenous but now some mainstream communities), grocery sales are up, alcohol sales are down, ambulance callouts are down and reported domestic violence is down.

Ceduna (SA) mayor Alan Smith said, “This is the best thing we’ve ever had.”

The former federal government trialled the Cashless Debit Card in Queensland (Bundaberg and Hervey Bay) with similar positive results.

Elsewhere though, youth crime and domestic violence are rising exponentially, including in Toowoomba. The plan was to trial the card in more Queensland communities. All indications are that it works as planned.

Interestingly Labor’s Groom candidate, during the last election campaign, labelled it as “disgusting”.

Now the new federal Labor government has declared that it intends to scrap the Cashless Debit Card.

The Cashless Debit Card is cost effective and it works as planned so please can we keep it and trial it further.

NEIL MUNRO, Toowoomba