2GB Sydney with Warren Moore
E&OE.
WARREN MOORE:
The Assistant Minister for Social Services is Alan Tudge who is overseeing the roll out of the card. He’s on the line right now. Thanks for your time
ALAN TUDGE:
G’day, how’s it going?
WARREN MOORE:
Good, good. We’re only what, a month or so away from the trial of this card?
ALAN TUDGE:
Yeah that’s right. We’ve identified two trial sights already; one in Ceduna, in South Australia which will start in March. And then the second one will be up in the Kimberley in Western Australia and it will start in April or May, and we’re also in negotiation for a third trial site.
WARREN MOORE:
Okay. Now the initial idea was of course to combat problems in remote indigenous communities, but the question is, why can’t we tackle the problems across society with welfare payments being wasted?
ALAN TUDGE:
Yes that’s a good question. We’re dealing with this issue because we were recommended to it from Andrew Forrest and he actually recommended that a card like this apply across the board.
We decided to just trial this in a couple of areas first, see whether it works, see whether it has the desired effect on reducing some of the welfare fuelled alcohol, drug and gambling abuse, and if it does work, then we will consider rolling it out further.
Now Western Australia have already got several regional centres who have contacted me or my colleagues saying, “Listen we’d like to have this introduced into our area.” Obviously should the trials be successful, a logical next step might be to at least roll it out into those areas, but we’ll also be thinking about how it might be rolled out further afield as well.
WARREN MOORE:
Okay, well I guess I have to get to the chase about what The Australian’s reporting on their front page today and that is the suggestion that the policy of rolling it out across the board could be taken to the election. Is that going to be the case?
ALAN TUDGE:
We haven’t decided our election policies yet. We’re just taking one step at a time. We had the recommendation from Andrew Forrest, we’ve agreed to trial it, we’re going to assess the trials and then we’re going to make further decisions.
Already as I said, I think that at the very least, we’ll be able to roll it out further to those communities that are requesting it, that have…. basically those communities that have significant welfare dependence and significant welfare fuelled alcohol, drug and gambling abuse.
Now, they’re particularly prevalent in some indigenous communities, but it’s not exclusive to indigenous ones. As you know, it can be across the board where too much of the welfare dollar is spent on those substances. That doesn’t just harm the individual who is consuming say the alcohol or the drugs, but as we know, it can actually damage the entire community, particularly something like ice, or if you drink too much and become violent, and then you find that women and children are affected as well.
WARREN MOORE:
Well that’s the concern isn’t it? Someone gets their welfare payment, they’re off either on ice, gambling, alcohol, smokes, and the kids are starving.
ALAN TUDGE:
Yeah, and the kids end up without food on the table in some instances. Now, this is precisely what we are trying to address with this card. The card in essence is an ordinary Visa debit card. It looks almost identical to the one that you or some of your listeners will have in their pocket right now but it’s programmed to work at absolutely every single store in the country to purchase whatever you like but it won’t work at a single bottle shop in the country, it won’t work at a single gambling house and you won’t be able to withdraw cash from it. So, in that way of course you can’t purchase those illicit substances. We think that through the design of this, it still gives a lot of freedom to individuals to spend their welfare dollar as they please, but just not on those substances which we note can cause significant damage to the community.
WARREN MOORE:
If you were to roll it out more widespread, including into cities, would you, in the city context, have it across the board, or would you just give it to people who you thought were a problem verses penalising those who may not?
ALAN TUDGE:
Listen, we just haven’t contemplated that at this stage. We really are at the beginning of the process where we’ve got a trial which are about to begin, we want to assess and see how that goes, learn from those trials, and then make further decisions after that.
WARREN MOORE:
I mean obviously with you being involved in the social services portfolio as the Assistant Minister, you’d be very aware of some of the cases, we’ve heard some of the cases today for that matter, when you end up with this generational problem of welfare dependency and of all the socioeconomic violence, crime, drug problems that go with it?
ALAN TUDGE:
Yeah, that’s exactly right, I think that’s one of the real challenges for our society when you have people who become dependent on welfare and then it becomes multi-generational.
WARREN MOORE:
Yeah, it does.
ALAN TUDGE:
And kids grow up without ever seeing an adult in their household working. We’ve got to change that situation; we’ve got to break that cycle.
WARREN MOORE:
And understand that they have a responsibility, a social charter if you like, to actually try and make themselves and earn some money.
ALAN TUDGE:
Yeah, well I think that’s right, and that’s one of the reasons why we’ve reintroduced ‘work for the dole’ because at least its giving something back to the community for your welfare payment. From the individual’s perspective it actually keeps your skills high and keeps your motivation high to actually get a real job, because if you’re working several…. 20-30 hours a week in any case on a work for the dole scheme for not much money, you may as well go and get a job, an entry level job for a bit more money and have a real job.
WARREN MOORE:
Well it’s also about esteem isn’t it really? Not only thinking you’re contributing to society, but having a reason to get up of a day, to actually get your butt out of the house and at the end of the day to actually feel like you’ve done something.
ALAN TUDGE:
That’s exactly right, I mean we often say the best form of welfare is a job, and it’s absolutely true because it does provide that dignity. It provides a motivation, and for most of us an organising principle in our life is having work. You get up, you have to go through the day – or some people work at night, you’re raising your own money, so there is that dignity attached to it as well.
That’s why we’re doing everything we can to try to break that passive welfare dependence through things like Work for the Dole, through making it a bit tougher to get onto some of the other schemes, such as Disability Support Pension, and of course we have the overall macro problem being the sustainability.
WARREN MOORE:
Well that’s a big one isn’t it?
ALAN TUDGE:
Because it’s already a third of the budget and growing quite rapidly, we need to make that sustainable so that this welfare system is there for the long haul and is there for what it’s intended to be there for.
WARREN MOORE:
Yeah I mean this isn’t the reason I got you on today, but I did notice those stories going around this week, that by using things such as government appointed doctors to look at people who are on disability pensions, that you expect to have substantial savings in that area.
ALAN TUDGE:
Yeah that’s right. Well for the first time actually, we’ve had a decline in the number of people on the Disability Support Pension, almost entirely due to that measure alone and previously up until that point the Disability Support Pension numbers were increasing by about 50,000 per annum. They were up to, I think it peaked at about 830,000 people, on the Disability Support Pension.
We introduced quite a simple measure and that is that you have to go to a government appointed doctor for them to make the assessment that you are unable to work. If they make that assessment, then of course you are eligible for the Disability Support Pension. That has had quite an affect already.
WARREN MOORE:
Just to go back where we started, I obviously gave you a call, the front page story of the Australian today, they might be going to the election with the policy of rolling out the healthy welfare card across the country, the trial beginning next month in a couple of remote indigenous communities, but it seems it might be a bit overstated, you can’t actually say to us it’s going to be rolled out as an election policy.
ALAN TUDGE:
Oh listen, it’s too early to say at this stage.
WARREN MOORE:
It would be good if it was, just saying.
ALAN TUDGE:
We’re certainly considering, even at this early stage, what we might do with the card, should the trial be successful.
WARREN MOORE:
Okay, thanks for your time, much appreciated.
ALAN TUDGE:
No worries, thanks so much.