Cashless welfare card researcher rejects ‘completely inaccurate’ Andrew Forrest attack

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This was published 6 years ago

Cashless welfare card researcher rejects ‘completely inaccurate’ Andrew Forrest attack

By Hannah Barry
Updated

Billionaire WA philanthropist Andrew Forrest has continued his stringent defence of the cashless welfare card, despite new statistics from WA Police indicating a steady rise in theft and threatening behaviour in the East Kimberley since its introduction.

Mr Forrest led a delegation of civic leaders, experts and indigenous representatives to Canberra in order to present a confronting video about the treatment of indigenous children in WA regional communities.

Can Andrew Forrest create a new rugby union competition?

Can Andrew Forrest create a new rugby union competition?Credit: Fairfax Media

The short film showcases the shocking alcohol and drug-fuelled violence experienced by vulnerable remote communities, and was aimed at prompting an expansion of the cashless welfare card scheme.

The video attracted criticism from a range of experts, and Australian Greens senator Rachel Siewert told WAtoday the use of the video in pushing the cashless welfare card was "appalling".

"These clips are obviously designed to shock, and the use of the term "war zones" sounds like propaganda," she said.

"I feel so deeply for those who live in these communities who are labelled like this, and have deep concerns for the Aboriginal people who are collectively painted in this light.

"Using violent imagery then offering a one-dimensional, paternalistic and previously failed approach to a complex problem shows that Andrew Forrest is more concerned about furthering his ideologies than looking at what works."

Mr Forrest appeared on 6PR Perth Live with Oliver Peterson on Wednesday afternoon, and countered by accusing the Australian Greens Party of attempting to further their own ideology.

"It's purely ideological. They say it's a human right for someone to take all their human welfare and be paid in cash," he said.

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"I absolutely object to that. If that cash is getting converted into drugs and alcohol so they blow their own brains out so their kids hit the streets because it's a damn sight safer on the streets at 2 o'clock in the morning then it is at home, then I don't believe that is a human right."

Australian Greens Senator Rachel Siewert said the party had requested statistics from the WA Police, and had noted a "significant" increase in robbery and threatening behaviour in the East Kimberly town of Kununurra since the cashless card trial began.

"[Mr] Forrest has been in Canberra pushing for a further rollout of the top-down cashless welfare card with a violent and fear mongering video of Aboriginal communities in regional towns, but the Greens have obtained evidence though the WA parliament that shows crimes have increased in Kununurra since the card was introduced," she said.

"In figures provided by the WA Police we have seen a marked increase in non-aggravated robbery offences, theft, and threatening behaviour in the period that the card was introduced.

"The cashless welfare card was intended to control the incomes of anyone on income support as a supposed means of reducing drug and alcohol abuse. For those managing on a shoestring budget the card makes life more difficult, and those that are struggling with addiction will find ways around it. This has been evidenced repeatedly."

From June 2012 through to May 2015, the Kimberly regional police force recorded 22 aggravated robbery offences.

From June 2015 through to June 2017, police recorded a marked increase, with 31 aggravated robbery offences reported in the region.

"I urge the Federal Government to reconsider plans to expand the cashless welfare card to other regions and to end the trial sites in the East Kimberley and Ceduna. We need locally driven, well-resourced wrap around services to support those struggling with addiction," Senator Siewert said.

During the 6PR interview, Mr Forrest also lashed out at University of Melbourne academic Dr Elise Klein, who gave evidence against the use of the card to a panel currently investigating indigenous youth suicide on Tuesday.

Dr Klein said the card had become a symbol of disempowerment, as it seeks to quarantine 80 per cent of welfare payments to be used on food and other essentials.

"It's explained as the 'white card'," she said.

"The card has been a symbol of disempowerment, a symbol of state intervention, punitive intervention over someone's life."

At the inquiry, Dr Klein said the system was chaotically introduced with design flaws, including a mobile app for people who "didn't know how to use the internet let alone own a mobile phone".

Many of the children who cut their lives short were inadequately fed, but Dr Klein said it was "naive at best" to think controlling parents' purchases could effectively combat this.

Dr Klein said many participants have told her using the card is like going back to the "ration days", referring to Aboriginal people working on pastoral stations and being paid in tea and sugar as opposed to real wages.

Mr Forrest said Dr Klein's claims were inaccurate.

"There's an academic today [Dr Klein] who at a coronial inquiry into children's deaths, denounced the cashless credit card on her own inquiries," he said.

"She failed to admit that all her studies were done before the cashless debit card came in.

"So she's blatantly abused the lives of indigenous people through using them to make a political point as opposed to saying – 'hey, my research, which I'm quoting from was done before the credit card came in'.

"You've got these little stunts being played, and I'm saying if you really care for your countrymen, go to these communities."

However Dr Klein responded to Mr Forrest's claims, and said his statements were "completely inaccurate".

"His claim that my research has been written from Melbourne isn't correct," she said.

"A lot of it was grounded in the East Kimberley, particularly in Kununurra. I have followed the implementation of the cashless welfare card closely, and that had involved a number of field visits."

Dr Klein said she was invited to begin her research by East Kimberley community leaders and policy-makers.

"I've collected the data from April 5 2015 – two weeks before the cashless welfare card trial began in the East Kimberley. I spoke to community members, and held interviews with people to ask them if they knew about the card and what their thoughts were on it.

"The trial started on April 26, and I have continued to collect data since its implementation."

Dr Klein's research covers the entirety of the cashless welfare card trial to date, and she was called to give evidence on the card's effects at the youth suicide inquiry.

"I have closely followed the implementation of the cashless welfare card, and I have collected data the whole way," she said.

"If Mr Forrest has a problem with that, that's his issue. I ask him to look at the data and understand what my research has found."

Mr Forrest has continued to push for the implementation of the cashless welfare card despite his opponents, and said there had been marked improvements in some areas of the East Kimberley.

"There's not drunk brawls or violence in the streets, there isn't you know kids wandering around everywhere because the kids go to school," he said.

"Our green grocery sales, our fresh meat sales have all increased. What have dropped is alcohol sales, the drug dealers in Ceduna – it's anecdotal of course, these guys don't tend to let out public statistics – but the Ceduna drug dealer left the town after three weeks.

"Gambling has dropped across the East Kimberley and Ceduna – it's just a complete waste of money which stopped kids from going to school or if they do they roll up hungry or poorly fed, or poorly clothed because their folks didn't have any money.

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"The answer's not more money, the answer is spending more money wisely and not giving it to the local drug dealer."

With AAP.

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