Senator Jacinta Price slams end of Centrelink cashless welfare card: ‘They’re gonna destroy lives’

Coalition senator Jacinta Price has slammed Labor and ‘left-leaning do-gooders’ for ending the cashless welfare card used in many Indigenous communities since 2016.

‘They know that removing this is going to have devastating effects … this is what they’re going to do, they’re gonna destroy lives,’ she said on Tuesday. 

The card prevented up to 80 per cent of welfare money from being used on items such as alcohol and gambling – it was instead used for food and paying bills.

But from Tuesday on, people will have to opt into the scheme, rather than being automatically signed up. 

‘It’s an absolute shame,’ Ms Price, who is Aboriginal, said. ‘Simply ripping it out from underneath vulnerable individuals is not good enough without at least some sort of proper transition in place.’

Senator Jacinta Price (pictured) has slammed Labor and ‘left-leaning do-gooders’ over the ending of the cashless welfare card used in many Indigenous communities since 2016

The outspoken senator, who was elected in the Northern Territory in the federal election in May, told 2GB radio’s Ben Fordham she blamed the left of politics.  

‘Labor and the Greens bang on about having respect for Indigenous culture,’ said the Country Liberal Party senator. 

‘What they don’t understand (is) for those who actually live under the pressures of traditional Aboriginal culture in places like the Northern Territory … is your family has access to everything you own.’

Ms Price said remote Indigenous communities operate under ‘a demand-share economy’. 

‘So anything that your addicted family member wants of you, you’re expected to give it … it’s considered very rude and inappropriate to say no to your family.’

She said the cashless welfare card has allowed people in these communities to say no to family members who put pressure them to hand over their welfare payments.

‘There’s going to be a lot of vulnerable people out there who are now open to having their money taken from them (by) gamblers, drug addicts and those who have alcohol addiction in their families.’

Fordham mentioned that Ms Price also opposes an Indigenous voice to parliament, and she replied that Labor is ‘certainly not recognising the voices that actually instigated the (cashless Centrelink) card in the first place’.

Senator Jacinta Price said the government wants to uphold ‘the human rights of perpetrators to be able to spend their money however they see fit, over the rights of children to be fed’. Pictured are Indigenous children in the Northern Territory

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‘It was a grassroots initiative from community members (that said) we need a tool that will protect us, that will protect the vulnerable.

‘(Labor and the Greens) have completely and utterly ignored those voices, because there are … left-leaning do-gooders who think they know what’s best for Aboriginal people.’

Ms Price said the government wants to uphold ‘the human rights of perpetrators to be able to spend their money however they see fit, over the rights of children to be fed’.

She agreed with Fordham that it will mostly be women that are affected by the ending of the compulsory cashless welfare card.

‘It won’t take long, it’ll be immediate and then Labor will have to be scrambling to find a way around this.

Pictured is a sample of a cashless welfare card, also known as an Indue card after the company that runs the scheme

‘This is what Labor do. They just scrap things because they were developed by the former Coalition government.’

Ms Price was also asked about how she was finding being a new senator.  

‘It amazes me the level of ignorance of people who are actually running this country,’ she said. 

‘So I’m really glad I’m there.’