Abstract
The Cashless Debit Card (CDC) was triggered by a recommendation in the 2014 Forrest Review, ostensibly to address substance abuse and gambling issues. The CDC applies to a broad range of social security payments, defined as ‘trigger’ payments, including a Disability Support Pension (DSP). This article contends that people with disabilities are likely to encounter a range of specific issues with the CDC, and that the scheme squares poorly with Australia's international human rights obligations to persons with disabilities. We argue that the CDC has pernicious effects in terms of deprivation of autonomy, subjection to stigma and denial of dignity.
The Cashless Debit Card (CDC) was triggered by a recommendation in the 2014 Forrest Review, 1 ostensibly to address substance abuse and gambling issues. Initially referred to as the ‘Healthy Welfare Card’, the reference to ‘health’ was dropped as the card's capacity to lead to superior health outcomes was called into question. 2
The CDC was introduced in the trial sites of Ceduna in South Australia in March 2016 and the East Kimberley in Western Australia in April 2016, followed by the Goldfields in Western Australia in March 2018. 3 More recently, legislation has been passed to extend the card to a fourth trial area, the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay region in Queensland, effective from early 2019. 4
In Ceduna, the East Kimberley and the Goldfields, the CDC applies to a broad range of social security payments, primarily working age payments defined as ‘trigger’ payments, including a Disability Support Pension (DSP). 5 The CDC is coercive – people in trial sites are automatically put on the card if they receive a ‘trigger’ payment. This article will focus on human rights compatibility problems with the CDC that affect people with disabilities subject to the program, although the authors also acknowledge that there are other important human rights compatibility issues with the CDC, including racial discrimination due to its disproportionate impact on Indigenous peoples. 6
The legislative objectives of the CDC are to: reduce cash ‘available to be spent on alcoholic beverages, gambling and illegal drugs’; ‘determine whether such a reduction decreases violence or harm in trial areas’; ‘determine whether such arrangements are more effective when community bodies are involved’; and ‘encourage socially responsible behaviour’. 7 Of a person's fortnightly social security payment, 80 per cent is quarantined on the CDC, which can be spent at limited retail outlets and service providers. 8 Funds restricted to the CDC are not to be spent on ‘alcoholic beverages or gambling’. 9
People forced on to the CDC have the option of applying to a Community Panel to have the restricted portion of their social security income reduced to ‘a percentage in the range of 50% to 80%’, 10 however the Community Panels have broad discretion when making these decisions. Delays and unsatisfactory outcomes have been common for people pursuing this option. 11
The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights (PJCHR), which examines and reports to Parliament on the compatibility of Bills and legislation with international human rights standards, 12 has found that rights to social security, privacy, family, equality and non-discrimination are adversely affected by the CDC. 13 These rights are embedded in international treaties that Australia has ratified, including the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). 14 The PJCHR has found that threshold requirements for permissible limitations on human rights have not been satisfied by the government's assertions in the relevant Human Rights Compatibility Statements accompanying CDC Bills. 15 The PJCHR has concluded that no compelling rationale as to the proportionality of the CDC has been provided. 16
Recently, the federal government has acknowledged that: While the Cashless Debit Card does not directly limit the rights to equality and non-discrimination, it may indirectly limit these rights. For example, before the Cashless Debit Card commenced in the East Kimberley, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people made up around 83 per cent of … [projected] participants. Women comprised around 57 per cent of projected participants and Disability Support Pension recipients were likely to comprise around 26 per cent of participants.
17
In this article, we contend that people with disabilities are likely to encounter a range of specific issues with the CDC, and that the scheme squares poorly with Australia's international human rights obligations to persons with disabilities. We first briefly consider a recent report on the CDC evaluation process undertaken by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) before turning attention to specific issues for people with disabilities.
CDC outcomes
The government claims the CDC has led to positive outcomes and that the trial is therefore worthy of continuation and expansion into additional areas. 19 In doing so, they rely heavily on the government-commissioned evaluation of the CDC in the first two trial sites undertaken by Orima, a research company specialising in public sector research. However, this evaluation has significant methodological limitations, 20 some of which were acknowledged in the final evaluation report. 21
The ANAO audit of the CDC trial considered whether the Department of Social Services (DSS) had a strong foundation upon which to implement the trial and whether the evaluation process justified further roll-out. 22 Significantly, the ANAO attests that there is no solid evidence to support assertions that the CDC has been a success. 23 The ANAO states that ‘monitoring and evaluation’ of the CDC ‘was inadequate’. 24 Consequently, the ANAO could not conclude that social harm has been reduced. 25
The ANAO highlights other weaknesses of the CDC trial, including poor risk management, no cost benefit analysis, weak use of data, inadequate review of key performance indicators, and no baseline data to accurately measure change. 26 The ANAO stresses that evaluation was not built into the CDC program design, and there was problematic procurement of the CDC provider, Indue Ltd, and evaluator, Orima, with DSS not documenting ‘a value for money assessment for the card provider's IT build tender’, and not assessing ‘all evaluators’ tenders completely and consistently’. 27 Taken together, these factors paint a different picture than that portrayed by government Ministers responsible for expanding the scheme. The latter have displayed a troubling tendency to disregard all negative feedback about the CDC. 28
Numerous social security recipients subject to the CDC report that it has created difficulties in paying for essentials like food, housing and school items for children. 29 Many people have experienced unnecessary financial hardship due to the card. 30 A perverse outcome of the CDC is that people on the lowest incomes now find that their social security payment does not go as far as it once did because they no longer have the option to pay for all outgoings in cash. They now carry the burden of card minimum spend requirements and card surcharges, despite being allocated no additional income to cover these costs. Their capacity to choose low-cost merchants, such as farmers' markets and sellers of second-hand goods, is also curtailed because these do not accept payment by the CDC. 31
As for substance abuse, the majority of CDC participants in Ceduna and the East Kimberley reported that alcohol consumption either increased or stayed the same during the evaluation timeframe. 32 The majority of CDC participants also stated that violence in their communities either increased or stayed the same during this period. 33 Close to a third of CDC participants reported that being on the card made their life worse. 34 There is no credible evidence of overall benefit resulting from the removal of financial autonomy, consumer rights and human rights for coerced CDC participants. Yet the government has chosen to extend the program.
CDC challenges for persons with disabilities
Particular challenges can arise for people with disabilities who are forced onto the CDC. Some relate to the shrinking market of affordable goods available for purchase due to limitations on where the card is accepted.
35
As People with Disability Australia observes, the CDC can lead to diminished quality of life: People with disability face additional costs that compulsory income management does not consider. For example, some people with disability have difficulties preparing meals and buy pre-prepared food out of necessity, others can't eat certain types of foods due to medication or secondary conditions. Without access to a full range of retailers, including providers of second hand goods, people are denied access to items they need at an affordable price.
36
The CDC evaluation found that people with disabilities subject to the program may have experienced a greater level of harassment from other members of the community forced onto the CDC since the trial commenced. 38 People with disabilities in receipt of the DSP, which has a higher cash component than other social security payments, reported being targeted and harassed for money and/or other goods by people who had less access to cash because of the CDC. 39 Another concerning finding was that participants in receipt of the DSP ‘were significantly less likely than participants in receipt of other payments’ to report awareness of their entitlements and obligations relating to the CDC, with stakeholders suggesting this was in part due to a lack of tailored communication required by some people with disabilities. 40 Instances of stigma associated with the CDC have also been reported – for instance, in July 2018, a Kalgoorlie resident who receives the DSP stated that she had experienced ‘multiple incidents of abuse in public associated with her card’. 41
Human rights of persons with disabilities
Australia has ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which is monitored by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD Committee). Article 3 of the CRPD incorporates general principles of equality, non-discrimination, accessibility, ‘full and effective participation ... in society’, ‘respect for inherent dignity’, and ‘individual autonomy’ – ‘including the freedom to make one's own choices’. As Degener writes, the ‘CRPD seeks to bring about a paradigm shift in disability policy that is based on a new understanding of disabled persons as right holders and human rights subjects.’ 42 In contrast, previous models of disability have produced legal and structural arrangements that systematically exclude and coerce people with disabilities – generating ‘a system of … inequality in which persons with disabilities experience unequal citizenship, a regime of dis-citizenship’. 43
In its compulsory application to people with disabilities in trial locations, the CDC repeats social exclusion embedded in numerous other Australian laws and policies that have historically operated and/or continue to operate with discriminatory effect in respect of people with disabilities, either wholly or in some respects. These include guardianship laws and compulsory institutionalisation of people with disabilities, 44 denial of the right to vote and denial of the right to marry. 45 Historically, institutionalisation stemming from a label of ‘lunacy’, ‘mental illness or other mental “infirmity”’ tended to result automatically in a person being deemed incapable of managing their property and/or finances. 46 Compulsory income management via the CDC continues this trajectory by denying people with disabilities the right of financial autonomy over their own affairs. As discussed above, it has also compromised basic social supports for some participants.
Article 5 of the CRPD provides that people are ‘entitled without any discrimination to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law’ and prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities. Article 2 makes clear that disability discrimination extends to measures which discriminate against people with disabilities in ‘purpose or effect’. 47 We contend that the CDC impairs the exercise by people with disabilities of (at least) two fundamental sets of human rights on an equal basis with others in effect. First, a number of the outcomes discussed above run counter to Article 28 of the CRPD, which enshrines rights to ‘an adequate standard of living’ and ‘social protection’. Secondly, the way in which the scheme restricts the financial autonomy of participants arguably contravenes Article 12, which protects the right to equal recognition before the law as a person with equal legal capacity.
The CDC ostensibly applies in non-discriminatory fashion to recipients of ‘trigger’ payments in the trial sites, regardless of whether or not they have a disability. We argue, however, that the program involves indirect discrimination against people with disabilities in contravention of Articles 28 and 12 of the CRPD because of its disproportionate negative impact on people with disabilities. 48 This argument takes account of the relatively high level of representation of people with disabilities amongst recipients of working age payments, in addition to heightened negative impacts of the CDC for people with disabilities. ‘Working age payments assist people temporarily unable to support themselves through work’ or those who ‘have a limited capacity to work due to disability or caring responsibilities.’ 49 Many people with disabilities face significant barriers and discrimination that prevent participation in the workforce 50 and rely upon various working age payments to meet basic living costs, 51 ‘especially the Disability Support Pension and Newstart Allowance’. 52 More people with disabilities now receive the lower Newstart Allowance and other unemployment payments, since the DSP eligibility criteria have tightened. 53
CDC-related restrictions on access to affordable goods (including food, clothing and other essentials) which impair enjoyment of the rights to ‘an adequate standard of living’ and ‘social protection’ (Article 28) are likely to have more severe consequences for people with disabilities. This is because people with disabilities face an above-average risk of poverty, 54 and many people with disabilities have higher expenses in a range of areas. 55 Further, we argue that the CDC – due to its compulsory nature and the significant incursions it makes into a person's control over their finances – effectively prevents people with disabilities from enjoying legal capacity on an equal basis with others, contrary to Article 12.
Article 12 of the CRPD promotes ‘equal recognition before the law’, and stipulates that ‘persons with disabilities have the right to recognition everywhere as persons before the law’ (12(1)) and shall ‘enjoy legal capacity on an equal basis with others in all aspects of life’ (12(2)). Importantly, Article 12(5) stipulates that ‘States Parties shall take … appropriate and effective measures to ensure the equal right of persons with disabilities … to control their own financial affairs and to have equal access to bank loans, mortgages and other forms of financial credit’.
The CRPD Committee has released General Comment No 1 addressing Article 12 of the CRPD.
56
In this document, the CRPD Committee explains that legal capacity comprises both ‘legal standing’ (recognition as a person before the law who holds rights) and ‘legal agency’ (the ability to exercise legal entitlements).
57
The CRPD Committee notes that legal agency ‘is frequently denied or diminished for persons with disabilities’.
58
Substitute decision-making regimes are singled out as a major contributor to the historical denial of the right to legal capacity experienced by people with disabilities.
59
Substitute decision-making occurs in systems where: (i) legal capacity is removed from a person, even if this is in respect of a single decision; (ii) a substitute decision-maker can be appointed by someone other than the person concerned, and this can be done against his or her will; and (iii) any decision made by a substitute decision-maker is based on what is believed to be in the objective ‘best interests’ of the person concerned, as opposed to being based on the person's own will and preferences.
60
Article 12(3) imposes an obligation on States Parties to implement appropriate measures to provide people with disabilities with the ‘support they may require in exercising their legal capacity’. Article 12(4) states that States Parties are to ‘ensure that’ there are ‘measures relating to the exercise of legal capacity’ for persons with disabilities that ‘respect the rights, will and preferences of the person’, ‘are proportional and tailored to the person's circumstances’, ‘apply for the shortest time possible and are subject to regular review by a competent, independent and impartial authority or judicial body’.
The coercive nature of the CDC overrides the will and preferences of program participants. An approach which respects a person's will and preferences may be contrasted with substitute decision-making regimes under which substitute decision-makers make decisions according to what they think is in the person's best interests. 62 In the case of the CDC, a range of financial decisions are imposed upon recipients indiscriminately, without regard for their individual preferences. This includes forcing people into a contractual relationship with Indue Ltd and removing the option to have their entire social security payment paid into a bank account of their choice. Further, involvement in the scheme is not subject to regular review by a competent and independent review body. Indeed, as the National Social Security Rights Network points out: ‘In the small trial communities, there is a strong likelihood that an applicant will know members of the Community Panels. This raises issues of bias, conflicts of interest, and discrimination.’ 63
The CDC measures have been imposed irrespective of a person's need for support in exercising their legal capacity to manage their own financial affairs and therefore cannot legitimately be described as a ‘support’ they ‘require’ according to Article 12(3). Support in the exercise of legal capacity can encompass a range of formal and informal arrangements, including the person with disability choosing a support person to assist them to make decisions, ‘measures relating to universal design and accessibility’ such as providing ‘information in an understandable format’, and measures to recognise diverse communication methods. 64
In terms of Article 12(4), the CDC scheme cannot be considered as tailored to individual circumstances because it is imposed as a blanket measure on all who are in receipt of ‘trigger’ payments, including the DSP, in trial locations. In addition, quarantining 80 per cent of income to the CDC makes it extremely difficult for coerced program participants to gain access to other forms of financial credit, as they only have a small amount of cash remaining for repayment of credit cards and other personal loans. This can result in financial, and ultimately wider social and civic, exclusion.
It is arguable that the CDC involves discriminatory denial of the legal capacity of social security recipients with disabilities. General Comment No 1 says that ‘States parties must abolish denials of legal capacity that are discriminatory on the basis of disability in purpose or effect.’ 65 Negative impacts of the denial of legal capacity produced by the CDC are likely to disproportionately affect people with disabilities. Significantly, these impacts are likely to be long-term for people with disabilities if the CDC trials continue to be extended, since there is no right to exit the program for those who may never be able to (re)enter the employment market. 66 People with disabilities are more likely to fall into this category due to structural barriers which make it difficult for many people with disabilities to secure employment. The CDC may therefore result in near-permanent restrictions on the rights of participants with disabilities to independently manage their financial affairs.
Conclusion
Compliance with international human rights standards continues to be a pressing issue for Australian law and policy-makers, particularly in response to the CRPD. 67 Portrayed by government as a well-meaning intervention into the lives of vulnerable people, the CDC actually erases full legal contractual capacity for those subject to it. This has pernicious effects in terms of deprivation of autonomy, subjection to stigma, and denial of dignity. 68 The CDC has produced serious harm for some participants, and exposed participants with disabilities to the risk of harassment and exploitation.
Focusing on the CRPD rights to ‘an adequate standard of living’ and ‘social protection’ (Article 28) and to ‘equal recognition before the law’ (Article 12), we have argued that the adverse consequences of the CDC disproportionately affect people with disabilities and therefore constitute indirect disability discrimination. Mandatory income management schemes like the CDC involve the government implementing the most coercive possible measures indiscriminately and regardless of consequent harm. This does not honour Australia's international human rights obligations.
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
The authors express thanks to the reviewers and editors for their constructive comments on an earlier draft of this article.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The research for this article was supported by the Australian government, through the Australian Research Council's Discovery Early Career Researcher Award DE180100599.
1
Andrew Forrest, The Forrest Review: Creating parity (Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, 2014) 100–8.
3
Social Security Legislation Amendment (Debit Card Trial) Act 2015 (Cth) (DCT Act); Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card) Act 2018 (Cth).
4
Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card Trial Expansion) Act 2018 (Cth).
5
DCT Act, s 124PD.
6
Shelley Bielefeld, ‘Cashless Welfare Transfers for “Vulnerable” Welfare Recipients: Law, Ethics and Vulnerability’ (2018) 26(1) Feminist Legal Studies 1, 11; Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), Submission 43 to the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs, Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card Trial Expansion) Bill 2018, 20 July 2018, 3; International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, opened for signature 21 December 1965, 660 UNTS 195 (entered into force 4 January 1969) art 1.
7
DCT Act, s 124PC.
8
Ibid s 124PJ.
9
Ibid s 124PM(a).
10
Ibid s 124PK. Community panels are bodies comprising community members established in many areas where the CDC program operates, authorised by legislative instrument to make some administrative decisions impacting CDC participants: ibid ss 124PD(1), 124PE, 124PK, 124PO; Department of Social Services, ‘Ceduna Community Panel’, 1 October 2016 https://www.dss.gov.au/families-and-children/programmes-services/welfare-conditionality/cashless-debit-card-trial-overview/ceduna-community-panel; Department of Social Services, ‘Kununurra Region Community Panel’, 1 October 2016 https://www.dss.gov.au/families-and-children/programs-services/welfare-conditionality/kununurra-region-community-panel; Department of Social Services, ‘Wyndham Region Community Panel’, 1 September 2016 
.
11
Shelley Bielefeld, ‘Indigenous Peoples, Neoliberalism and the State: A Retreat from Rights to “Responsibilisation” via the Cashless Welfare Card’, in Deirdre Howard-Wagner, Maria Bargh and Isabel Altamirano-Jiménez (eds), The Neoliberal State, Recognition and Indigenous Rights: New paternalism to new imaginings (Australian National University Press, 2018) 147, 150.
12
Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011 (Cth) s 7(a)–(b).
13
Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights (PJCHR), Commonwealth of Australia, Report Number 9 of 2017 (2017) 34–40.
14
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, opened for signature 30 March 2007, 2515 UNTS 3 (entered into force 3 May 2008) (CRPD).
15
PJCHR, above n 13, 34-40; PJCHR, Report 6 of 2018 (2018) 36–8.
16
Ibid.
17
Statement of Compatibility with Human Rights, Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card Trial Expansion) Bill 2018 (Cth) 9.
18
19
Explanatory Memorandum, Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card) Bill 2017 (Cth) 1; Explanatory Memorandum, Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card Trial Expansion) Bill 2018 (Cth) 4.
20
Eva Cox, ‘Much of the data used to justify the welfare card is flawed’, The Guardian (online), 7 September 2017 Janet Hunt, The Cashless Debit Card Evaluation: Does it Really Prove Success? Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research: Topical Issue No 2/2017 (Australian National University, 2017).
21
Department of Social Services (DSS), Cashless Debit Card Trial Evaluation: Final Evaluation Report (Orima Research, 2017) 9.
22
Australian National Audit Office, The Implementation and Performance of the Cashless Debit Card Trial (Auditor-General Report No 1 2018–19) 7.
23
Ibid 8, 44–6.
24
Ibid 8.
25
Ibid.
26
Ibid 8–9, 24, 33, 37, 45, 59.
27
Ibid 8–9, 29, 43.
28
Shelley Bielefeld, ‘Cashless Welfare Cards: Controlling spending patterns to what end?’ (2017) 8(29) Indigenous Law Bulletin 28, 28–31.
29
DSS, above n 21, 72. For instance, in Wave 1 of the study 49 per cent of people reported running out of money to purchase food during the previous three months, and this had increased to 52 per cent by Wave 2 of the study. In Wave 1, 22 per cent of people reported running out of money to pay for housing costs (rent/mortgage) during the previous three months, and this remained high at 19 per cent by Wave 2 of the study. In Wave 1, 32 per cent of people reported running out of money to purchase items that children needed for school during the previous three months, and this had increased to 45 per cent by Wave 2 of the study.
30
Ibid; Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee, Commonwealth of Australia, Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card Trial Expansion) Bill 2018 (2018) 19; Nicola Gage, ‘Ceduna's cashless welfare card a “massive inconvenience”, but council sees improvements’, ABC News, 12 September 2016 massive-inconvenience’/7836942.
31
Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee, above n 30, 20; Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee, Commonwealth of Australia, Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card) Bill 2017 (2017) 21; DSS, Cashless Debit Card Trial Evaluation: Wave 1 Interim Evaluation Report (Orima Research, 2017) 43, 70; DSS, above n 21, 89. Although government claims the CDC can be used at most retail outlets, feedback from the trial sites indicates that this is not the case.
32
DSS, above n 21, 43.
33
Ibid 65.
34
Ibid 6.
35
Ibid 89; DSS, above n 31, 43, 70.
36
People with Disability Australia, Submission 58 to the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs, Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card Trial Expansion) Bill 2018, 20 July 2018, 6.
38
DSS, above n 21, 113; People with Disability Australia, above n 36, 5.
39
DSS, above n 21, 113.
40
Ibid 104.
41
42
Theresia Degener, ‘Disability in a Human Rights Context’ (2016) 5(3) Laws 35, 1 DOI:10.3390/laws5030035.
43
Richard Devlin and Dianne Pothier, ‘Introduction: Toward a Critical Theory of Dis-Citizenship’ in Dianne Pothier and Richard Devlin (eds), Critical Disability Theory: Essays in Philosophy, Politics, Policy and Law (UBC Press, 2006) 1–11.
44
There are ongoing debates about the compatibility of coercive disability interventions, such as those provided for by guardianship legislation, with international human rights standards: see Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC), Equality, Capacity and Disability in Commonwealth Laws, Report No 124 (2014) 54.
45
Section 93(8) of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 (Cth) continues to deny the right to vote in federal elections according to the vague requirement that a person is ‘incapable of understanding the nature and significance of enrolment and voting’ owing to ‘unsound mind’. The original version of the Act barred any person of ‘unsound mind’ from voting: Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 (Cth), No 27 (superseded). People with disability in Australia have also historically been discriminatorily denied marriage, sexual and reproductive rights owing to a number of intersecting legal regimes and practices, including common law and statutory rules regarding consent to marriage, guardianship laws, and statutory offences effectively criminalising sex between or with disabled people, coupled with discriminatory attitudes resulting in ‘best interests’ decisions imposed upon individuals: see John Blackwood, ‘Sexuality and the Disabled: Legal Issues’ (1992) 11(2) University of Tasmania Law Review 182; Christine Tilley, ‘Sexuality in Women with Physical Disabilities: A Social Justice or Health Issue?’ (1996) 14(2) Sexuality and Disability 139.
46
Terry Carney and David Tait, The Adult Guardianship Experiment: Tribunals and Popular Justice (The Federation Press, 1997) 11–12.
47
Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD Committee), General Comment No 6 (2018) on equality and non-discrimination, 19th sess, UN Doc CRPD/C/GC/6 (26 April 2018) 4.
48
Ibid 5.
50
See Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Australia's Welfare 2017 (2017) 312–13; AHRC, Willing to Work: National Inquiry into Employment Discrimination Against Older Australians and Australians with Disability (2015) 312–3.
51
See Children and Young People with Disability Australia (CYDA), Submission to the Senate Community Affairs References Committee, Design, Scope, Cost-Benefit Analysis, Contracts Awarded and Implementation Associated with the Better Management of the Social Welfare System Initiative, March 2017, 4.
52
Peter Davidson et al, Poverty in Australia, 2018 (ACOSS and UNSW, 2018) 58.
53
Ibid. Peter Davidson, Faces of Unemployment (ACOSS and Jobs Australia, 2018) 11.
54
Davidson et al, above n 52, 58–9.
55
See CYDA, above n 51, 6.
56
CRPD Committee, General Comment No. 1: Article 12: Equal Recognition before the Law, 11th sess, UN Doc CRPD/C/GC/1 (11 April 2014).
57
Ibid 3–4.
58
Ibid.
59
Ibid 2.
60
Ibid 6 (emphasis added).
61
Shelley Bielefeld, ‘Compulsory Income Management under the Stronger Futures Laws – Providing “Flexibility” or Overturning Freedom of Contract?’ (2013) 8(5) Indigenous Law Bulletin 18; Shelley Bielefeld, ‘Income Management and Indigenous Peoples: Nudged into a Stronger Future?’ (2014) 23(2) Griffith Law Review 285.
62
See ALRC, above n 44, 53–4, 57.
63
National Social Security Rights Network, Submission 45 to the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs, Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card Trial Expansion) Bill 2018, 20 July 2018, 7.
64
CRPD Committee, above n 56, 4.
65
Ibid 6.
66
Pursuant to s 124PGA(4) of the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card) Act 2018 (Cth), ‘The Secretary must determine that a person is not a trial participant under this section if the Secretary is satisfied that being a trial participant under this section would pose a serious risk to the person's mental, physical or emotional wellbeing.' However, the Secretary has discretion as to what they find satisfactory and what they would determine to be a ‘serious risk'. Furthermore, under s 124PGA(5), ‘The Secretary is not required to inquire into whether a person being a trial participant under this section would pose a serious risk to the person's mental, physical or emotional wellbeing.' This means that a person experiencing such risks would need to bring the matter to the attention of the Secretary before a determination was made as to whether the Secretary was satisfied as to the risks posed by the CDC for the particular person.
67
Fleur Beaupert, Linda Steele and Piers Gooding, ‘Introduction to Disability, Rights and Law Reform in Australia: Pushing Beyond Legal Futures’ (2017) 35(2) Law in Context 1, 7–10; Fleur Beaupert, ‘Freedom of Opinion and Expression: From the Perspective of Psychosocial Disability and Madness’ (2018) 7(3) Laws 1, 13–15 DOI:10.3390/laws7010003.
68
Melissa Davey, ‘“Ration Days Again”: Cashless Welfare Card Ignites Shame’, The Guardian (online), 9 January 2017 https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jan/09/ration-days-again-cashless-welfare-card-ignites-shame; Bielefeld, above n 6, 15, 19; Elise Klein, ‘The Cashless Debit Card causes social and economic harm – so why trial it again?’, The Conversation, 30 March 2017 ; Moussalli and Joyner, above n 41.