Forum Home → Discussion → Other benefit issues → Thread
Welfare ‘credit card’
BBC report that the Australian government is rolling out a radical new way of paying welfare benefits - instead of being given cash or cheques, thousands of people are now issued with electronic “credit” cards. The Basics cards, as they are called, can only be used to purchase “priority” items such as food, housing, clothing, education and health care. The government calls the cards a form of income management. While some use the cards voluntarily, for others they are compulsory.
The Basics card is a reusable “credit” card that makes people spend their welfare money at approved stores and businesses. The card can only be used to buy essential items - it cannot be used to purchase gift vouchers, take cash out from a store or an ATM. Money is electronically placed on the card once a fortnight, when people receive their benefit payments. No more than A$1,500 can be spent per day. If money is not spent, it can be built up as savings. Between 50% and 70% of income is “quarantined” in this way, depending on the individual’s circumstances. The rest is available as cash.
According to a recent Federal Parliamentary report, of the 17,000 people subject to income management in the Northern Territories, 90% are indigenous. In Western Australia, of the 232 people on the scheme, 60% are indigenous. The government argues that the Aboriginal community has historically been more prone to abuses of welfare payments, especially through problems with alcohol and that they were therefore bound to feature more prominently in any system designed to change the way such income is spent.
For the full story, see Debate over Australia welfare ‘credit card’
“The government argues that the Aboriginal community has historically been more prone to abuses of welfare payments, especially through problems with alcohol and that they were therefore bound to feature more prominently in any system designed to change the way such income is spent.”
Is the government, by any chance, talking about those people who had their lands expropriated, marginalized, discriminated against and pushed into poverty by that very same government? Surely not!
We’ve discussed this before, haven’t we?
Ah, your memory is better than mine Paul. I thought that it rang a bell.
The Austrailian goverment is worried by benefit abuse…..
The average age of Indigenous people at death is 53, yes folks that is FIFTY THREE.
25 years less than for the Australian population as a whole.
In some regions the median age at death of the idigienous population is as low as 47 years.
If a white American politician said that of black or Hispanic Americans there would be uproar.
http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/law/aboriginal-prison-rates
Interestingly, the article does not entirely absolve Aborigines from their own plight. It’s a fair point but, in my view however, one can only take that so far.
So…..you’ll go with your neighbour - who is not IRO of benefits - and buy them their weeks groceries at tesco (other supermarkets are availble) then they’ll give you the cash so you can stock up on fags and booze….simples.