Scrap the Cashless Debit Card
Last week my colleagues Julian Hill MP and Justine Elliott MP introduced a bill to scrap the cashless debit card and protect pensioners.
We are concerned that the Government wants to expand the Cashless Debit Card to include all pensioners. This would mean 80 per cent of your pension payment would be put onto a privatised cashless welfare card.
This privatised card is not an ordinary debit card. It can only be used at shops that are approved by the government limiting and controlling when and where you spend your money.
Pensioners won't be able to pay cash to buy food at the local market, second-hand goods, a meal or a beer at the RSL, or give cash to their grandchildren.
The Morrison-Joyce Government have racked up $1 trillion in debt, but think they know how to spend your money better than you.
The Government has already wasted $70 million establishing the privatised pension control card, operated by a private company, called Indue. They have spent over $5,200 for each person currently on the card - more than some part-pensioners get in a year.
Forcing age pensioners onto the cashless card will send millions of taxpayer's dollars to a private company to run the program. Money that could be used for the under-funded and under-resourced aged care sector.
The Government, not private companies should run the social security system for the benefit of pensioners who have worked hard and paid taxes all their lives.
A Labor Government will abolish the privatised card and will fight the Governments plans to expand this shameful scheme.
Published in the Liverpool Champion on 2 November 2021:
