Newsletter date: 4 October 2015
Contents:
* Petition update: Kerry Arch, Change.org: Cashless welfare card could breach right to privacy - human rights committee
* Change.org Petition: Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull: Stop Income Management and the Healthy Welfare Card
* WGAR Background: Intervention into Northern Territory (NT) Aboriginal communities by the Federal government
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WGAR News - Working Group for Aboriginal Rights (Australia)
- Petition update
Kerry Arch, Change.org: Cashless welfare card could breach right to privacy - human rights committee
https://www.change.org/p/prime-minister-malcolm-turnbull-stop-income-man...
3 Oct 15: ""Parliamentary joint committee asks social services minister to explain how the bill (Debit Card Trial Bill 2015) is compatible with human rights".
The proposed cashless welfare card could breach the right to privacy and indirectly discriminate against Indigenous people, women and people with disabilities, according to the bipartisan human rights committee.
"Restricting how a person can access, and where they can spend, their social security benefits, interferes with the person’s right to personal autonomy and therefore their right to a private life," the report says.
The human rights committee listed its concerns with this approach, including the many instances when people could only use cash such as at markets, on public transport, to give to family members, buying second-hand goods and at stores that had minimum purchase requirements for debit cards. ... " Kerry Arch, Wyndham Vale, VIC
- Change.org Petition
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull: Stop Income Management and the Healthy Welfare Card
Petitioning: Prime Minister Australia Malcolm Turnbull; Opposition Leader Bill Shorten; Social Services Minister Scott Morrison; Greens Leader Christine Milne; Member of Parliament Jenny Macklin; Member of Parliament Alan Tudge
Kerry Arch, Wyndham Vale, VIC
https://www.change.org/p/prime-minister-malcolm-turnbull-stop-income-man...
"Compulsory Income Management is an outrageous attack on the rights of welfare recipients and will have a damaging effect on small businesses.
"Seven years ago the government launched an Intervention in the NT which has tried to establish punishment and control as the policy framework for dealing with social disadvantage. The government's own evaluation shows overwhelming feelings of discrimination and shame. Youth suicide rates have increased 160% and reported rates of self-harm are up more than fivefold," Mr Gibson concluded. ...
Politicians in the Senate have voted in favour of extending the unproven income management regime to some of Australia's most vulnerable people.
The Government can expand income management at will through powers contained in the Stronger Futures legislation.
June 2013 the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights reported on Stronger Futures, including the income management provision. The report found that there was evidence of ‘equally significant adverse aspects' to counter any benefits of the regime. The Committee also noted the fact that income management intrudes on personal freedom and autonomy. ... "
- Background
WGAR Background: Intervention into Northern Territory (NT) Aboriginal communities by the Federal government
https://indymedia.org.au/2015/06/08/wgar-background-intervention-into-no...
"This background info web-page includes compilations related to the NT Intervention along with other NT issues."
(last updated: 18 September 2015)
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WGAR: Working Group for Aboriginal Rights (Australia)
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