The Department of Social Services is in talks to open the issuance of the welfare quarantining card to further financial institutions beyond just Indue.
The federal government is considering allowing Australia’s biggest banks to provide those on welfare with a benefits quarantining-type card as part of the contentious Cashless Debit Card (CDC) scheme. The CDC, labelled as “racist” by senators previously, kicked off in 2016 as a trial. It aims to govern how those in receipt of welfare spend their money, with the idea being to both prevent the sale of alcohol, cigarettes, and some gift cards and block the funds from being used on activities such as gambling. Participants of the CDC trial have 80% their funds placed on a card, which is managed by Indue, with the remaining 20% to be paid into a bank account. In the 2021-22 Budget, delivered last month, the government said it would be providing funding to support the continuation of the CDC, but did not disclose how much. During Senate Estimates on Thursday night, Minister for Families and Social Services Anne Ruston said part of the funding would be used to explore the addition of further financial institutions as CDC providers, with Indue currently being the sole provider. “Investigating the opportunity for multi-issuer on the card so that it wasn’t just Indue that was the issuer,” she said. “A couple of weeks ago, [I] met with the Traditional Credit Union as an example of a potential other financial deposit-taking institution that may be able to be an issuer of the card, and we’re also working with the major banks.
