Unemployed Workers Union visits Ceduna about Cashless Card
Posted on: Fri 16 Nov 2018
In this week’s Anangu Lands Paper Tracker radio show, we talk about unemployment and income support payments. In particular, we focus on how compulsory income management and the Cashless Debit Card are affecting people’s lives.
If people who receive income support live in one of the areas where the Cashless Debit Card has been introduced, they are automatically put on the Cashless Debit Card. In South Australia, the Cashless Debit Card has been introduced in the Ceduna area; this includes the Far West Coast communities of Yalata, Oak Valley, Scotdesco and Koonibba.
People who are put on the Cashless Card have 80 per cent of their welfare money quarantined on a card that cannot be used to buy alcohol, drugs or for gambling, and they only have 20 per cent of their money available to them as cash.
To talk about the Cashless Debit Card, we’ve invited Hayden Patterson from the Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union to share his thoughts with us. Hayden is the National Branch Coordinator of the Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union and was part of the Union’s group that visited Ceduna to talk with people about their experiences of being on the Cashless Debit Card.
