Cashless Debit Card

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (14:49): Supplementary: is the minister aware of cases in South Australia and across Australia where people have found that the cards don't work, particularly where there are power outages, and they have been left with the inability to buy food; where, when they are on the income management scheme, the income management has not paid their rent and so they have found themselves homeless through mismanagement and maladministration; where, to buy a bra, they have had to give their bra size to public servants to be approved to buy intimate apparel; and where they have been forced to leave their communities to escape the management of these cards?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (14:49): I thank the honourable member for her supplementary question. Yes, I have had these sorts of incidents reported to me, where cards don't work in stores that they are supposed to work in, where stores don't take the cards where goods are needed to be purchased and where the cards sometimes don't or haven't worked in very remote stores, and also the pressure that places on people when they have become accustomed to using the card and then, often for cultural reasons, need to travel and find themselves in a lot of trouble without access to any goods, services or money.