Half of East Kimberley cashless debit card participants leave program in eight days

The rush to ditch the Cashless Debit Card has continued in the East Kimberley with half the welfare participants that were on the income management scheme coming off it in the first eight days since it became voluntary. The latest figures released by Federal Government show that between October 4 and 12, 613 of the 1,209 CDC recipients in the East Kimberley had opted out of the money quarantining scheme. There has been a similar stampede to get off the CDC in the Goldfields in the State’s south east, which was the only other region in WA that had adopted the scheme. In the Goldfields, 53 percent of the 2,459 people on the card have transitioned off. The CDC quarantines 80 percent of a welfare recipient’s payment so it can’t be withdrawn as cash or used to gamble, purchase alcohol or for other products and activities considered socially harmful. It was rolled out in the East Kimberley in 2016 with all people who receive a working-age welfare payment put on the program. The other sites around Australia where the CDC has been operating, Hervey Bay and Bundaberg in Queensland and Ceduna in South Australia, have also seen around 50 percent of participants opt out of the scheme. However, people who are on the scheme in the Northen Territory and Cape York will have to wait until March next year before they are allowed to transition off. The Albanese Labor Government promised to get rid of the compulsory CDC at the last Federal election which they achieved in September when their bill to repeal the card passed both Houses of Federal Parliament. Since October 4 recipients have been able to opt out of the card. The scheme will end completely next year, when a new voluntary income management card will be introduced.