Letter to the editors of the SMH and WAtoday: retract the cashless debit card article by senator Matt O'Sullivan
To Lisa Davies and Fran Rimrod,
Today an article written by Liberal party senator Matt O’Sullivan about the cashless debit card appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald and WAtoday. It should never have been published.
The article promoted the further rollout of the government’s racist and punitive cashless welfare program, and did not disclose O’Sullivan’s connection to Andrew Forrest and his Minderoo Foundation.
Forrest, a mining magnate, first proposed the healthy welfare card to prevent people from being able to spend their money freely and make choices about how to manage their life, claiming to be acting in their best interests. The Minderoo Foundation has continued to champion the rollout of the cashless welfare card, which has always disproportionately harmed Indigenous communities and is described as a second intervention by Aboriginal Peak Organisations NT’s John Paterson.
There is no evidence to support the efficacy of cashless welfare, and the government is currently sitting on a report into the 'effectiveness' of the card whilst trying to force through flimsy legislation that makes the program permanent in the face of vehement objections from people affected by the proposed law.
In publishing this article, and in failing to take responsibility for its content, the Sydney Morning Herald and WAtoday actively contribute to an ineffective and unwanted regime that is part of a long legacy of paternalistic, colonial welfare policy. The article lends legitimacy to the government’s attempt to subject a larger and larger proportion of unwaged, underemployed and insecure workers to abusive cashless welfare policies.
We object to news outlets enabling the sanitisation of human rights abuses perpetrated by the government.
The government and its cronies do not need further encouragement to punish the poor.
We request that the article be removed from your digital platforms and an apology issued to communities subject to the failed cashless welfare experiment.
We urge you to take your responsibility to the community seriously and ensure that these types of biased, prejudiced and false articles do not appear in your publications in future.
Regards,
Kristin O’Connell on behalf of the Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union
Priya Kunjan on behalf of the Accountable Income Management Network