Prepare a discussion paper for the Board of the organisation and for the wider community on the Federal Government’s planned expansion of the Cashless Debit Card to include income management participants from the Northern Territory and Cape York. The Cashless Debit Card is a form of compulsory income management which restricts how a person can spend their income support payment. “The Cashless Debit Card (also known as the ‘cashless welfare card’) compels income support recipients to have 80 per cent of their payments quarantined to a debit card that cannot be used for gambling or to purchase alcohol or withdraw cash. The remaining 20 per cent of a person’s payment is placed into their normal bank account. 100 per cent of lump sum payments from Centrelink (such as Family Tax Benefit) are also transferred to the debit card” (St Vincent De Paul Society). The Cashless Debit Card program is currently operating in the Ceduna region, South Australia, the Goldfields and East Kimberley regions, Western Australia and the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay region, Queensland. One day after the federal budget was handed down, Minister Terry Evans introduced the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Continuation of Cashless Welfare) Bill 2020 to the House of Representatives. The Bill, if passed, would allow for the expansion of the Cashless Debit Card program to include some 25,000 people in the Northern Territory and Cape York. This is a different form of income management than the BasicsCard, however some evidence, evaluations and commentary regarding the implementation of the BasicsCard may assist to inform your analysis of the Cashless Debit Card program. Your scope of your discussion paper needs to include discussion of the following questions:
1. What is the Government’s rationale for this policy?
2. What is the Government trying to achieve?
3. In what ways are the impacts of this policy experienced differently by Aboriginal people compared to non-Aboriginal people?
4. How do the following three concepts inform your analysis of the policy: i. stigma ii. social inclusion iii. structural racism
5. Does ‘cashless welfare’ result in the changes that the Government is trying to achieve? What are the impacts for various stakeholders?
6. What policy changes can you suggest to meet the governments intentions in a way that is more consistent with social work values? Weighting 40% Length 2000 words
1. Capacity to clearly explain the rationale and intended aims of the policy.
2. Clear demonstration of an understanding of how the policy impacts Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in different ways.
3. Demonstrates and integrates theoretical and conceptual material covered in this course (for example, notions of stigma, social inclusion and structural racism) course to critically review policy and it’s possible impacts on recipients.
4. Capacity to develop a policy briefing paper that critically analyses policy that considers a variety of stakeholders and provides relevant and useful recommendations in line with social work values.
5. Clear and professional written expression, including attention to sentence structure, spelling and grammar, audience for the discussion and correct academic referencing (using the APA referencing convention).
