Australian Federal Election 2022: National Minimum Wage and the Gig Economy

 

Attempting to add a little context to the mention of wages during the current federal election campaign.......

According to the Fair Work Ombudsman:

The National Minimum Wage applies to employees not covered by an award or registered agreement. This is the minimum pay rate provided by the Fair Work Act 2009 and is reviewed each year.

As of 1 July 2021 the National Minimum Wage is $20.33 per hour or $772.60 per week.

Employees covered by an award or registered agreement are entitled to the minimum pay rates, including penalty rates and allowances in their award or agreement. These pay rates may be higher than the National Minimum Wage.

The National Minimum Wage is varied for Apprentice and Trainee pay rates, Junior pay rates and Employees with disability pay rates.

The National Minimum Wage is set by the Fair Work Commission. The federal government of the day appoints Fair Work presidents, vice-presidents, deputy presidents and commissioners, of whom there are generally 42 in number. Since December 2018 it has been the Morrison Government making appointments to the Commission and allegations have persisted that it is now an employer dominated agency.

In June 2021 the National Minimum Wage increase represented a rise in remuneration of 2.5% before tax – rising from $19.24 to $20.84 an hour. That increase was a lordly 49 cents per hour worked.

At that time the Australian Attorney-General’s Department estimated that around 180,200 Australian employees (or 1.7% of the paid workforce) were being paid the national minimum wage rate. Though I rather suspect that that figure may have been years out of date when it was presented to the Commission.

Now during its annual wage reviews, the Fair Work Commission receives a number of submissions from government, industry groups, unions and other interested parties.

During the Fair Work Commission Annual Wage Review 2021 the  Morrison Government submitted its position on any change to the National Minimum Wage, which took 102 pages to say low or moderate increases are better than larger increases – if increases have to happen at all. Along with a somewhat novel argument from an ordinary citizen’s perspective, that there was no urgent need for a rise in the minimum wage because government supports low income households in other ways and it expects future minimum wage rate increases to be eaten away by government taxes.

This was the same basic approach taken previously by the Morrison Government during the Annual Wage Review 2020 and Annual Wage Review 2019. To which had been added in both those submissions, the argument that previous minimum wages allowed workers sufficient purchasing power. I note that it was in this period that the National Minimum Wage rose by 56 cents an hour in 2019 and by 35 cents an hour in 2020.

The next annual review of the national wage will announce its decision in the months after the 21 May federal general election – sometime in June-July 2022.

I think North Coast Voices readers would be safe in assuming that if re-elected the Morrison Government will be submitting arguments which resist decent National Minimum Wage increases for the next four financial years.

The last quarterly Cost Price Index was issued in December 2021 and showed a 3.5% overall increase - primarily driven by rises in the cost of transport, housing, household goods & services and health. While 2022 sees reports of sharply rising costs ahead of the first quarter Cost Price Index due to be released on 27 April.

There is another issue concerning the National Minimum Wage. It appears that workers in what is known as the “gig economy”, ie., individuals providing services to consumers for a fee via digital platforms or marketplaces, are outside the protection of the National Minimum Wage.

According to the Fair Work Ombudsman; Individuals working in the gig economy often perform work as independent contractors. This means they may have a commercial relationship with the company that hosts the digital platform or the consumers who receive their services.

This month, April 2022, the NSW Legislative Council Select Committee On The Impact Of Technological And Other Change On The Future Of Work And Workers In New South Wales released its first report titled The gig economy.

The report stated in part:

Food delivery workers and rideshare drivers typify the on-demand workforce. These workers' legal status under Commonwealth legislation as 'independent contractors' as opposed to 'employees' means they have few workplace entitlements. While the committee has noted the positive impact of on-demand work on the New South Wales economy, and some benefits that can flow for workers from flexible arrangements, our primary focus has been on the many significant disadvantages attached: the absence of guaranteed minimum wages and working hours, and of paid leave provisions; poor safety standards; and the lack of a fair dispute system in the event of workplace injury.

In short, the cyclist who delivers our Friday night takeaway receives next to none of the conditions long considered fair and decent across Australia. The job itself also puts workers in very real danger of injury, abuse and harassment. Late 2020 was marked by the deaths of no less than five food delivery riders, all while this inquiry was underway. These deaths, and the high potential for further tragedy, underscore the need for immediate action by the NSW Government.

From extensive evidence over eight hearings to date, the committee has concluded that current laws perpetuate the overwhelming power imbalance between lone 'contractors' and multinational platform companies, rather than mitigating it. Correspondingly, we have made four key findings: that New South Wales is falling behind other states and comparable nations in developing laws that establish decent working conditions in the gig economy; that the failure to provide gig workers with a minimum wage, paid leave and other basic workplace entitlements is increasing inequality in New South Wales; that gig workers currently lack the power to interact and negotiate with on-demand platforms as equals in New South Wales; and that the failure to provide gig workers with access to a low-cost independent tribunal empowered to hear and decide disputes is leading to injustice in New South Wales.

This was Leader of the Opposition & MP for Grayndler Anthony Albanese on Twitter, 26 February 2021, concerning the "gig economy":

Every Australian worker deserves the safety net of the Australian minimum wage. That’s the whole point. It’s the bare minimum. The reality is that workers in the gig economy aren’t getting a fair deal. We've got people earning $10 an hour with no sick leave and no security. We can do better. That’s why a Labor Government I lead will extend the powers of the Fair Work Commission to create minimum standards for gig economy workers – such as super, collective bargaining, and unfair dismissal protections. Labor is on your side.

While this was Australian Attorney-General & Minister for Industrial Relations Senator Michaelia Cash on behalf of the Morrison Government, Canberra Times, 1 June 2021:

Industrial Relations Minister Michaelia Cash said she was wary of reforms that could stifle innovation, limit flexible work and raise prices in the gig economy.

Scott Morrison on the subject of the gig economy workforce, The Australian 13 April 2022, p.12:

Mr Morrison says it [size of the gig economy workforce] has changed little in 20 years.

As Scott Morrison draws nearer to dissolving Parliament and visiting the Governor-General the political baggage he carries becomes harder to hide

 

Former Member of the Liberal Party Michael Towke

 https://youtu.be/xRLGYiXLXuM

Former Liberal MP Julia Banks

The Guardian, 5 July 2021:

Banks also told the ABC Scott Morrison was like “menacing controlling wallpaper” during the period where she decided to leave the Liberal party after Malcolm Turnbull was deposed as prime minister.

She says she intended to stay on the backbench after Morrison took over as PM but changed her mind after he attempted to “silence” her.

“I thought if I’m to exit this parliament, I’ll exit on my own terms and under my own story and not on their terms, so I announced that I was going to become an independent.

“It was the three months of Morrison’s leadership that … was definitely the most gut-wrenching, distressing period of my entire career.”

Text Exchange Between Then Liberal Premier of New South Wales Gladys Berejiklian & A Person Understood To Be A Cabinet Minister

IMAGE: news.com.au

Deputy Prime Minister & National Party Leader Barnaby Joyce

The Guardian, 4 February 2022:

Barnaby Joyce labelled Scott Morrison “a hypocrite and a liar” in a private text message, sent before he returned to the leadership of the National party.

In another blow for the embattled prime minister, the leaked text, seen by Guardian Australia, was forwarded to the former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins by a third party.

In it, Joyce said he did not “get along” with Morrison.

“He is a hypocrite and a liar from my observations and that is over a long time,” Joyce said in the message, dated March last year.

“I have never trusted him, and I dislike how earnestly [he] rearranges the truth to a lie.”

Joyce’s attack is the second time in a week private text exchanges, critical of the prime minister, have been leaked. On Tuesday, Morrison was blindsided when the Ten Network’s political editor, Peter van Onselen, used a televised question and answer session at the National Press Club to reveal private criticism of Morrison.

Van Onselen told Morrison he had a record of a text message exchange between a party colleague and the former New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian in which she branded the prime minister a “horrible person” who was untrustworthy.

“The minister is even more scathing, describing you as a fraud and ‘a complete psycho’,” Van Onselen said. “Does this exchange surprise you? And what does it tell us?”

Van Onselen later said the conversation was between Berejiklian and a federal minister.

Outgoing Liberal Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells

https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Hansard

NSW Liberal MLA Catherine Cusack

The Guardian, 4 April 2022:

It’s fair to say I have not seen eye to eye with Connie Fierravanti-Wells on factional issues, but I do thank her for her honesty in admitting she assisted Scott Morrison in his preselection for Cook.

More importantly I am also happy to endorse her belated character assessment of the prime minister. She was spot on.

Sadly, it’s just all come a bit late for the Liberal party. The party I joined 40 years ago and loved. The party he has ruined.

The inspirational party of Robert Menzies, whose photo today is affixed to a multitude of policies and statements that bear zero resemblance to the character and values of those tens of thousands of Australians, who formed the Liberals after the second world war, determined we would be a force for freedom, fairness, and the power of individuals – the idea that enterprise and humble ambition through hard work mattered and should make a good life for them and their families.

That’s totally what I signed up for. And that’s what has been lost in the factional model of power driven by Alex Hawke and enabled by Scott Morrison as state director when everything changed and the Liberal dream was set on this awful path that in 2022 sees ruthless self interest spill out of the party tribulations and infect flood relief public policy.

Connie said the prime minister has “lost his moral compass”. Coincidently I used those exact same words in my email to Liberal state director Chris Stone two weeks ago, saying I could no longer stomach these self-serving behaviours and I do not recognise the party I joined.

It’s a terrible situation for me personally – at the age of 58 I have invested my entire adult life in the Liberal dream only to see it trashed – and it’s not like I haven’t tried to stop it. I have given absolutely everything, sucked in a lot, tried to make it work – only to lose it all, to the ruthlessness of the wrong people in power for the wrong reasons.

The Liberal party has no interest group like trade unions (Labor) or environmentalists (Greens). No, we exist for our values and ideas only. We are member based – so Scott Morrison trashed that over two decades starting with his time as state director, then as a scheming MP and now as prime minister finding loopholes in our constitution to delay pre selections in order to get his way.

I thought forcing moderates to vote for Craig Kelly in Hughes prior to the last election was the worst. But he has outdone himself engineering a federal intervention to jump over the organisation all together. Yes, he got what he wanted – at the expense of destroying our rules-based selection system and disgusting virtually every member of the NSW division. And in the process, our president, Philip Ruddock, who used to be a highly respected party warrior, looks like a complete tool. Reputations destroyed. So many Liberals I respected including moderates complied and here we are.

The climate change fight has divided and just exhausted many of us in the NSW Liberals. And sitting here in the flood-ravaged northern rivers I can only deplore how much time has been lost.

Somehow the federal Liberal party, encouraged by the Murdoch press, has delayed the urgent need for climate change action by at least 15 years. To give you an idea as to how completely anti-intellectual and stupid this is, just read Andrew Bolt’s opinion piece in the Daily Telegraph last week saying it was “woke warmists” (climate change activists) like Tim Flannery who caused Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This is the sort of commentary the Liberal party has indulged and wedged and tried to harness into votes. It’s appalling.

“There has been no conspiracy in my decision to speak out about Scott Morrison. Nobody puts words into my mouth”

Robert Menzies invested in the CSIRO, universities and schools, and spoke with great intellectual power about the role of education and science in powering a modern Australia. These values have been totally abandoned by the Morrison government. And I am not happy that successive NSW Liberal premiers have handed the education portfolio to the Nationals, because education is the core business of any Liberal government. Like agriculture for the Nationals and industrial relations for Labor, for us, it’s education. Our philosophy of hard work, competition and markets only works because every child has the opportunity of a first-class education. Our rhetoric falls flat on its face if education isn’t progressing. It’s who we are in terms of fairness and equity. I cannot understand how this – our most sacred core value – has been palmed off to another party. It’s all about inside deals where what we stand for and care about is now negotiable and can be bargained away. Koalas are on that list. I am so incredibly disappointed – not for myself, but for our higher duty to Australia.

So it’s been a difficult time as the ruthless “faceless men” factional power model has taken hold of the party – in my case, the NSW division. Certainly I left the moderates some years ago and standing aside from the factions was a poor career decision, but I thought I could manage to make a contribution. Many of my policy proposals including cost of living and childhood flu immunisation did get adopted and made a difference.

But Scott Morrison’s brazen attempt to fund flood victims in a Nationals seat and exclude flood victims in a Labor seat that I happen to live in was just too much. I cannot deny we are all overwrought here, witnessing so much suffering. My bullshit tolerance levels are at zero. So to see the self-serving ruthless bullying that has increased inside the Liberal party spill over into public policy and the poorest most vulnerable Australians who lost everything in the floods are the targets of this outrageous abuse of morality and power is simply intolerable. Particularly for anyone who actually understands or cares about why the Liberal party was formed in the first place and the values we are entrusted to uphold.

I spoke out expecting it would make no difference – but a Newton’s Cradle effect took hold when others across politics backed the need for fairness to flood victims. It became so embarrassing that the assistance was extended to all northern rivers victims. Of course I was surprised and happy but it seems now we are paying a second price with the prime minister refusing to engage NSW government on additional measures that are so needed for victims of this incredible disaster. It’s so bad I am moved to endorse Connie’s character assessment of the PM. “It’s my way or the highway.” For flood victims. Un-bloody-believable.

Everyone seems to find it hard to believe but I am merely a sidelined female backbench Liberal MP with a brain of my own – I have not been put up to this. I have five years left in my upper house term. No doubt they will find some other assassination of my character to dismiss my opinions rather than address the substance of what I am saying. The truth is, there has been no conspiracy in my decision to speak out about Scott Morrison. Nobody puts words into my mouth. I am what they call a “problem woman”, plus I live in the regions where we just call it out as deserved. The NSW government is not to blame for my outspokenness on this issue and punishing them for my remarks – ergo further punishing our flood victims – is yet another chapter in the disgrace of the prime minister’s approach to this flood catastrophe.

He obviously thinks it’s all about him. Actually, as anyone in the northern rivers will attest, this drama is not about him. It’s about the victims. And his inability to see that, and the compliance of his federal colleagues is further infuriating evidence the Liberal party is completely lost and adrift.

We are so lacking in compassion that even flood victims who have lost everything are like any other pawns in this awful Game of Thrones. And so we have forfeited the precious integrity and values that Australia admired and needed and that served our country so well for decades. The dumb compliance of the federal parliamentary party tells me my beloved Liberal party is beyond healing itself. I have failed and so have like-minded Liberals who understand the significance of who we are and why we even exist. Thus the task of reinventing the Liberals (if that’s even possible) has sadly defaulted to the electorate. Judgment looms. I myself cannot vote for the re-election of the federal Coalition government...... [my yellow highlighting]

The PM on 7.30 Report said I grew up at Alstonville - but I grew up on farm near Yass. Moved to Alstonville in 2000. He claimed I “made similar criticisms of Gladys” - TOTALLY UNTRUE - he just made that up.

— Catherine Cusack (@katieqs) April 6, 2022

Scott Morrison went that step too far with the NSW Liberal Party. Has he also gone that step too far with the NSW electorate?

The Guardian, 4 April 2022:

NSW Liberal MP Catherine Cusack says Scott Morrison ‘trashed’ the party’s values over two decades as state director. Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAP

Another senior Liberal has taken aim at Scott Morrison, accusing him of “self-serving ruthless bullying” and claiming he has “ruined” the Liberal party.

Catherine Cusack, a NSW Liberal who announced two weeks ago she would resign from the legislative council over her anger about flood relief, adds her voice to a growing chorus of critics of Morrison from within his own party in an opinion piece for Guardian Australia.

Cusack explicitly endorses Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells’s “character assessment of the prime minister” and reveals she will not vote for the Morrison government in the May election.

The prime minister’s office was contacted for comment regarding Cusack’s claims.

On Tuesday Fierravanti-Wells labelled the prime minister an “autocrat” and a “bully” in an excoriating Senate speech revealing allegations Morrison had made “racial comments” when running for preselection in 2007.

Morrison has vehemently denied the claims, contained in statutory declarations reported in The Saturday Paper and then publicly backed by his preselection opponent, Michael Towke.

Cusack accused Morrison of having “ruined” the Liberal party and “trashed” its values over two decades, as state director, “then as a scheming MP and now as prime minister finding loopholes in our constitution to delay preselections in order to get his way”.

Cusack criticised Morrison for “forcing moderates to vote for [former Liberal and now United Australia party leader MP] Craig Kelly” when his preselection was under threat before the 2019 election.

She has warned she would vote against the prime minister over factional “scheming” and politicised allocation of flood relief.

“But he has outdone himself engineering a federal intervention to jump over the organisation all together.

“He got what he wanted at the expense of destroying our rules-based selection system and disgusting virtually every member of the NSW division.”

Morrison’s immigration minister and proxy in the NSW party, Alex Hawke, has been accused of procedural delays prompting a takeover of federal preselections by a three-person panel, including Morrison and the NSW premier, Dominic Perrottet.

The NSW court of appeal is set to rule on Tuesday whether the takeover and resultant preselections complied with Liberal party rules.

Cusack, a longtime critic of the Liberal party’s culture towards women, has spoken out about the exclusion of Ballina, Byron and Tweed from federal disaster payments, a decision reversed in mid-March.

Cusack said that “Scott Morrison’s brazen attempt to fund flood victims in a National party seat and exclude flood victims in a Labor seat that I happen to live in was just too much”.

“To see the self-serving ruthless bullying that has increased inside the Liberal party spill over into public policy and the poorest most vulnerable Australians who lost everything in the floods are the targets of this outrageous abuse of morality and power is simply intolerable.”

Cusack said assistance was “extended to all northern rivers victims” after their exclusion became too “embarrassing”, but the prime minister now appears to be “refusing to engage NSW government on additional measures that are so needed for victims of this incredible disaster”.

“It’s so bad I am moved to endorse Connie’s character assessment of the PM. ‘It’s my way or the highway’. For flood victims. Un-bloody-believable.”……. 

How the Morrison-Joyce partnership is faring in New South Wales.....

The Liberal/LNP and Nationals Coalition Government currently hold 76 seats (50.3%) in the House of Representatives and the Labor Party in Opposition holds 68 seats. With only a 8 seat overall majority, a loss of even three existing Coalition seats in NSW at the May federal election, without winning any NSW Labor seats in return, would possibly cost Morrison government.

Newspoll January-March Quarter 2022 suggests that the NSW Two-Party Preferred Vote of 54-46 in Labor's favour may produce a swing towards Labor of 5.8%, potentially gaining the Labor Party three additional seats in that state at the May federal election.

The Morgan Poll 22 March 2022 suggests that an even bigger 9.6% Two-Party Preferred swing to Labor could occur in News South Wales and a possible three to six seat gained at the federal election.

While the latest Ipsos Poll 3 April 2022 raises the possibility that a Two-Party Preferred swing of 6.8% would see Labor gain four seats in New South Wales.

The Essential Report 22 March 2022 showed that in New South Wales Scott Morrison's performance approval rating stood at 46%. Three was no breakdown of  Anthony Albanese's performance approval rating at state level in this particular poll, however his national approval rating stood at 43%. 

CASHLESS DEBIT CARD 2022: make no mistake, Morrison will continue with his relentless - in his eyes seemingly 'righteous' - push to control the incomes and minutiae of daily living of as many ordinary Australians as he can convince Parliament to punitively define as ignorant, poor, deviant or Aboriginal at risk

On 17 December 2020 provisions of the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Continuation of Cashless Welfare) Bill 2020 received assent and were incorporated into Social Security (Administration) Act 1999.

The principal purpose of that bill was to widen the scope of the Cashless Debit Card Trial, rename the trial as a “program” and establish it as an national ongoing social security program.

Those pentecostal buddies, Australian Prime Minister & Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison and then Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, Minister for Minister for Government Services & still LNP MP for Fadden Stuart Robert, along with another member of the ‘Morrison Group’, Minister for Families and Social Services & Liberal Senator for South Australia Anne Rushton, were able to widen the scope of the trial & rename the Cashless Debit Card trial a “program”.

However, although the entire Northern Territory is now a Cashless Debit Card Program Area participation in the scheme is voluntary and despite sustained effort on the part of federal government the Cashless Debit Card Trial remains a trial with a sunset date of 31 December 2022 in all other remaining trial sites.

The Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government has been attempting to create a coercive, punitive, cashless payment system for government pensions, benefits, allowances and one-off payments since 2014 and, they have become quite skilled at political & legislative incremental creep.

Make no mistake, Morrison, the man who since at least 2006 has been voicing his belief that this is what the Lord wants … He wants me to become prime minister and who as prime minister seeks signs from God on how to proceed during an election campaign as well as secretly ‘laying hands on’ and praying for people he personally comes into contact with, will continue with his relentless - in his eyes seemingly 'righteous' - push to control the incomes and minutiae of daily living of as many ordinary Australians as he can convince Parliament to punitively define as ignorant, poor, deviant or Aboriginal at risk.

BACKGROUND

#  7 News, 16 March 2021:

A $2.5 million government report into the cashless debit card is inconclusive on whether it reduces harm from alcohol, drugs and gambling, but has found people on the welfare cards are ashamed and embarrassed.

“It’s ostrich policy - put your head in the sand,” Labor MP Linda Burney told reporters in Canberra on Thursday.

“We do not believe there should be mandatory, universal application of a cashless debit card because people are on Centrelink benefits.”

Social Services Minister Anne Ruston made the decision to extend the trial sites without any evidence and without waiting for the report, Ms Burney said.

Commissioned in 2018, the University of Adelaide’s report on the cashless debit card looked at whether alcohol and drug use, violence and gambling reduced during trials of the card in Ceduna, East Kimberley and the Goldfields but found no conclusive evidence.

“In many cases we found the reality to be more complex and nuanced than can be expressed as clear cut answers,” research head Kostas Mavromaras said in the report.

Ms Burney said the research “tells us nothing and is a complete waste of time”.

Greens Senator Rachel Siewert said the card is “racist and discriminatory” and should be abandoned.

“These trials were always about targeting First Nations peoples, stigmatising people on income support and those with addiction issues rather than addressing the underlying causes of disadvantage,” Senator Siewert said.

“The evaluation itself notes the difficulty in evaluating the so-called trials because they were never set up to be properly evaluated.”….

# Cashless Debit Card (CDC) Extended Rollout 2021: Briefing Paper March 2021

# Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs Legislation Committee (Nov 2019) Inquiry into the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Income Management to Cashless Debit Card Transition) Bill 2019 [Provisions], Submission 1, Professor Matthew Gray & Dr. Rob Bray, ATTACHMENT A: Bray, J Rob (October 2019), ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods, “Measuring the social impact of Income Management in the Northern Territory – an updated analysis”:

Executive Summary

A stated objective of income management in the Northern Territory, both under the Northern Territory Emergency Response, and through ‘New Income Management’ (NIM) has been to improve outcomes for individuals, their families and the communities they live in. The 2014 evaluation of NIM reported that it could not identify any impacts in its analysis of social outcomes that could be attributed to the policy.

This paper seeks to re‐examine this question using data, where possible from before the initial introduction of income management under the NTERIM, to the most recently available.

The magnitude of the program in the Northern Territory, with one third of Indigenous people aged 15 years and over directly being subject to the policy is such that to the extent the program makes an impact this should be apparent at the community level, in particular in contrast to the experience of non‐Indigenous people in the Northern Territory, and the Indigenous population nationally both of which were only lightly touched by these programs.

Analysis of key social outcomes indicates:

 Over the period of income management the rate of infant mortality amongst Indigenous people in the Northern Territory has increased, this contrasts with falls for Indigenous people nationally and for non‐Indigenous people in the Northern Territory. This group has also seen a rise in low birth weight births, and an increase in child deaths from injury. Child abuse and neglect substantiations have also increased, although it is noted this may be influenced by a willingness to report. Indigenous children in the Northern Territory have not seen the same declines in developmental vulnerability as have Indigenous children elsewhere.

 The period since the introduction of income management has seen falling rates of school attendance by Indigenous children in the Northern Territory, and while some NAPLAN results have improved for these children, others have not. Again where there have been gains these are smaller than those for Indigenous children nationally.

 There is strong evidence of a decline in alcohol consumption in the Northern Territory. This is a trend that pre‐dates the introduction of income management with research identifying a range of policies, including pricing and supply limitations which appear to be driving it. Notwithstanding this Indigenous people do not report a lower rate of risky drinking in 2014‐15 than they did in 2002, and alcohol related emergency department presentations have increased.

 Rates of assaults appear to be largely flat, although there is a decline in assaults associated with alcohol. No consistent pattern of declining crime is identifiable in data from 2007 onwards, although there is evidence of particular alcohol restriction enforcement activities directly impacting on crime. The rate of imprisonment of Indigenous people in the Northern Territory has continued to rise strongly across the period of income management. These findings not only reflect upon a failure of income management policies to achieve their goals, but also have implications for a wider range of interventions under the Northern Territory Emergency Response and Stronger Futures….. [my yellow highlighting]

The completer 59 page submission can be read and/or downloaded at:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I9w2Tdurcb1XaiAlyrqA53yZPlKiVrkf/view

OR

sub01_ANUCSRM.

# The Cashless Debit Card scheme covering people who receive working age welfare payments is currently applied to residents in six areas.

These are:

Ceduna, South Australia

Kununurra and Wyndham in the East Kimberly region, Western Australia

Goldfields region, Western Australia

Bundaberg, Hervey Bay region, Queensland

Cape York, Queensland, and

the Northern Territory.

According to the Dept. of Social Services on 31 January 2022:

In the Ceduna region, the Goldfields region and the East Kimberley region the program applies to all people who receive a working age welfare payment. People receiving the Age Pension may volunteer to participate.

In the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay region, the program applies to people aged 35 and under who receive JobSeeker Payment, Youth Allowance (Job seeker), Parenting Payment (Partnered) and Parenting Payment (Single). People over 35 years of age or receiving the Age Pension may volunteer to participate.

In the Cape York region in Queensland, the program applies to those who the Family Responsibilities Commission have referred. People on Age Pension may choose to volunteer to participate.

In the Northern Territory, the program applies to Income Management participants who have chosen to transition to Cashless Debit Card as well as eligible income support recipients who have volunteered for the program. If you live in the Northern Territory, you can now transition to the Cashless Debit Card on the same day.

According to Services Australia on 22 January 2022:

• You will have access to 20 per cent (50 per cent for most participants in the Northern Territory and Cape York) of your welfare payment that you can withdraw as cash to use in circumstances where only cash is accepted, for example at school canteens, fetes and farmers markets.

• If you were placed on the Cashless Debit Card in one of the first four sites, you can also transfer up to $200 per 28 days to your regular bank account.

• The Cashless Debit Card works at businesses that accept eftpos or Visa. The only time the card cannot be used is for the purchase of alcohol, gambling products, cash-like gift cards or to withdraw cash. Or for any other goods or services determined by the Commonwealth of Australia to be banned goods/services in accordance with the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 (Cth).

• Indue Limited and the Traditional Credit Union are the designated debit card suppliers/restricted bank account managers.

• The list of blocked merchants/sites at which the Cashless Debit Card cannot be used currently contains 889 businesses.

• There appears to be no formal mechanism in place to appeal to Dept. of Social Security, Centrelink or Services Australia concerning any decisions or action taken by Indue Limited with regard to any  particular restricted bank account.

Australia 2022: a study in betrayal

SARS-CoV-2 entered Australia on 15 January 2020. It came here by a commercial passenger jet. It was not until 25 January 2020 that the infected passenger was diagnosed with COVID-19 and became our own Patient Zero in Sydney, New South Wales.

That same day two more airline passengers who disembarked in Sydney were also diagnosed with COVID-19.

From the very beginning the public health response of both the Federal and NSW governments was never as swift and comprehensive as it needed to be.

Indeed, over the next 15 months it often seemed that Prime Minister & fundamentalist Liberal Party ideologue Scott Morrison was personally determined to sabotage any chance of coming through this pandemic with minimal viral infections, deaths and long-term health problems for those who recovered from COVID-19.

However, despite the increasing politicization and weaponing of the public health response by the Morrison Government, we almost made it through.

By 15 June 2021 Australia had limited infection spread so that the cumulative total of COVID-19 cases was 30,274 people – just 0.1176% of the entire population. Sadly the COVID-10 related death toll stood at 910 individuals, but on the other hand there were only 116 active cases remaining in the entire country and only 26 of these were still sick enough to require hospitalization. Such outcomes compared favourably with global pandemic data.

On 16 June NSW Health confirmed that SARS-CoV-2 Delta Variant had been discovered after testing a man from Eastern Sydney. It was then that first the population of New South Wales and later by the rest of Australia discovered that, when it came to elected members of the federal and NSW state governments, there had been no lessons learnt from the earlier litany of public health blunders.

The Delta Variant quickly became a state-wide outbreak that was exported to other states and territories once then NSW Premier & Liberal MP for Willoughby Gladys Berejiklian – seemingly in thrall to Scott Morrison – began to insist that communities across the state must learn to ‘live with COVID’ and that the other states needed to follow her plan to re-open borders and scale back public health order conditions & restrictions. Scott Morrison threw his weight behind the only state premier who agreed with him and COVID-19 infections began to grow and spread at an alarming rate.

Over the next 23 weeks the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Australia grew to a cumulative total of 205,271 people with a COVID-19 related death toll of 1,985 individuals. The number of active cases remaining at the end of that time numbered 13,492 infected people with 557 ill enough to require hospitalisation.

There was a faint light at the end of the tunnel because infection growth and spread had begun to fall in the state that started the Delta Outbreak. So that at 8pm on Friday, 26 November 2021 the daily number of confirmed new cases of COVID-19 in NSW only totalled 235 people with 174 COVID-19 cases currently hospitalized and, 26 people in intensive care 10 of whom require ventilation.

Two days later NSW Health heralded the arrival of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron Variant after passengers who disembarked in Sydney from southern Africa on 28 November 2021 had tested positive for COVID-19 and their test results were being sequenced for this new variant.

The most charitable explanation for what happened next was that the entire NSW Government mindlessly panicked and, with new Premier & fundamentalist Liberal Party ideologue Dominic Perrottet at the helm, decided to treat this new outbreak in the making as a purely political and economic issue. Scott Morrison encouraged this approach just as he had encouraged open borders, lowering public health order restrictions and living with COVID.

This time Morrison appears to have gone further behind closed doors at the so-called National Cabinet meetings – rumours of verbal abuse, political threats and threats of financial sanctions by the federal government began to filter out.

By 15 December 2021 there was little left of what had always been an inchoate national public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic and, the states had begun to follow New South Wales down the rabbit hole Scott Morrison had so industriously dug.

On 31 December 2021 the national cumulative total of confirmed COVID-19 cases had grown to 395,504 people or 1.536% of the entire population. And tellingly, est. 190,233 more people had fallen ill over the space of the last 5 weeks. The cumulative national COVID-19 related death toll stood at 2,239 individuals. Active cases numbered 137,752 and current hospitalizations 1,591.

By 1 January 2022 that 190,233 figure appeared to have grown to 225,560 additional confirmed COVID-19 cases in Australia in the space of the last 5 weeks. 

When 2 January arrived  there was more unwelcome news. As at 8pm the number of additional confirmed COVID-19 cases in the last 5 weeks had grown to est. 257,194 people nationally. 

The national daily number of new confirmed COVID-19 cases on 2 January was given as 32,354 people and the number of active cases as est, 188,957 individuals. Currently 1,978 infected people were ill enough to require hospitalisation (1,204 of those being inpatients in NSW hospitals), 148 being in ICUs (95 in NSW) and 51 being ventilated (25 in NSW).

While the cumulative national total confirmed cases according to the Australian Dept. of Health was 462,928 and total deaths since January 2020 were recorded as 2,258 men, women and children.

Unfortunately, after 23 months of community transmission of SARS-CoV-2 , an erratic national public health response and a political response in recent months which has the effect of limiting community access to PCR tests & rapid antigen self- testing kits, the recorded tally of confirmed COVID-19 cases no longer represents a true and accurate total of the number of people who actually contracted the virus. The degree of undetected infection and the under reporting in official data to date has not been publicly quantified in Australia, but there is some suggestion that it could currently be somewhere between 20-25% and up to 50% for the latter part of December 2021. These percentages have the potential to impact on government's ability to assess probability and risk going forward into 2022.

Regions, local government areas and communities across Australia are in uncharted waters. It might never be possible to walk back the current high infection rate in the foreseeable future and, February 2022 may bring a new normal that is debilitating to national, state and regional economies, the public health system and social cohesion. 

Now one can argue about the level of virulence attached to the Omicron Variant and about whether cumulative, active, hospitalised or death toll numbers are important markers. However, what cannot be denied is that everyone of these active cases on any given day represents over time; a potential or real loss of productivity at state and national level, changes in the pattern of business profitability, yo-yoing consumer confidence, a decrease in tourism & hospitality turnover and an assault on the collective sense of safety and wellbeing. As well as a very real possibility that how Australian citizen’s cast their ballot at elections held in 2022 may be very different from past years.

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In the first two days of 2022 Northern NSW Local Health District where this blog is situated had recorded a total of 715 new confirmed COVID-19 cases across the 7 local government areas and, reported up to 19 people in hospital with 4 in intensive care.

• Byron Shire – 260 cases

• Tweed Shire – 173 cases

• Ballina Shire – 108 cases

• Clarence Valley – 76 cases

• Lismore City – 74 cases

• Richmond Valley – 14 cases

• Kyogle Shire – 10 cases

TOTAL  715 

Sources

• https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2021/06/coronavirus-covid-19-at-a-glance-15-june-2021.pdf

• https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2021/11/coronavirus-covid-19-at-a-glance-27-november-2021.pdf

• https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2022/01/coronavirus-covid-19-at-a-glance-31-december-2021.pdf

• https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/news/Pages/2021-nsw-health.aspx

• https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/news/Pages/2022-nsw-health.aspx

• https://nnswlhd.health.nsw.gov.au/blog/category/media-releases/