Settler colonialism in Australia and the cashless debit card

Abstract

Settler colonialism continues in Australia today. One way this occurs is through processes of assimilation such as targeting First Nations subjectivities with behavioural conditions on their social security payments. In this paper, I draw on a 13‐month study examining one such programme; the Cashless Debit Card trial in the East Kimberley region in North West Australia. Through restricting cash and purchases to curb alcohol consumption, illegal drug use, and gambling, card aims to instil “responsible behaviour” such as getting a job in the capitalist economy, accumulating private property, and succeeding in English education. Through drawing on critical discourse analysis, I ask, what does the Cashless Debit Card tell us about the settler state's attempts of continued assimilation? The paper explores specific ways the state legitimising assimilation through provoking narratives of First Nations dysfunction, depoliticising poverty and colonisation, constructing evidence around success of policy, and constructing ideas of “community” in order to regulate who speaks and who is overlooked. Although assimilation attempts are made, there is resistance and pushback in the trial site. Attempts of assimilation, not actual assimilation, can only be observed.

Burn Injuries in Hospitalized Australian Children—An Epidemiological Profile

“…56 In Australia, 44% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people reside in outer regional to 58,59 These results are indicative of impacts from economic marginalization and social exclusion that First Nations communities experience from continued colonization in the form of colonialism (political exclusion, racism, transgenerational trauma). 43,60,61 Australia, like most colonized countries, exists in a state of neocolonialism where colonization continues to affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities through structural oppressions; be that land dispossession, racism, transgenerational trauma, health inequities, or political control and assimilation (ie, cashless welfare cards [Cashless welfare cards are an Australian Government income management strategy program. The program uses behavioral control, restricting 80% of an individual's state benefit payment (eg, Centerlink), only allowing this money to be spent on certain items at specific shops 61 .]).…”

Affective technologies of welfare deterrence in Australia and the United Kingdom

“…The idea for the focus of this paper came from a number of different empirical projects carried out by the authors: Klein and Razi (2018) and Klein's (2020) research into the use of the Cashless Debit Card (subsistence-level support for First Nations people in Australia, discussed in detail later) and settler colonialism in Australia, and Mills' research into UK welfare retrenchment, suicide and disabled people's activism (Mills, 2018) and hostile environment policies, immigration detention and suicide (Mills, 2020). This research has highlighted the historical continuities between contemporary welfare deterrence and its historical manifestations.…”

Top-down Paternalism Versus Bottom-up Community Development: A Case Study of Compulsory Income Management Programmes in Australia

“…This was not what happened in CDC trial sites where a government policy was developed as a result of the Forrest Review, and then later offered to and endorsed by some community leaders in each area (Klein & Razi, 2017). To be sure, those local leaders described the trial as a collaborative plan that reflected local needs (Tudge, 2015b).…”

“…But Greens Senator Rachel Siewert argued in contrast there had been limited consultation with residents in both Ceduna and East Kimberley, and that the government ‘hand-picked’ so-called community leaders to approve the trial (2017a, p. 105). Researcher Elise Klein, who conducted a study into the CDC in East Kimberley that included 51 interviews with card participants, asserted that the government only consulted with Card supporters while ignoring the views of those who opposed the Card (Klein & Razi, 2017). She called the consultation a ‘PR sales pitch’ that failed to engage with CDC participants who were conveniently labelled ‘alcoholics and gamblers’, and hence not worthy of consideration (Klein, 2017, p. 32).…”

“…There seems to be divided opinions in all affected communities. For example, there is evidence of strong community support for the CDC trials in Ceduna, East Kimberley and the Goldfields particularly from local leaders, and also of significant opposition from other community members (ACOSS, 2017; Bielefeld, 2018; Klein & Razi, 2017; Murdoch, 2018; Orima Research, 2017; Smith, 2017; Stewart, 2016; Tilley, 2018). Similarly, there is evidence of both community support and dissenting voices concerning the proposed new trial in Hinkler (Siewert, 2017b).…”