11th Sep 2018, 12:16 PM – Senate Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cashless Debit Card Trial Expansion) Bill 2018 - in Committee - More certainty

The majority voted in favour of government amendments (1) to (5) and (8) to (11), which means they succeeded.

What do these amendments do?

These amendments would move several matters that are currently in disallowable instruments - that is, legislative instruments that the parliament is able to vote against in a single vote so they stop being law - to standard legislation that can't so easily be undone. These matters include the location of the trial sites. According to Liberal MP Mitch Fifield, who introduced the amendments, "this will give certainty to trial participants and local communities".

What does the bill do?

The bill was introduced to:

• expand the cashless debit card arrangements to a further trial site, the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay area, to run until 30 June 2020;
• specify the class of trial participants for the area and increase the total number of trial participants overall to 15 000;
• provide for an exception from the restrictive trade practices provisions of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 for merchants that implement product level blocking systems to identify that a cashless debit card is being used for payment and, if any restricted products are being purchased, decline the transaction; and
• limit the use of the restricted portion of a payment to prevent the portion being used to obtain cash-like products which could be used to obtain alcohol or gambling.