Those cashless debit cards

may not have been such a bad thing after all but will they be reinstated. 

There is a report out suggesting that the "cashless debit card" (which prevented some welfare recipients from spending all their money on alcohol, gambling and the like) might have been a good thing. The question of whether you should be entitled to spend "your own money" how you choose will no doubt again be debated. But of course if you are get a "handout" from the government is it really your money or is it money the government has provided for essentials?

I remember visiting one of the towns where the "research" was done. At the time my parents were the two teachers in a small school about seventy kilometres away. We went on a school excursion to the weather station and the loading docks. The train went there in those days. There was an "area school"...and more than one shop. The parents who had loaded us into cars to take us there (because there was no official school bus) filled the car boots with things that were not available in our tiny "general store". (And yes, we bigger children had wriggling younger children sitting on our laps all the way there and back. There were no seat belts back then.)

I remember all this and I remember the "aborigines". They roamed the town. They lounged around. At least some of their children were running down the beach and in and out of buildings. They were not at school. There was still a prohibition on selling alcohol to the indigenous population back then. Some of them had somehow managed to get some anyway.  

We quiet little country kittens came away from that sight feeling a little frightened. On the second occasion we visited the town it was to take my maternal grandmother to the little airport. It had been a very difficult visit. She had been with us for a very long fortnight. Mum used the occasion to make sure she stocked up on things we needed and she suggested we might all like ice cream. Ice cream was a real treat. It was not available where we lived. We children actually hesitated because there were aboriginal women begging outside the big general store and the "milk bar". They were moved on by the police as we were getting out of the car but the Senior Cat stayed with the car while Mum did the shopping. It was like that even then. 

People who live there say the problems are worse now. Some of those who were at first opposed to the cashless debit card now say it was a good thing. I have met indigenous women from another area who strongly support the card. It has given the women around them a chance to feed and clothe their children. Their children are (reluctantly) going to school. The levels of domestic violence and other crimes have dropped.

Is it just possible that those cashless debit cards are not as humiliating as being a victim of alcohol and gambling induced crime?