Press release: 

Media Statement:  

CDC LEGISLATION REPEALED.

Dedicated to the memory of those who are not here to see this brighter day.

We would like to thank the 47th Parliament for their decision to repeal the CDC legislation and put an end to this necrotic and insulting program.

We feel gratified and vindicated by today's Senate result and we have many people to thank.

This victory today is one for compassion and common sense; for community, and it belongs to all people forced onto the cashless debit card scheme across Australia.

We thank all those who stepped up to share their lived experiences on the card with the public at great risk and expense to their and their families lives.

Thank you Aunty Sue, Aunty Bev , Jodie, Kerryn, Crystal, Dee, Jake, Christine, Hannah, Dakota, Sylvia, Craig, Kaelah and Mahahla and Sarah.

We thank those who held the line and led the way; the communities of Geraldton, Port Hedland, Port Augusta, Halls Creek, Moree and everyone who stood in protest within the current card regions. Thank you for your courage and determination.

We thank the academic sector who have documented this policy and its human impacts faithfully and beyond the reach of speculation. Thank you Elise Klein, Shelly Bielefeld, Eve Vincent, Rob Bray, Janet Hunt, John Altman, David Tenant and Marcia Langton.

We thank the dozens of Aboriginal and non Aboriginal peak bodies, community and religious sector groups, the unions that have supported us, and the many grassroots groups who joined us along the way for their commitment and dedication to ending this policy.

Thank you to our NCDCA and SN7 group members, to our long suffering admins and page leads and all the 'keyboard warriors', who fearlessly banded to together and became a vital cadre of all age and socioeconomic groups, sending the emails, signing the petitions, making the calls, doing the legwork and showing up at protests. Thank you for giving of your time, humanity and energy to this campaign so consistently for the last seven years.

As the CDC program comes to an end, and perhaps for the first real time in 15 years, the reality, cruelty and injustices of the compulsory income management regime in Australia are now firmly understood and embedded in the minds and hearts of millions of people.

Too late and just in time, more people than ever are now aware of the cost of indifference and the price of wilful ignorance as regards the human impacts of this policy of conscious cruelty. We look forward to their continued support in the process to end all compulsory income management in Australia.

The CDC, like its progenitor the Basics Card program, was rooted in an ideological imperative inconsistent with the very concept of community and it was anathema to our values, our existing laws and the expectations we hold of governance in this, our still forming nation.

It was brutally imposed via racist and classist force, upon innocent people. What has happened here over the last 7 years, and across the Northern Territory over the last 15 years, must never be permitted to happen again in any form, by this parliament or any into the future.

We will work to that end.

We do thank those in the political sector who voted for sanity today and express our enduring thanks to former senator Rachel Siewert for her mentor-ship, and her and her staffs advocacy and strength. She believed in us.

We thank members of the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Greens, and those Independents - local, state and federal, who have stood with us and joined the campaign to end this program.

To those who have lost loved ones as a result of this policy we honour you today. There is no compensation for the loss you have experienced, and no words can ever provide salve to heal the wound of your loved ones continued absence. We know that for you today's decision will be painful and will likely cause you to revisit places of grieving. We offer our deepest respects to you at this time, and offer our condolences to your families.  We will never forget.

To the people of Australia we thank you all for voting for change and we invigorate and re-imagine the words "Never Again - Anyone Anywhere" with new and poignant  meaning. We pass them in context to you now, as a responsibility we must all meaningfully carry forward.

Please remember that only through the last minute efforts and actions of a very small group of committed citizens, you, our economy and control over our parliament and political systems has been spared the full measure of the terrible consequences of this tragic abuse of power.

We, all of us, must never forget that we, all of us, are responsible.

Thank you,

Amanda Smith and Kathryn Wilkes

Co-Coordinators: No Cashless Debit Card Australia (NCDCA)

Founder members: The Say No Seven/9/2022