Home - Claire Moore - Labor Senator for Queensland

BILLS;Social Security Legislation Amendment (Debit Card Trial) Bill 2015;In Committee

Senator MOORE (Queensland) (10:18): Minister, in the committee hearing we were told that this particular funding would come out of a contingency fund. I have a long history of not understanding contingency funds; I have had them explained to me a number of times. But in terms of the process, I am interested in the last letter from Minister Tudge, which arrived yesterday, I believe. It listed the number of services that would be enhanced by the $1 million payment. It also listed the number of services that were already in place. We were told there was a mapping exercise within the community, working with the community to see what services would be needed. I am very keen to know whether that is going to be the ongoing process, should there be other trial placements, and whether there would be any attempt to say that, because $1 million was appropriate to a trial in Ceduna, there could not be greater or lesser amounts in other trial sites, should such trials happen. What I want to find out is whether the process that we have seen in Minister Tudge's letter, which is working with the community to do a gap analysis and then looking at what other services there could be, would be the model and whether there would be any link between the amount of funding that has been given to this trial and the other trials having to have a similar amount of funding. It would be a similar model, but with no linkage to the amount of funding?