The Australian Greens said today that the Government's increasingly hard-line approach to vulnerable people could have a severe impact on Australians relying on the disability support payment.

"Yet again, the Government is looking to save money at the expense of some of Australia's poorest people by considering moves to cut the payments of people with disabilities by dumping them onto Newstart," Senator Rachel Siewert, Australian Greens spokesperson on families and community services said today.

The Australian Greens have called for the expensive and wasteful regime of income management to be abandoned as a new Monash University report questions the evaluations that have been used to justify the policy's expansion.

"Reports such as this provide us with an insight into income management that the Government is unable or unwilling to provide," Senator Rachel Siewert said today.

"By its nature, income management targets deeply vulnerable people, and there are serious doubts about its long term effectiveness.

The old parties have today united in the Senate to vote in favour of extending the unproven income management regime to some of Australia's most vulnerable people.

The Government can expand income management at will through powers contained in the Stronger Futures legislation, which passed last year, again with the support Tony Abbott's Coalition.

The Australian Greens said today the Government is making policy decisions on the basis of perceptions, not evidence, as they continue the wasteful and ineffective regime of income management.

“The Government released their latest evaluation report of income management on the last day of the last week of Parliament for the year, after sitting on it for four months,” Australian Greens Senator Rachel Siewert said today.

The Government and Coalition today reaffirmed their commitment to the rollout of punitive income management measures around Australia, opposing an Australian Greens motion that would have prevented the flawed approach from being extended to vulnerable, low income families in Bankstown, Shepparton, Logan, Rockhampton and Playford. 

“Income management is a failed and expensive policy that the Government is persisting with in the absence of any real justification,” Senator Rachel Siewert, Australian Greens spokesperson on Families and Community Services said today.

Speech to bill - Thursday, 28 June 2012

Senator RHIANNON (New South Wales) (19:19): These three Stronger Futures bills will undermine the human rights of Indigenous communities. It really does defy understanding why they have been brought forward in this form. Anything that is positive in the package will be rendered meaningless because they are so deeply discriminatory.

Commenting on the Stronger Futures legislation that passed the Senate last night on the combined vote of Labor and the Coalition, Greens Senator for NSW Lee Rhiannon said there was insufficient evidence to support extending the government’s controversial income management trial to Bankstown. 

The Greens tried to vote down the legislation, then tried to remove income management from the bill, but did not receive the support of the other parties. 

The Australian Greens have vowed to oppose the Bankstown trial of income management following last night's release of the Senate Inquiry into the Stronger Futures legislation report and evidence given to the committee questioning whether the government consulted with locals before announcing the Bankstown trial.

Bankstown is one of five locations nationally where the government is set to trial compulsory income management from 1 July 2012.

The Australian Greens say there are significant community concerns that proposed measures under the Stronger Futures legislation will be highly detrimental to Aboriginal people in the NT.

“The Greens have strongly recommended that the Senate rejects this legislation,” Senator Rachel Siewert, Australian Greens spokesperson on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Issues said today.