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FURTHER CHAOS FOR NT WITH INCOME MANAGEMENT REMOVAL
THE HON MICHEAL SUKKAR MP
Shadow Minister for Social Services
Shadow Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme
Shadow Minister for Housing and Homelessness
Federal Member for Deakin
SENATOR KERRYNNE LIDDLE
Shadow Minister for Child Protection and the Prevention of Family Violence
Senator for South Australia
JOINT MEDIA RELEASE
5 December 2025
FURTHER CHAOS FOR NT WITH INCOME MANAGEMENT REMOVAL
The Albanese Government’s plan to remove income management and take nearly 30,000 long-term welfare recipients off it will have catastrophic consequences for so many, Shadow Minister for Child Protection and the Prevention of Family Violence Senator Kerrynne Liddle said.
Department of Social Services representatives visited in November and December to consult on the future of income management.
Consultation closed on December 6. It was made clear in Senate Estimates in November that the Albanese Government is again committed to wreaking chaos despite evidence from its previous ideologically driven handiwork when alcohol restrictions were removed in 2022.
It makes no sense to do the same with income management and expecting a different result. Locals know what will happen. Victim-survivors know what will happen. Sadly, it is them who live with the consequences.
It will mean those with addiction can spend all their welfare on gambling, alcohol and drugs and was detailed by former participants in cashless debit card sites. The negative impact was clearly detailed in the government’s own report and yet they forge on.
This is not suggesting that all income management recipients are addicts or have issues, but the reality is that everyone is impacted by the actions, harassment and violence metered out by those who do.
In the NT problem gambling has an estimated cost of up to $400 million a year while the estimated social cost of adverse alcohol consumption to the NT tops $3 billion.
That’s much more than the $234 million cost in delivering the Cashless Debit Card to March 2023.
In recent media announcements, on the one hand Labor says it is addressing violence while at the same time removing one of the critical preventive measures living in the NT – income management.
Are the three Labor MPs from the Northern Territory blind, deaf and indifferent to that?
Their hypocrisy of making a sham announcement of new activities for the prevention of family violence and reducing the number of children in care while at the same time creating an open slather for the drivers of these issues is breathtaking and bad.
How much more money and what is the human toll that will stop Labor’s policy madness. The evidence of the negative impact in Ceduna, the Kimberley and the Goldfields is in its own commissioned report.
ENDS