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Why woman had to beg for permission to buy a bra online

Courtney GouldNCA NewsWire
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Camera IconNot Supplied Credit: News Corp Australia

A woman who was forced onto a controversial income management scheme has detailed the horror of being forced to beg for permission to buy a bra.

Bianca Chatfield told a parliamentary inquiry she was placed on the cashless debit card after living temporarily in Bundaberg in Queensland.

However, she did not receive the card until she was living in Brisbane and was just weeks away from moving to Sydney.

During that time she said she had trouble paying her rent, purchasing second-hand uniforms for her children and buying groceries from Aldi.

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But it was the process of trying to purchase a bra online that left her “absolutely gobsmacked”.

“I have a very, very large bust and I can’t afford brands that are here in Australia,” she told the Senate inquiry on Tuesday.

“So I buy my bras from eBay from a place in England.”

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Camera IconThe Indue card was rolled out across communities in the country. Tricia Watkinson Credit: News Corp Australia

EBay is a blocked merchant under the scheme and Ms Chatfield was told she would have to send a picture of the bra to Indue, the company that manages the program, for approval.

“I felt like it was a major invasion of my privacy because this photo is going to someone that’s sitting behind a screen that has all of my personal details. I don’t know who they are,” she said.

Out of curiosity, she asked if the same process would apply if she wanted to purchase something from an adult store. She was told it would.

“So not only did I apparently need permission to purchase a bra, apparently I needed permission to climax as well.”

Ms Chatfield said the process was “unacceptable” and if a partner exercised the same control over her finances it would be “considered domestic violence”.

Speaking later with NCA NewsWire, she described the program as “government-sanctioned financial abuse”.

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Camera IconMs Chatfield was informed she needed permission to buy a bra. Credit: Supplied

A parliamentary committee is examining the Albanense government’s proposal to abolish the cashless debit card.

The card quarantines up to 80 per cent of welfare payments into a restricted bank account and was introduced by the Coalition in 2016 to prevent cash withdrawals or spending on certain items such as alcohol and gambling.

The card was trialled across Ceduna in South Australia, East Kimberley and the Goldfields in Western Australia, and Bundaberg and Hervey Bay in Queensland.

More recently it was expanded into the Northern Territory and Cape York.

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Camera IconThe government has vowed to remove the program. Thinsktock, iStock Credit: Supplied

If legislated, more than 17,300 welfare recipients who have a cashless card will have the option to remain on the program voluntarily or opt out.

But not everyone who shared evidence with the committee is in favour of scrapping the program.

Leading Indigenous think tank Cape York Institute wants the government to allow communities on the card to decide for themselves.

“Income management should not be externally imposed from the top-down, substantial on the ground support and community leadership prepared to step up is required for success,” its submission said.

Speaking later in the day, the Ceduna District Council agreed but said a community-led model like in Cape York would not work in their town.

Chief executive Geoffrey Moffatt and Mayor Perry Will told the committee it was their understanding the Coalition was going to make the card permanent if re-elected but the Senate was of concern.

WA Liberal senator Matt O’Sullivan visited around nine months ago with several DSS staff and collated data to help build the case, they said.

“We gave him all the raw data that we could from the hospital and from the police and from everything else,” Mr Will said.

“They wanted to be able to put this thing in, instead of being called a trial, that it could have gone in permanently.”

Originally published as Why woman had to beg for permission to buy a bra online

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