Oh Cool, The Company Behind The Controversial Cashless Debit Card Refuses To Pay Back JobKeeper

The company behind Australia’s controversial cashless debit card system claimed a whopping $2 million in JobKeeper payments before its revenues increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Trials for Australia’s cashless debit card program — which quarantines 80 percent of a person’s welfare payment in an effort to curb alcohol, gambling and drug spending —  were first rolled out back in early 2016. However, Indue — the firm behind the cards — was handed a two year extension to the program last year, worth $26 million.

In addition to this $26 million contract, Indue also received a total of $2.1 million in JobKeeper payments throughout the program — $632,700 in June 2020, and an additional $1.49 million between July and September. But like many other companies — Indue actually ended up recording significant profits of $2.1 million and $2.5 million in the 19/20 and 20/21 financial years respectively, according to its annual report. 

Indue confirmed in a statement to The Guardian that “our actual GST turnover fell by more than 30 percent” and therefore, the company intends to keep its JobKeeper payment.

“Accordingly, we intend to retain the JobKeeper payments on the basis that Indue met the qualifying criteria, the payments were accessed for legitimate reasons and used by Indue for the purposes it was intended,” the spokesperson said.

There’s no assertion that Indue didn’t qualify for the payment, rather, it likely fell through the same crack in the government’s system that saw major companies like Harvey Norman cash in on JobKeeper.

Under the program, businesses had to estimate if they would see a 30-50 percent decrease in turnover — depending on the size of the business. However, the programme didn’t have any clauses about what would happen if the business ended up recording profits.

Following the increase in revenue, Labor has called for Indue — which already makes a small fortune from the Australian government — to pay back the money.

“Indue makes tens of millions of dollars running the cashless debit card for the Morrison government,” Labor assistant treasury spokesman Andrew Leigh told The Guardian. “Now it turns out they got $2m in JobKeeper, despite increasing their revenues during the pandemic.”

So far, 21 companies — including Harvey Norman — have publicly pledged to repay some or all of the JobKeeper payments received throughout the pandemic.

The decision not to pay back JobKeeper is particularly ironic considering Centrelink recently ordered welfare recipients to pay back $32 million in reportedly overpaid JobKeeper payments.