Australia Card

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The Australia Card was a controversial proposal for a national identification card for Australian citizens and resident foreigners. The proposal was made in 1985, and abandoned in 1987.

The idea for the card was raised at the national Tax Summit in 1985 convened by the then Federal Labor government. The card was to amalgamate other government identification systems and act against tax avoidance and health and welfare rorts. The government introduced legislation in the parliament in 1986, but it didn't have a majority in the Senate and was blocked by the opposition and minor parties.

In response, Labor used the Australia Card legislation as the trigger for a Double Dissolution at the 1987 election. The government was returned, and so it could have held a joint sitting of parliament to get its legislation through. But a technical flaw in the legislation was noticed, that the date of implementation would have to be passed separately, preventing its introduction. It's not clear that this flaw was fatal to the scheme, but the government did at that point abandon the idea. It may well have been a convenient face-saving way out of the situation, because by that time very significant popular opposition had arisen from widely disparate groups.

The Australia Card proposal was, and is still, the subject of strong views. The proposal was either an egregious intrusion into individual's privacy, giving bureaucrats enormous power; or it was an efficient and evolutionary step for a technological age, combatting fraud. And its defeat was either a triumph of citizens acting to protect their rights; or irrelevant in the end due to the expansion of other identification systems and data matching.

The Australia Card proposal resurfaces every so often. Most recently, figures within the ruling Liberal Party of Australia - which opposed the card in the 1980s - joined by Queensland Premier Peter Beattie, have voiced support for a national identity card. The Australia Card, say some, would help the government to combat terrorism and address flaws in the immigration system.

Plans to expand the capabilities of the ubiquitous Medicare card were announced in 2005 by Human Services minister Joe Hockey. The Health and social services access card has been criticised by some sectors of the public and relevant interest groups as a step in the same direction of an Australia Card. The government has stated that it has no plans to introduce a national identity card at this stage.

[edit] See also

Tax File Number – its uses are restricted and it has far lesser scope than the Australia Card would have had, despite increased interaction between welfare and tax matters.