Food sales increase under welfare quarantining: store
Posted
The main street of Wadeye, the NT's largest Aboriginal community (Sarah Hawke)
The store manager at the Northern Territory's largest Indigenous community says food sales have increased by up to 10% as a result of welfare quarantining.
The quarantining sees 50% of welfare payments set aside for essential items, and has been in place for about 12 months at Wadeye under the federal intervention.
The measure aims to reduce spending on alcohol, drugs and gambling.
The store's manager Mark Hoy says while there's been positive outcomes there are still some technical issues with the cards issued for the scheme.
"We do have issues with people's cards being declined, they can't get balances on their card so when they come to shop here they don't know if they've got money in their bank or not. You'll put a sale through the register and put the card through and there's no money, all those goods then have to be returned to the shelves."
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