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| Mayor kept in dark about drug tests trial for welfare recipients in Logan City | Mayor kept in dark about drug tests trial for welfare recipients in Logan City |
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| Logan City in Queensland will be the second site of the Turnbull government’s trial of drug tests for welfare recipients – much to the surprise of its mayor. | Logan City in Queensland will be the second site of the Turnbull government’s trial of drug tests for welfare recipients – much to the surprise of its mayor. |
| Christian Porter, the social services minister, and Alan Tudge, the human services minister, are due to make the announcement in Beenleigh, south of Brisbane, later on Wednesday. | Christian Porter, the social services minister, and Alan Tudge, the human services minister, are due to make the announcement in Beenleigh, south of Brisbane, later on Wednesday. |
| On Tuesday, Canterbury-Bankstown in western Sydney was chosen as the first of three trial sites due to the high number people signing up for welfare and the rapid growth of ice-fuelled hospitalisations in the area. | |
| But Luke Smith, mayor of Logan, says he has been kept in the dark about the federal government’s plan to make his city the second site of its drug-testing trial of welfare recipients. Smith says he has been given no information on the trial or why the city was chosen. | |
| “We didn’t even know this was happening in the city of Logan,” Mr Smith told ABC radio. | “We didn’t even know this was happening in the city of Logan,” Mr Smith told ABC radio. |
| Smith said he only found out after a call from the ABC and since then his office had tried “relentlessly” to learn more from the federal government. | Smith said he only found out after a call from the ABC and since then his office had tried “relentlessly” to learn more from the federal government. |
| “I think to announce this from the top down is a disgrace and the lack of consultation is something I am quite amazed by,” Smith said. | |
| Smith agreed accountability is needed for those on welfare payments, but he is resistant to Logan participating in the trial. He said there has been “tremendous” work to reduce unemployment and crime in the city. | |
| “The drug problem is clearly a nation wide issue ... to stigmatise Logan with this is quite an atrocious lack of understanding of what’s going on, on the ground,” he said. | |
| On Tuesday Porter said there was “lots of evidence” that compelling people into treatment programs could have a positive result but conceded: “No one has quite done particularly what we’re doing here in Australia anywhere else in the world.” | On Tuesday Porter said there was “lots of evidence” that compelling people into treatment programs could have a positive result but conceded: “No one has quite done particularly what we’re doing here in Australia anywhere else in the world.” |