The Access card Bill was sent back by the Federal Senate as not being a good enough law to pass - they were told to do better and try again later if they could get it right. There is no guarantee that the completed Access card bill will be passed. However the Federal Government is quietly continuing to set up the Access Card as a de-facto Identity Card by the March 2008 deadline. They've advertised for tenders for the original Access Card technology, without any of the changes demanded by the Senate when it rejected the bill.
Centrelink have quietly renamed the "Customer Reference Number" or CRN that every Centrelink Concession Card holder has on their Centrelink card, to now be called the "Customer ACCESS Number", or CAN. This change does not show up any page of the Centrelink website. This change in name has been carried out by stealth. I can only guess that the plan is to have everyone accept the change as if it had always been called a Centrelink Access Number. I discovered the change when using the automated voice recognition telephone service.
In the Federal Budget families who will receive the non-means tested Family Benefits Tax benefit election bribe, will be forced to register their bank details with Centrelink to receive this welfare for the married parents of all incomes, from middle-class to millionaires. All these people who aren't worried about the Access Card becoming an Authoritarian tool because it only affects poor people on Welfare are in for a nasty surprize. They will all need an Access Card to be paid their Family Benefits Tax bribes. This sets a precedent for tax rebates for the majority being paid through Centrelink.
This is not the first time Centrelink have adopted legislation that has been rejected by the Senate. The Howard Regime has become so arrogant in its control of both houses, that their bureacrats are directed to fulfill the legislation BEFORE and in fact regardless of whether it gets passed into law.
Its sneaky stuff, keep your eyes open for the keyword "access", in terms of Centrelink, and for more "tax benefits" to be paid through Centrelink.









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