Advance payments are income managed the same way as other payments. So if 50% of your payment goes to basics cars, 50% of your advance goes to basics card
Basics card won't be rolled out in areas that don't have stores that accept the cards. This is why it hasn't been a whole of Australia immediately on this approach. The governer make sure there are atores that accept payment before they set it up. There is also a lot of loading done with water boards and any other companies to try and make it so that as much as possible can be paid similarly to centrepay.

No, you can't use basics card for online shopping. Your cash portion would need to be used for that. Holidays would be the same - at least the portion of the holiday that included travel expenses etc. if you were going somewhere that had basics card shops for food, you could use the card for that


Centrepay is voluntary. And many people won't use it. Yes, a large portion of people do the right thing and pay their bills and feed their kids and pay rent af life goes on. But unfortunately, there are a large number of Australians that don't. And it would be impossible to pick and choose who goes on income management in each area. So when it rolls out, everyone on income support goes onto it in that area. It may not be ideal for those already doing the right thing and budgeting ok, but government departments can't check very individual budget and decide yay or nay on moving people across...