Australia: "Smart Cards" to be Reality within 4 years for most citizens

Just saw on the news this evening, Australian Prime Minister John Howard has approved "Smart Cards" that will be required within 4 years to access most public services including Welfare, Healthcare (Medicare) and more.

The Age

Prime Minister John Howard has announced the federal government will not proceed with a national identity card.

But the government will go ahead with an access card - generally referred to as a smart card - for health and welfare services, Mr Howard said.

Also it notes in the article..

"It will be necessary for everybody who needs a card to apply for one," he said.

"It will not be compulsory to have the card."

Of course, if you want access to any Medicare-funded Healthcare, Welfare, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (discount prescriptions) and more, you will absolutely need one.

This will also replace a 'healthcare/concession' card which is used by many australians on an every-day basis to get discounts on items such as, Car Registration, medicines, doctors bills, tests, public transport tickets etc. This is the kind of card you carry with you, in the back of your pocket EVERYWHERE. This is probably what im most concerned about. Not that it can be tracked, but it will soon become just as good to the government, AS a national ID card.

I am also trying to find some pictures of what the cards will look like to post. I did see it on the news, It has a gold chip imbedded in it, and i'm not sure if its RFID, or some other technology, but i worry that the 'encryption' of this could be severly lacking. Can this card be tracked?

I beleive they were saying on the news, we can get them from 2008, and by 2010 if we dont have one, No Free Healthcare, no Discount prescriptions, no discount car registration, no free doctor visits, no free diagnostic tests, no discount train/tram/bus/ferry tickets.

Im really sickened by this to be honest. YES, fraud is a major problem, but i dont really see how this will help or solve the problem at all. 100 points of ID used to be what was required for applying for welfare (which in australia is like a Drivers License, Birth Certificiate, a bank card, and a credit card and/or a video membership card), but now you can do it with one, single card? Sure you can scan it, but whats to ensure the information put in their in the first place, is absolutely correct?

I'm very interested in other peoples comments (from Australia or not). I personally, am not looking forward to the day I have to carry one of these around in my back pocket, incase im run over by a bus, so when i wake up after a 3 month coma, i wont find myself in a private hospital and have a 100K bill to be paid on departure.

To give you guys one more indiciation of how widespread this will be, this is replacing the medicare card, which about 60% of Australian Citizens have. With the other various cards it will be replacing this will likely have a HUGE saturation rate.


Mod Edit: title

With the results of several opinion POLLS on this very subject being negative towards the introduction of a SMART card ( or Australia card, by any other name ), it is my opinion that the current Australian Federal Govt will suffer serious consequenses at the next election if they intend to take this policy with them into their next term of government ( provided they get elected, of course ).

I'm wondering why someone hasn't lined us all up already, to have us microchipped.......like they do our pets!!

We already have smart cards although they are only used for welfare as I know of. They are basically ATM cards that replaced food stamps.(drug dealers and chinese restaurants were pissed over that one) It is only a matter of time when you will only need to carry one card that has your life on it. When you can use a speedpass at McDonalds then you know it is underway. I'm in America by the way.

[edit on 5/6/2006 by Infra_red]

Originally posted by Infra_red
When you can use a speedpass at McDonalds then you know it is underway. I'm in America by the way.

Surprise! It's already happening here in the northeast US. McDonalds does accept a special speed pass from my bank. They sent me one in the mail.

I haven't used it yet, because I hate McDonald's food. I'm a BurgerKing man.

We currently have the Medicare card which is necessary to claim your medical rebates, but to be honest, if the Givt want to know anything about us they can hit the Sensus forms or check out our tax file records, its all there in black whaite anyway......................

Originally posted by Figjam
With the results of several opinion POLLS on this very subject being negative towards the introduction of a SMART card ( or Australia card, by any other name ), it is my opinion that the current Australian Federal Govt will suffer serious consequenses at the next election if they intend to take this policy with them into their next term of government ( provided they get elected, of course ).

I certainly hope they will not get it through. It is a long time away thank god, i just really hope the opposition party can get their act together.

I'm wondering why someone hasn't lined us all up already, to have us microchipped.......like they do our pets!!

Haha. I have asked myself that. I have come to the conclusion that they dont want it to be done in a way that is overly obvious. We're aloud to know about it, and see it -- it just has to be done in a way that we can all live in complete denial about it.

Originally posted by Infra_red
We already have smart cards although they are only used for welfare as I know of. They are basically ATM cards that replaced food stamps.(drug dealers and chinese restaurants were pissed over that one)

I dont have a real problem with an ATM-esque card. As far as I know, the American ATM Cards are still yet to have microchips/RFID chips embedded into them. That stuff really is just like a page out of 1984.

It is only a matter of time when you will only need to carry one card that has your life on it. When you can use a speedpass at McDonalds then you know it is underway. I'm in America by the way.

Lol! And there you go. Now you can.

The medicare cards we currently have are really nothing like an Australia Card, or Smart Card, or National ID Card, or whatever you want to call it. No chip (except in a small test percentage among those living in Tasmania), and not something you take with you ever day to get discounts on Public Transport and other things. You don't have to take it with you everywhere -- though im sure alot do incase anything ever happens.

How about DNA smartcards? Already in production and used to prove tribal membership in the good 'ol USA. Check "DNAtoday Genetic Identification Systems" products at DNAtoday.com. Way. way scary. Questions from their FAQ like "How would DNA work for our tribe?" give me the "willies". Honest, please check it out. link

Thanx for this thread... I'd never have gone looking otherwise,

Victor K.

They passed the draft bill for this today...

What that means, i don't know, but i don't think we need a damn national ID card.

Originally posted by ekul08

I am also trying to find some pictures of what the cards will look like to post. I did see it on the news, It has a gold chip imbedded in it, and i'm not sure if its RFID, or some other technology, but i worry that the 'encryption' of this could be severly lacking. Can this card be tracked?

It makes no mention that it has RFID as far as I`ve heard or read.

A Medicare card has just a name and Medicare number. The new card has a name, a personal identification number, a signature and bio-metric photograph. It also has a digital chip which has the capacity to carry medical information, address, emergency contacts, concession status, even an "electronic purse".


All Australians over the age of 18 will be photographed, with photos kept in an enormous electronic database. This database is to prevent more than one card being issued to any Australian.
Link with pic

(all bolding mine)

This is the explaination of the meaning Bio-metric from the same link above.

Biometric photography - a way of electronically reading photographs by translating the measurements of the human face into unique mathematical formulae - is notoriously unreliable. In tests at airports biometric readers confused similar looking people. The Government itself claims biometric readings are about 90 per cent accurate.

Whats more reliable? directly chipped,with something better?


unique mathmatical formulae? I`d like to see the formulae they use.

Rev 13

6He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, 17so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.
18This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666.

Hmmm yep,sounds like we are getting closer to the mark.

[edit on 7-2-2007 by gps777]

G'day all,

I have heard this coming for the last 2 months or so, as I know someone inside a government agency that told me something like this was coming.

Being on a conspiracy forum and all, you tend to read alot of stories and theories and some of them as time goes on actually make you wonder wether all this NWO crap is starting to fall into place.

Recently I read somewhere that western governments will try to bring out a national I.D card system as the one proposed here in Australia but will derail it with massive amounts of Identity Theft, to the point in a few years from now when everyone has already accepted this I.D card, that the public will be willing for a change, almost anything to remove the possibility of their identity being stolen.

This in turn will leave governments no choice but to begin personalizing RFID chips for every individual, containing all their Medicare/health details, identity details, aswell as being hooked upto a mastercard type of system and implanting them into all citizens.

It will, in the governments eyes remove any possiblity of identity theft, and in the governments eyes also enable them to follow and track any individual they want, all their transactions and a few other things aswell.

I for one, do not agree with this Australia Card as it does not have our democratic values and priciples associated with it and we are all slowly being manipulated and socially engineered to beleive in the false fears the western governments are instigating on us, and not only that but have you realised how the school teachers have changed their ways of teaching these days? To the point that if you disagree or challenge a teachers opinion, you get punished or consulted because the teachers have been told to engineer our kids to do as authority says even if you disagree with good reason.

Australia, with Canberra as our capital will within 10 years become the hub of the NWO, and there is nothing we can do to stop it short of a revolution, which will only happen through sudden social and/or economic change, for as long as they slowly keep turning up the heat, the Australian mentality of perseverance through harsships continues until we cannot take it anymore and then you shall see the Eureka Stockade occur again but in a magnitude of 100.

Whatever happened to the true meaning of democracy and freedom?