Exclusive: Introduction of cashless welfare card coincides with significant increase in domestic violence callouts and assaults, police data shows

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Domestic violence has increased significantly in the East Kimberley since the introduction of the cashless welfare card, casting doubt on the government’s claims of its success.

Police data obtained under freedom of information law shows domestic-related assaults and police-attended domestic violence reports increased in the Kimberley communities of Wyndham and Kununurra since trials began in April 2016.

Melbourne University researcher Elise Klein, who has studied the card’s impact in the Kimberley, said the data showed there was no clear evidence to support making the card permanent.

Klein lodged the freedom of information request for the police data. She said the information had taken too long to be made public.

She believes there is a link between the card, financial hardship, and family violence.



“There’s huge amounts of money being spent here, and I guess the real question is, what other wonderful things could be put in place instead of this card?” Klein said.

But the Department of Social Services said there was “no evidence” the cards caused an increase in family violence.

“The number of domestic violence incidents reported in East Kimberley in 2016 is likely to have increased because more stringent police reporting meant incidents that were previously not recorded were now included in police reports,” a spokeswoman said.

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The cashless welfare card is a controversial form of income management, quarantining 80% of a welfare recipients’ payment to a restricted card, which can only be used at certain businesses.

The card is designed to prevent the spending of welfare money on alcohol, drugs, and gambling, reducing violence and harmful behaviour as a result.

Nawoola Newry has lived in Kununurra much of her life. She believes the card, which some of her family use, has done nothing to address the community’s problems.

Instead, it’s restricted the rights of community members, without increasing jobs, training, or employment opportunities, she said.



“I don’t believe that it’s reduced alcoholism, I don’t believe it’s reduced crime, I don’t believe it’s reduced domestic violence,” she told Guardian Australia.

“There’s a lack of services, there was all these wrap-around services that were promised … we don’t see any of them on the ground.”

Late last year, the government seized on an independent evaluation of the cards, which found they were successful in addressing substance abuse, violence, and other harmful behaviour.

Then human services minister, Alan Tudge, used the report to announce new trial sites in the Kalgoorlie-Boulder region of Western Australia and Bundaberg in Queensland.

The cards were also to be made permanent in the Kimberley and the second trial site in Ceduna, South Australia.

Tudge said Kalgoorlie-Boulder and Bundaberg experienced similar problems to the East Kimberley, including alcohol-fuelled violence, which the card had helped reduce.

“And that is too many kids born effectively brain damaged from foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, too many women getting bashed because of drunk men boozing up on the welfare dollar, and it is just too much violence generally,” Tudge told Perth radio.

“This card helps to stop some of that because it stops the welfare dollar being spent on the booze and spent on the drugs.”

Orima Research, which conducted the evaluation, had access to the police data on the Kimberley but did not include it in its report on the cards.

Some in the community have expressed strong support for the card. The Wyndham advisory group to the government said they had witnessed a dramatic turnaround in substance abuse and gambling in the community.



“Since the card has been implemented in our community we have been impressed by the positive results witnessed firsthand in reducing these harmful behaviours and assisting families to care for their children responsibly,” the group wrote in a submission to a Senate inquiry.

Last year local government leaders and Wyndham Aboriginal leaders Bianca Crake and Jean O’Reeri told Guardian Australia that the cashless welfare card was the best available option to reduce alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence, and sexual abuse in their communities.

The government has also repeatedly said the card would take some time to address entrenched and long-term problems, and that it was not a “panacea” for social ills.

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The Kimberley Land Council, representing local Indigenous communities, is strongly opposed to the card.

In a submission last year, the council’s deputy chief executive, Tyronne Garstone, said Aboriginal people and communities were often “penalised by punitive, experimental and top-down policies regarding an issue that impacts the whole of society”.

Garstone said the card was a “sledgehammer” approach that did little to address the root causes of social problems.

Klein said the evidence used to justify the government’s plans for a broader rollout was deeply flawed.

The methodology and analysis contained in the Orima Research report has been criticised by the Australian National University researcher, Janet Hunt, among others.