Trials of the card started in 2016 in Ceduna, in remote South Australia, and the East Kimberley region in Western Australia before being introduced in the WA goldfields and the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay region in Queensland. Loading The federal government is now planning to extend the trials to another 22,500 people in Cape York and the Northern Territory, and Prime Minister Scott Morrison is eyeing an eventual national rollout as part of a reset of its welfare agenda he says is driven by "compassionate conservatism". But the towns on the front line remain divided: community workers have seen the card help some and burden others; health professionals say addiction is a health, not welfare, issue and question the card's success in reducing substance abuse; and welfare groups say the card stigmatises already vulnerable people and increases their financial stress. The cashless debit card restricts welfare recipients to roughly $200 cash a month and prevents them purchasing goods from stores whose main trade is alcohol. Gift cards for stores with alcohol can't be purchased and users can't withdraw cash or direct debit to unapproved accounts.

Card users who spoke to The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age say their lives are more stressful and finances more precarious since they joined the trials. In Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, a single mother with four kids and no job, who asked not to be named because she recently fled domestic violence, says she wasn't able to send one of her children on a school camp because she has restricted access to cash. Locals demonstrate against the cashless welfare card in the remote South Australian town of Ceduna. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen "The same thing with school excursions," says the 38-year-old, who has been on the card for a year. For the same reason, the mature-aged student hasn't been able to buy cheaper second-hand textbooks for university.

Loading She also had to abandon a nursing placement after she was blocked from buying a stethoscope online with her cashless welfare card. When she queried why, she says Indue, the company that manages the welfare card program, told her she couldn't purchase anything from that website because it sold hand sanitiser - a restricted item because of its high alcohol content. Kerryn talks of similarly humiliating experiences. "I was declined at Just Jeans. I went in there - and I never buy myself new clothes - and I said 'nup, I need a pair of jeans'. So I went in there and the card declined and I broke down," she says. "I just grabbed my kids and I left - the lady at the counter looked at me like I was a junkie. I had all my shopping to do that day but I just went home."

Shelly Purvis, program coordinator at the Stepping Stones Drug and Alcohol Centre in Ceduna, says the card works for some people but is problematic for others. "In a small community like Ceduna, we're pretty isolated and don't have many shops here. A lot of people buy stuff on the buy/sell/exchange Facebook group so people will buy second-hand stuff a lot - but obviously when you've got the cashless card you can't present your card to individuals who want to sell you a fridge," she says. But former Ceduna mayor Allan Suter says there is rarely a technical issue with the card - such as payments not going through or users being barred from purchasing essential goods - that isn't quickly managed by support staff. Social Services Minister Anne Ruston. Credit:AAP Social Services Minister Anne Ruston says participants should call the program hotline if legitimate purchases are blocked. "The government is working with industry to test new ways of declining individual products, rather than specific stores or terminals, which over time will allow participants to purchase non-restricted items, from any merchant, including those selling primarily restricted items," she says. An initial evaluation of the trial in 2017 found 41 per cent of participants reported drinking alcohol less frequently and 48 per cent reported both gambling less and using illegal drugs less often, but the Australian National Audit Office found in June last year it was "difficult to conclude" where social harm had been reduced due to a "lack of robustness in data collection". New independent studies from the University of South Australia into the trials of the card are set to be completed by the end of the year.

In Howard, a small town near Hervey Bay, Burrum District Community Centre president Faye Whiffin says the trial is a "gift" to children. Fewer children are turning up to local public schools needing breakfast, Whiffin says, and any hardships caused by the card are quickly dealt with. Former Ceduna mayor Allan Suter. "There have been one or two hiccups, yes, but Indue actually has a better response time than what you or I would get if we rang our bank." The government points to figures showing the number of welfare recipients in Bundaberg and Hervey Bay went down at almost double the national rate between June 2018 and June 2019. There was an 8.2 per cent fall in Bundaberg and a 10.2 per cent decline in Hervey Bay - faster than surrounding areas outside trial boundaries such as Gympie-Cooloola (6.8 per cent), Noosa (5.4 per cent) and Maryborough (3 per cent). But 2500 kilometres south-west in Ceduna, a town of 3400 on the edge of the Nullarbor, South Australian Aboriginal Drug and Alcohol Council chief executive Scott Wilson, who oversees the Stepping Stones centre, says there has been no "decrease whatsoever" in the number of people coming to the clinic for treatment.

"I keep hearing the rhetoric from the government about how successful these trials are," Wilson says. "[But] from our point of view, people obviously still have access to alcohol." Both Kerryn and the Kalgoorlie mother agree that despite tough restrictions, some participants still find ways to buy alcohol and drugs: offering to grocery shop for drug dealers, finding stores that have slipped through the restrictions or asking friends to buy them drinks. People on the cards strongly grasp the punitive dimensions of it and they sort of express that they feel like they're being punished. Dr Eve Vincent But Rowan Ramsey, the federal Liberal member for Grey, which covers Ceduna, says the most recent figures he's seen show "the levels of intoxication for those entering [the local drug and alcohol centre] are a lot lower." In a week dominated by debate over both the debit card and the government's plan to trial drug testing for welfare recipients, differences in the major parties' core vision for social security have crystallised.

Morrison is determined for the card trials to succeed, with community support, and won't resile from his view that the best form of welfare remains a job. Critics of the program misconceive what welfare is about, he says. "Being on drugs stops you getting a job. It's that simple. Losing all your money to gambling means you can't put food on your table for your kids," he says. "This is just looking at a real situation and being honest about it." Labor's social services spokeswoman, Linda Burney, is open to cashless welfare card trials but against a national rollout until there's more evidence to support it. She says while there should be a "mutual obligation" between welfare recipients and the government, the Coalition has grown too ideological. Then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull viewing a demonstration of the cashless cards at a Ceduna supermarket in 2016. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen "The government has this ideological bent on demonising those people that are accessing the social security system. People access the social security system when they need to - they don't do it because they want to.