Scheme will begin next year, quarantining 80% of welfare payments on to cards that can’t be used for alcohol or gambling

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

The federal government will roll out the cashless welfare card to Bundaberg and Hervey Bay in Queensland.

The scheme will begin in the Wide Bay area from next year, quarantining 80% of welfare payments on to a card that cannot be used for alcohol or gambling.

The human services minister, Alan Tudge, said the area had high levels of youth unemployment and intergenerational welfare reliance.

“There’s also very significant alcohol, drug and gambling abuse which occurs here, and particularly amongst young parents. And so the card is aimed at addressing those two particular things,” Tudge told the ABC on Thursday.

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“And this has been one of the very few interventions that’s had an impact on that. You know, 40% of people are saying they’re now drinking less, 48% of people are saying they’re taking fewer drugs.”

The card has met considerable criticism so far, after being introduced in in Ceduna in South Australia, the Kimberley, and, more recently, the Goldfields region in Western Australia.

Critics say the card is a blunt way of dealing with complex societal problems, takes a paternalistic approach to largely Indigenous communities, stigmatizes users, and does little to create job opportunities in areas of high unemployment.

The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has described the card as being “an exercise in practical love”, designed to reduce alcohol misuse and gambling among welfare recipients.

To justify the card’s expansion, the government has relied heavily on a consultant’s report on trials in Ceduna and the Kimberley, where they have been used by 2,141 people across both trial sites since early last year.



The report, conducted by Orima research, found the cards had a “considerable positive impact” in the communities, and concluded it had reduced alcohol consumption and gambling in both trial sites.

But significant doubt has been cast on the government’s interpretation of the report.

Earlier this week, Janet Hunt, the deputy director of the centre for Aboriginal economic policy research at the Australian National University, said the report had actually shown the card had not improved safety or reduced violence, despite that being its primary goal.

It had ignored findings that 32% of participants on average reported the trial had made their lives worse, and 23% reported the trial had made their lives better.

Hunt said the government had ignored serious flaws in the Orima Research report, which raised doubts about its findings.

Social researcher Eva Cox has previously found significant problems with the design of the report, including the way interviews were conducted in Indigenous communities and the ethics of the process.

Tudge said on Thursday the rollout in Wide Bay would be accompanied by an additional $1m for local drug and alcohol services.

Last month, one of the four Indigenous leaders who backed the card’s rollout in the Kimberly withdrew his support because promises of extra funding had not materialised.

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Lawford Benning, chair of the MG Corporation, said he had felt used by the government.

“I was one of the leaders that brought the card here,” Benning told Guardian Australia.

“I was publicly and politically advocating for it due to the commitment given to me by Tudge that we would be provided with support services for people with alcohol, drug and employment issues prior to the card’s introduction.

“Those supports didn’t come for seven months after the card was introduced, and when the support did come it wasn’t appropriate.”

Tudge said he had been disappointed with Benning’s position. He said the card had never been promised as a “panacea” to social problems.

“His was never billed as a panacea to all the problems there in the East Kimberley. Anybody who has been up there, or any of these remote communities, knows that alcohol particularly is the poison that runs through them, that underpins so much of the crime, the violence, the domestic assaults, the child neglect, et cetera,” he said.