Exclusive: WA leader who met regularly with Alan Tudge and was critical to drumming up support for trial says card has not addressed violence or alcoholism

One of the four Aboriginal leaders who supported the government’s cashless welfare card trial in Western Australia says he feels “used” by the human services minister and he no longer supports the card.

Lawford Benning, chair of the MG Corporation, regularly met with Alan Tudge ahead of the card’s introduction more than a year ago, and was critical to drumming up support for the card in his community.

But he told Guardian Australia on Wednesday he was ready to publicly state the card had not addressed issues of alcoholism and violence in his community as he was led to believe. The card has been trialled in Wyndham and Kununurra since April 2016, and legislation introduced last week by the federal government means those trials will continue indefinitely.

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“I was one of the leaders that brought the card here,” Benning said. “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.”

Welfare recipients on the card receive 80% of their welfare payments into the card, which cannot be used to withdraw cash or buy alcohol or gambling products. The remaining 20% can be withdrawn as cash. The government, including the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, and Tudge, say the card has so far been a success and has reduced crime rates at the trial sites.

But figures provided by WA police to state parliament last week show 277 theft offences in Kununurra in the year to May, up from 195 in the year leading up to the card’s introduction. Property offences rose from 805 to 965 offences, and incidents of threatening behaviour and non-aggravated robbery also increased. Tudge is expected to announce additional sites for the rollout of the card within weeks, with Port Hedland and Kalgoorlie rumoured to be on the list.

“I’m not running away from the fact I was supporting this. But now I’m disappointed and I owe it to my people to speak up,” Benning said. “Every person I’ve spoken with said they don’t want this thing here.”

He said the process to be added or removed from the trial was laborious and intrusive.

On Tuesday Benning said the assistant director for the federal department of social services, Brent McIntyre, had told him about making the card permanent as well as the potential to roll out the card at other sites around Australia.

“I said hang on, it sounds like you’re trying to get a rubber stamp on something already under way, in an attempt to legitimise something the community doesn’t support,” Benning said.

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“I said to him ‘your minister isn’t showing respect for us’. Prior to introducing the card Tudge was flying here every second weekend to meet with us. As soon as we signed up, we’ve never seen him again.”

Benning told McIntyre he was was concerned Aboriginal people were not a part of the research team auditing and reviewing the trial. He said Aboriginal people for whom English was a second language would especially benefit from being interviewed about their experiences by Aboriginal reviewers.

“McIntyre said he couldn’t tell me if Aboriginal people were part the review for privacy reasons,” Benning said. “I’m an educated man and even I have trouble talking to non-Aboriginal people because we misinterpret each other. I feel as though I stuck my head out there for the government, but when we want the government to give us more information, they don’t give us a fair go. I feel we’re all being smoke-screened.”

Benning said the importance of early childhood education in the trial communities had been overlooked by the government.

“If we all want to put our hands on our heart and say we’ve done the right thing we need within support services an energy and passion directed towards early education,” he said. “You break cycles by empowering our children.”

The other Aboriginal leaders who signed up to the card on behalf of Kununurra –Wunan Foundation’s Ian Trust, MG Corporation’s Desmond Hill and Gelganyem Trust chairman Ted Hall – still support the card.

Last week Trust told an inquest at Kununurra coroners court into the suicides of 13 young people that the systems in place prior to the introduction of the card had failed.

“Do we want people to be second-class citizens? If we don’t agree with that then we’re going to have to do something different,” he said. “Otherwise 50 years from now people are still going to be living in poverty and that’s not good enough.”