Welfare card trial flawed: academic

A trial of a cashless welfare card is fundamentally flawed and will not produce reliable data, a leading academic has warned.

The card, which will look like a regular debit card but will not allow users to purchase alcohol or gamble, will be trialled in a bid to stamp out social issues among welfare recipients.

Additional services will also be delivered during the 12 month period, and will include a new 24 hour mobile patrol team and improved drug and alcohol counselling, mental health support and financial services.

Therein lies the problem, cautions Eva Cox, Professorial Fellow at University of Technology Sydney, who says it will be impossible to separate the effects of the card from those of the services.

She says the trial framework ignores the lessons of history, with a similar "basics card" trial yielding ambiguous results because it took place at the same time sweeping changes from the Northern Territory Intervention were coming into effect.

The cashless card trial enjoys bipartisan support and has been passed by parliament.

In the model approved by parliament, 80 per cent of welfare payments will go on the card, with the remainder available through normal channels.

The first location to trial the card will be the South Australian community of Ceduna, which has a strong indigenous population and 800 welfare recipients.