Labor under pressure to reinstate cashless debit card as Peter Dutton says abolishing welfare measures 'doesn't make any sense'

The welfare measure was abolished by the Albanese Government in October last year, with Labor arguing it "diminishes people's self-worth" and is "discriminatory".

The card had been introduced by the Coalition in 2016 and allocated 80 per cent of the recipient's welfare payments to be used like a normal debit card with money unable to be withdrawn or spent on gambling and alcohol.

More than 17,000 people were on the card across selected areas nationwide including Ceduna, East Kimberley, Goldfields and Bundaberg-Hervey Bay.

On a visit to Laverton in Western Australia's Goldfields region, Mr Dutton said scrapping the card had a detrimental impact on the communities where it was in place. 

"I think you can compare the before and after. The before with the card meant that there were restrictions on alcohol and a management system which meant that kids were being fed," he told reporters on Tuesday.

"And you've got the after now where the rivers of grog are flowing and we're seeing the results through violence against women, the attacks in the streets on innocent people etc.

"That's the contrast, so I can't understand why the Prime Minister can't reconsider his decision to remove the cashless debit card because the decision that the Prime Minister has made has resulted in an increase in violence in communities like this.

"It's not just in WA but the Northern Territory and elsewhere."

Mr Dutton said the Albanese Government is making it more difficult for state and local governments to address violence and alcohol-related issues in the affected communities by "working against them".

"The federal government is taking decisions which are just making it harder to get the positive outcomes on the ground that the local council or even the state government would want," he said. 

"It doesn't make any sense, even in Canberra, let alone here on the ground, that the government abolished the cashless debit card, and it should be reinstated."

Welfare recipients who were on the cashless debit card in the four regions can volunteer to still be subject to income management through a new smart card.

The smart card is also available for eligible cashless debit card participants in the Northern Territory and the Cape York and Doomadgee region. 

The government has faced criticism from Rick Wilson, the Liberal MP for O'Connor which covers the Goldfields, that the smart card is a waste of time and money because it is voluntary. 

"The people that are causing the problems, the antisocial behaviour in the northern Goldfields at the moment, are not going to be the people who volunteer to go on this card," Mr Wilson said, the ABC reported.  

But Mr Albanese defended the new card as an improvement "on what was there before".

"The problem with the CDC, which was found in the surveys and the reviews that were done is that it didn't provide for any medium-term transition here at all," the Prime Minister told ABC Goldfields-Esperance on Tuesday. 

"It did quarantine income, but it also, like a lot of the Northern Territory intervention, took away power from people as well.

"One of the things that the smart card will do is not just quarantine some income, but also provide for a range of services and ongoing support.

"One of the things that we've done is put some $13.1 million into increased services in the Goldfields and the Kimberley. On top of that there's $17 million for economic development."