A community somewhere in Australia will become the fifth site at which a controversial welfare card is trialled in 2019.
The cashless debit card trial is also being extended until June 30, 2020, Social Services Minister Paul Fletcher announced on Friday.
The cards - which prevent people from spending 80 per cent of their welfare money on gambling and alcohol - are already being used in Ceduna in South Australia and the East Kimberley and Goldfields in Western Australia.
The scheme is due to kick off at a fourth location - the - next month.
Mr Fletcher said a fifth spot is in the government's sights for the second half of 2019, with a community that really wants the cards preferred.
"We've got a number of communities we're thinking about," he told Sky News on Friday.
The extension of the overall trial to 2020 will provide certainty to people using the cards, he said.
An evaluation of the scheme in Ceduna and East Kimberley has found it has had a "considerable positive impact" and has been linked to a reduction in violence and harm related to alcohol consumption, illegal drug use and gambling.
But an auditor-general report released in August found the Department of Social Services' monitoring and evaluation of the trial was inadequate.
Despite that, Mr Fletcher said what the evaluation showed marries up with the positive feedback he's received from indigenous leaders, police and chemists in communities with the cards.
"Both the formal evidence and what I've heard from people directly on the ground, strongly suggest that the cashless debit card is making a difference in communities affected by welfare-funded drug and alcohol addiction," he said.
The Greens and Labor have been opposed to expanding the trials, with the expansion to Bundaberg and Hervey Bay only coming after the coalition secured a victory in the Senate.
"The card won't get people jobs, it won't help them with addictions, it will simply make their lives harder, pushing them further into poverty," Greens senator Rachel Siewert said in September.
AAP
