There are fears unemployed Australians will be pushed into homelessness and crime through harsh new measures targeting job seekers.
Malcolm Turnbull insists a new drug-testing regime is simply the government's way of helping them get their lives back together.
However, welfare lobby groups are worried the tests will demonise job hunters.
From 2018, 5000 Newstart and Youth Allowance recipients will be included in two-year testing trials for illicit substances including ice, ecstasy and marijuana.
Anyone who tests positive will have their welfare quarantined, while those who fail more than once will be referred to medical professionals for assessment and treatment.
"If somebody has got an addiction to drugs and you love them, what do you want to do? You want them to get off their addiction," the prime minister told Sky News on Wednesday.
But mental health advocate Amanda Bresnan says the approach will treat welfare recipients like criminals.
"It's really disappointing we're back at this point when all the evidence, all the experts, say it doesn't work," she said in Canberra.
"Unfortunately, what will probably happen is that people might go to crime and they might end up in the prison system."
Mr Turnbull argued there was a correlation between drug addiction and unemployment, and pointed out random drug testing was common in many industries.
Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce said taxpayers had a right to see those on unemployment benefits getting themselves to a position where they could work.
"You are not going to be ready for work if you are drunk ... (or) smashed on drugs," he said.
Greens leader Richard di Natale, who worked as a drug and alcohol doctor, said the testing would only make the problem of substance abuse worse.
Relapse was the natural cycle for people dependent on drugs, he said.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said Labor believed in mutual obligation for welfare recipients, but did not seem sold on the measure.
"They've never seen a welfare recipient who they don't want to sort of demonise and we're not just going to join in the baiting of the unemployed," he told Sky News.
"Taking away someone's income support is a recipe for driving them deeper into a hole they have fallen in, and they will end up becoming dependent and not getting the help they need," he told reporters in Canberra.
The Greens are seeking advice on whether to mount a legal challenge to the proposed drug tests.
Independent senator Jacqui Lambie likes the look of the policy, which she's been calling for since entering the Senate, but wants to see the detail.
South Australian senator Nick Xenophon said he'd support the plan if it led to constructive, rather than punitive, outcomes.
"If this measure will lead to people getting help to beat their addiction, to get counselling, to get intensive therapy, to get rehabilitation, then that would be a good thing," he said.
However, Senator Xenophon is against a separate plan to deny welfare to people with disabilities caused solely by their own substance abuse.
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