Thousands of people in the Kalgoorlie region in Western Australia will have almost all of their welfare payments quarantined to the debit card from next year.
The Prime Minister travelled to the regional city of Kalgoorlie-Boulder as he praised the card's successes in two other sites.
Malcolm Turnbull met Aboriginal elders and community leaders to confirm the city as the third national trial site for the welfare debit card.
The card is mandatory for working-age welfare recipients in the trial sites.
It sends 80 per cent of welfare payments to the card, which can't be used for alcohol, drugs or gambling; the remaining 20 per cent of the payment can be used as cash.
The Prime Minister says Kalgoorlie elders made an emotional plea for the card.
"They said if you looked into the eyes of the children who are suffering from foetal alcohol syndrome, who are suffering from neglect, who are suffering from violence at home because their parents are on the grog all the time, you wouldn't hesitate to say that this card is an act of love."
The trial begins in Kalgoorlie-Boulder, about 600 kilometres east of Perth, next year in the region known as the goldfields for its gold-mining activity.
Prime Minister Turnbull claims, unlike other trial sites, many of the 3,400 people affected in the region are not Indigenous.
"It is a massive, massive factor in improving the lives of those communities, and that is why it has the support in this community in the goldfields. Most of the people who will be on the cashless card are non-Indigenous. We believe across the whole of the goldfields it is about 58 per cent non-Indigenous."
Leonora Shire Council falls within the Kalgoorlie trial site.
Shire President Peter Craig says young people in the town are really suffering because of drug and alcohol abuse.
"Kids are wandering up and down the street late at night, I'm talking after midnight. They're self-destructive, they're causing problems within the community. There's a lot of violence going on within our community. In the last 18 months, we've had five suicide deaths."
The Healthy Welfare card already operates in the Western Australian town of Kununurra and the South Australian town of Ceduna.
There are about 2,100 people already involved in the trials, many of them Indigenous.
An report commissioned by the government into the trial so far has been released, and its findings have pleased Human Services Minister Alan Tudge.
"Hospitalisation admissions are down. The number of people being arrested on the streets for drunk and disorderly is down. So, this trial has gone better than we could possibly have hoped for. A positive evaluation coming out of it, and now we are in a position to roll out the card to additional regions."
The report found in the 18 months since the trial began, 41 per cent of recipients said they were drinking less, 48 per cent said they were doing drugs less often, and half said they were gambling less.
There was no general reduction in major crimes, like assault and robbery, but people in the trial sites reported feeling safer.
About 30 per cent of recipients said it had made their lives 'a bit worse' or 'a lot worse'.
Labor leader BIll Shorten is cautiously supporting the intent of the trial, but wants it complemented by addiction services.
"We've got to make is that you are if people are suffering from addiction there is all the support to help them break the cycle of the addiction, as opposed to just the heavy-handed terms of this card. Labor is going to wait until we see all of the results."
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