It's been heralded as a "silver bullet" in combating social dysfunction in remote Aboriginal communities, but the grey cashless Welfare card is labelled by some families in the Kimberley as a "white card" that symbolises the colonial power of the state.
An academic has told an inquest into the suicide of indigenous youths in WA's far north that the federal government's income management trial has further disempowered vulnerable families.
The scheme was set up in April 2016 to help curb problem drinking, gambling and domestic violence - elements that were present in the lives of 13 young indigenous people who took their own lives over three-and-a-half years.
The cards quarantine 80 per cent of welfare payments to be used on food and other essentials, while the remainder is free to be withdrawn as cash.
University of Melbourne development studies lecturer Dr Elise Klein currently leads a research project examining the policy and told the inquest the compulsory program started without proper community consultation.
This has silenced many Aboriginal voices and become a point of tension amongst a diverse population, she told WA Coroner Ros Fogliani.
While giving evidence via video link from Melbourne, Dr Klein said the "oppressive scheme" represents neo-colonialism and government overreach.
"It's explained as the 'white card'," she said.
"The card has been a symbol of disempowerment, a symbol of state intervention, punitive intervention over someone's life."
Dr Klein said the system was chaotically introduced with design flaws, including a mobile app for people who "didn't know how to use the internet let alone own a mobile phone".
Many of the children who cut their lives short were inadequately fed, but Dr klein said it was "naive at best" to think controlling parents' purchases could effectively combat this, insisting the card made money management "much harder" for people already living below the poverty line.
Dr Klein said many participants have told her using the card is like going back to the "ration days", referring to Aboriginal people working on pastoral stations and being paid in tea and sugar as opposed to real wages.
Young people watching this play out at home can only feel extremely debilitated, she said.
The problem is compounded for jobseekers subjected to the coalition's controversial work for the dole scheme, which Dr Klein said carried harsh breaching penalties despite a lack of remote employment opportunities.
She called for bottom up, community-led development of therapeutic-based services to address the complex social harm and disadvantage in communities with high rates of social security dependency.
The Coalition in March announced the card would be used on an ongoing basis in Kununurra with six-monthly assessments after a review found they had been effective, but the Australian Council of Social Service said the report relied too heavily on anecdotal and self-reported evidence.
The government has also refused to say which community leaders supported the continuation.
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