Is conditional welfare an effective means for reducing alcohol and drug abuse? An exploration of compulsory income management across four Australian trial sites

Conditional welfare has become a prominent policy tool in recentyears. One of the harshest forms of conditional welfare inAustralia is arguably compulsory income management (CIM)which involves the quarantining of between 50 and 90 per centof a participant’s benefit payment for spending on food, rent andother essential items. A leading aim of all Australian incomemanagement (IM) programs since 2007 has been the reduction ofalcohol and other drug (AOD) abuse by participants, which isexpected to reduce associated social and community harms.Building on the mixedfindings of official evaluations of IM, thisqualitative study examines the views of both compulsory andvoluntary IM participants and community stakeholdersconcerning AOD abuse in four IM sites. It concludes that there islittle evidence to support the view that IM per se contributes to asignificant reduction in AOD abuse.