A SCHEME to manage welfare payments has stirred concern and confusion among remote indigenous communities in South Australia, government documents show.
Documents obtained under freedom of information show federal officials held consultations on income management with communities in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands in May last year, alongside talks on a regional partnership agreement.
Internal correspondence between Department of Indigenous Affairs (FAHCSIA) officials says "communities are getting confused with the volume of information we are presenting".
"When we then come to talk about (income management), we are on the back foot and the talk about the NT and intervention comes out," an official wrote.
Department notes say people in the Indulkana community of the APY Lands were worried that income management, which was introduced in October, was a "front for other things to come (similar to the NT intervention)".
By late December, 263 people in the APY Lands had voluntarily signed up for income management and nine community stores had agreed to accept Basics Cards.
Child protection workers and Centrelink staff have been given the power to refer people for mandatory income management, but the department declined to comment on whether the practice has started.
Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin says income management is an important measure to help families in the APY Lands budget in the best interests of their children.
The program costs $4.4 million over two years.
An APY Lands leader, Murray George, says community members overwhelmingly rejected proposals to introduce income management and urged the government to focus on issues of funding for communities and homelands.
"Strong concerns were expressed about the government giving itself more power to control Aboriginal people through income management," he said.
Compulsory income management has been used in remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory since 2007.
Last year, FAHCSIA faced criticism for mishandling consultations with NT communities over plans to extend the intervention program, rebranded Stronger Futures, for another 10 years.
People on income management have 50-70 per cent of their welfare payments quarantined on a Basics Card that can be used only at government-approved shops.
An independent evaluation of the scheme in the NT last year found income management operated more as "a means of control", with little evidence it brought behavioural change.
The practice of humbugging, in which people beg for money from family members, was continuing and in some cases Basics Cards were being used as a currency in gambling.
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