'The uses and abuses of evaluation: The Cashless Debit Card story'

Abstract

An evaluation of the Cashless Debit Card Trial (CDCT) was released in August 2017 with much fanfare. Successive Ministers have claimed the evaluation showed massive reductions in alcohol and drug abuse, gambling and domestic and other violence. Yet the evidence suggests these claims were not simply grossly exaggerated, they were not supported by the evaluation evidence available. Worse, this evaluation has been used repeatedly to justify new trials and extensions of existing trials, despite academic critique and an assessment by the Auditor-General that the evaluation could not be relied upon to prove that the Cashless Debit Card was reducing social harm; and that it may not have been a cost-effective approach. This paper examines the uses of the evaluations by government in their efforts to justify the continuation of these programs.