Welfare conditionality – the tying of eligibility for income support payments to particular forms of behavioural change – has intensified in recent decades (Carney 2015; Taylor et al. 2016). Prominent Australian manifestations have included the Work for the Dole program and the recent proposal for drug testing of new applicants for unemployment payments, but arguably the most extreme form of conditionality is compulsory income management (CIM). CIM involves the control or quarantining of half or more of a person’s payment by the Commonwealth Government Department of Social Services. It was originally introduced in 2007 as part of the Northern Territory Emergency Scheme targeting remote Indigenous communities, but has since been expanded to a wider range of groups and locations.