The legislation for the welfare debit card, known as the healthy welfare card, will be introduced into Parliament on Wednesday by parliamentary secretary Alan Tudge.

Welfare recipients will be able to access 80 per cent of their payments on the card. By linking to their phones, it will tell them when their Centrelink payment arrives, what they have spent and if their balance is running low.

Unlike the bright green basics card, which only allows access to 50 per cent of welfare and requires stores to sign up, the cashless welfare card will look like a credit card and will be accepted across Australia.

The card will also be linked to a mobile phone app that will allow users to buy groceries online, and check their balance and transaction history.

"This will be one of the most technologically advanced cards on the market," Mr Tudge said.

The card is scheduled to be trialled in the Ceduna community in South Australia next year for about 10,000 people.

Mr Tudge said it offered a "radical" approach to restrict welfare recipients from spending their payments on alcohol, drugs and gambling.

"People will receive a text message after every purchase above $10 informing them of their account balance," he said. "This will be a tremendous budgeting tool."

Mr Tudge said he had had "constructive discussions" with Labor and the crossbenchers to support his legislation, in addition to a number of Indigenous community leaders, who were calling for the card to proceed.

He will need the support of six crossbenchers and Labor to get it through.

"The card will apply to all welfare recipients and is not an Indigenous-specific measure," he said.

The healthy welfare card was proposed by mining magnate Andrew Forrest through the Forrest review, which argued that the federal government needed to restrict the flow of alcohol and gambling from taxpayer welfare in remote communities.

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