Prime Minister Tony Abbott asked Mr Forrest to recommend improvements to indigenous training and employment programs, but the philanthropist and chairman of Fortescue Metals Group delivered a much more ambitious blueprint for ending poverty in Australia by making dozens of changes across education, health, housing, criminal justice, welfare and tax. Releasing Mr Forrest's report on Friday, Mr Abbott described his prescription as ''big, bold and brave'', acknowledging some of its recommendations ran ahead of public opinion and the government's plans.

Some proposals - such as greater support for indigenous businesses, a clearer focus on maternal health and early childhood education, and a stronger emphasis on employer-driven training for specific jobs - were widely welcomed. Other recommendations - such as the idea of a ''healthy welfare card'' on to which the benefits of indigenous and non-indigenous vulnerable welfare recipients would be paid and which could not be used to withdraw cash, or purchase alcohol or cigarettes - have provoked fierce debate.

The Howard government pioneered a similar system of welfare quarantining during the Northern Territory intervention, and the approach was extended by Labor to cover more than 20,000 Australians in selected regions across the country.

Mr Forrest rejected comparisons between his proposal and the existing system of ''income management'', saying his plan would ''guide people away from the most harmful things in life … and that is not income management, that is commonsense''. Mr Abbott said his government had no plans to expand welfare quarantining as widely as Mr Forrest had recommended, but said he would not rule out wider quarantining ''in the months and years ahead''.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said not every welfare recipient was incapable of managing their finances.

''Labor will not stigmatise everyone who receives a government pay of working age and just put everyone in the same category,'' he said.

Kirstie Parker, the co-chair of the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples, said welfare quarantining was ''a tool to disempower people, including the majority of welfare recipients, who do the right thing, who look after their families, who send their kids to school and do actually look for genuine, meaningful employment''.

She also rejected a proposal for families to lose their family payments if their children did not attend school.

''We do not support anything that means that families that are already doing it tough will be driven deeper and deeper into poverty,'' she said.

Maree O'Halloran, the president of the National Welfare Rights Network, said an expansion of welfare quarantining would be ''wasteful and harmful''.