Lin Hatfield Dodds said the government's "place-based" model of helping those most underprivileged would need another three years of federal funding, in addition to the two years already spent, before it could be determined if it was working.
She said breaking the cycle of entrenched disadvantage took "years and years" of investment and future governments should be prepared to take on the controversial portfolio over the longer term.
"I think at the five-year mark we are going to be able to say with great certainty, 'yes, this is working', or, 'no, it isn't'," Ms Hatfield Dodds told The Australian.
"All indications are that it is an approach that is currently working but, again, you don't want to throw every resource in the country at it until you know that it is really going to work."
The place-based model is focused on 10 key sites around the nation and works on tackling disadvantage within a community rather than by social grouping.
Ms Hatfield Dodds's comments came as it was revealed that the Gillard government spent $2.19 million last financial year on the operations of the social inclusion portfolio.
A total of $2.09m was for the Social Inclusion Unit and $77,000 was for the operations of the Social Inclusion Board, according to questions on notice from Senate estimates hearings.
The board and unit are charged with advising the government on how to help solve the multiple educational, health and social disadvantages that lock the most disadvantaged 5 per cent of the population into poverty.
It was first established in 2008, and the portfolio was elevated to cabinet level last year.
Opposition disabilities spokesman Mitch Fifield, who led the questioning in Senate estimates, told The Australian the unit was "a government agency looking for a reason to be". "As far as I can tell, the only thing the Social Inclusion Unit has done is to produce a report called How Australia is Fairing, and it reached such stunning conclusions as most Australians enjoy catching up with family and friends, that their family sometimes irritate them and that some Australians feel unsafe after dark," Senator Fifield said.
"Governing is about priorities and I think there are many better uses for the more than $2m that the social inclusion portfolio cost last financial year."
The Coalition has pledged to axe the portfolio if elected at next year's election and invest the money saved into the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
Ms Hatfield Dodds said that with Australia's ageing population all available people who could work needed to do so, and helping the 640,000 long-term unemployed into jobs would be beneficial for the nation.
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