Employment changes ‘Groundhog Day’ for jobseekers
Lawyers claim that people looking for work will be constantly penalized despite upcoming changes in employment services.
Workplaces Minister Amanda Rishworth will outline a change to employment services in a speech to the National Press Club on Wednesday in a bid to make the system fairer.
More than a million Australians, many of whom work on programs such as JobSeeker, are required to meet with private sector employment services providers under a $2 billion-a-year plan aimed at getting more people into paid work.
However, the system is plagued by allegations that support payments have been unfairly withheld.
Ms Rishworth will use her speech to outline a three-tier system for people trying to find work with Workforce Australia.
Service Stream One will be the lightest touch: a digital service for people ready to work.
Under Service Stream Two, private providers help participants develop the skills and confidence to return to the job market, while Service Stream Three is reserved for people with complex work disabilities who need intensive support.
He said the move would be a major change from the current approach, where all job seekers are prioritized the same.
“A one-size-fits-all approach across all elements of Workforce Australia allows too many participants to fall through the cracks and creates inefficiencies in the system,” Ms Rishworth will say in her speech.
It will also mark changes to mutual obligations under which job seekers are required to accept any job they are offered and to attend interviews or training services.
“The second amendment is the introduction of effective, fair and proportionate reciprocal obligations that reflect an individual’s distance from the labor market and are actually designed to help people find suitable employment,” Ms Rishworth said.
But Center for Poverty Action spokesman Jay Coonan said meeting mutual obligations ruled out any meaningful change.
“This is like living in Groundhog Day. You can’t put people into employment in an economy that is designed to keep at least four percent of us unemployed,” he said.
“This is not a major overhaul if you fulfill ‘reciprocal’ obligations. This is a punishment as usual.”
Greens government services spokeswoman Penny Allman-Payne said misery would continue for those in the employment system.
“These reforms are not a jolt, they are a mess,” he said.
“A million people have been waiting for years for Labor to reform John Howard’s employment services system so that it actually helps them find work, not coerces and penalizes them.
“But what they discovered today is that Labor continues to support a system that oppresses welfare recipients.”
The reciprocal obligations system has been widely criticized, including two Commonwealth ombudsman reports that found it could be unlawful for many people to have their benefit payments suspended because they were unable to meet job search requirements.
The program is designed to get people on welfare to actively seek work, but advocates argue it penalizes people with complex needs who struggle to find work.
As she details government reforms, Ms Rishworth will flag further discussions with job seekers, employers, service providers and communities.
The Community and Public Sector Association welcomed the changes to the sector but said they did not go far enough to overhaul privatisation.
The union’s national secretary, Melissa Donnelly, said the outsourcing of employment services was a disaster for job seekers.
“Today’s announcement is a step in the right direction, but there is a risk that it will not go far enough to fix a system that is fundamentally broken,” he said.
“Australian job seekers are tired of being lectured by flamboyant ‘entrepreneurs’ who milk the government of hundreds of millions of dollars and in return deliver a corrupt, profit-driven service.”
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