Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment Participation, Training and Sport) Share this | Hansard source

I think the Minister for Employment Participation has misunderstood me. Essentially, in the employment services model that is being proposed, there are no placement fees for stream 1 job seekers who have been out of work for up to three months and there are no outcome payments for stream 1 job seekers who have been out of work for up to 12 months—that is, for people who are in the stream 1 job seeker stage. The problem is this. In a climate where on 1 July next year there may be as many as 100,000—and the number may be as high as 200,000—more Australians out of work, we are using a model that was designed for low unemployment and a strong labour market. My concern is that you will have job seekers falling between the two stools. The whole premise has been that the labour market is so strong that stream 1 job seekers will be able to find a job themselves; that they will not need much assistance from an employment service provider. That is one of the problems. We have a contracted employment services model and it has worked very well, but you need to get the balance right between all of those things—that is, the support for job seekers, the incentives for employment service providers and the compliance regime.

If we look at the top five reasons for failure by failure type and at how they will be treated in the future, included are these three reasons. Failure to comply with an activity agreement with the provider will now be treated as a no-show, no-pay failure. Unsatisfactory attendance at a Work for the Dole project will now be treated as a no-show, no-pay failure. Failure to attend a Work for the Dole interview will also be treated as a no-show, no-pay failure. Taken with the generous discretion at the level of Centrelink and the employment service providers, these are unlikely to make any change to the behaviour of job seekers at all. Missing a day’s Work for the Dole, for example, will see a job seeker on the single rate of Newstart allowance lose $44.93. That is for missing a day of Work for the Dole or another work experience program with no excuse. Such a small sanction is unlikely to have the desired effect, which is to encourage job seekers to look for work and get off welfare.

The previous government had a system of sanctions, with financial case management for the severely disadvantaged. Very few people received eight-week sanctions, and that sanction was only for three breaches without an excuse. Labor are moving to a system of insignificant sanctions with widespread discretion to not apply the sanctions but are removing financial case management at the same time. There is an inherent contradiction to this weakening of mutual obligation by the government. On the one hand, the Rudd government are talking up their quarantining of welfare for the parents of truants. On the other, they are dismantling this very system for job seekers. It is almost as if the Minister for Employment Participation has not received the message from the hollow men in the Prime Minister’s office.

Another issue is the treatment of job interviews. Incredibly, missing a job interview will mean a no-show, no-pay failure. A job seeker will lose $44.93 for missing a job interview. There will be no other consequences. It is possible to miss six job interviews in a six-month period without any real repercussions. Missing a job interview is a serious failure to look for work and should be treated as such. In their submission to the Senate committee examining this bill, the National Employment Services Association felt that missing a job interview—

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