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

The only person who is in complete denial here is the Minister for Employment Participation. He has been very slow to act. He has compounded problem on problem. He came up with a model designed for the boom times at a time when unemployment is rising. He designed a tender which took no account of proven performance in placing job seekers into a job. He has now crafted a system where he believes it will be a good thing for almost one in two job seekers to be changing their caseworkers and their providers at a time when unemployment is rising at a rate that we have not seen since the early 1990s.

Just to put it in perspective, the Job Network had been running for 10 years before this minister got his hands on it. It had been bedded down. We had gone from a system of the Commonwealth Employment Service to a privatised contracted system. It had been bedded down and it was working. It was reducing unemployment and it was putting people into jobs. This minister has decided that it would be a good idea to have big-bang change with massive disruption to job seekers at a time when we will see one million Australians out of work by this time next year. (Time expired)

See this speech in context