Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Human Services and the Minister for Social Inclusion. How is the government assisting Australians back into the workforce through new employment and participation measures announced in the budget?

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Throsby. I visited Shell Harbour with the member for Throsby last week. On Tuesday, I visited Wyong with the member for Dobell and the member for Shortland. On Friday, I visited Elizabeth with the member for Wakefield. I looked at three of the 10 sites for new employment and participation programs that were announced in the recent budget. In each location, local members and I met with community organisation that will work with the government to help jobseekers back into the workforce.

This budget has focused squarely on jobs. It has focused on education and training to ensure that the benefits of the mining boom make it into every corner of Australia, including some of our most disadvantaged communities. In our new location based approach, welfare recipients will have greater responsibilities to participate but they will also have extra help. Centrelink will have dedicated case workers for the most disadvantaged jobseekers and will work closely and in many cases under the same roof—

Mr Christensen interjecting—

Peter Griffin just cannot keep it down. We have Stewie up here; we have Peter Griffin down there. Just keep a lid on it, Peter Griffin.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The minister should not encourage people to interject and the interjector should cease. The minister has the call.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Centrelink is going to have dedicated case workers for the most disadvantaged jobseekers and will work closely and in many cases under the same roof with financial counselling services, drug and alcohol counselling services, housing and homelessness services and other types of services to help long-term unemployed back into the workforce by overcoming the issues that have kept them unemployed.

Case coordination will allow Centrelink case workers to work more closely with jobseekers. For example, instead of a jobseeker turning up and talking to any person who happens to be on the counter, they will have a dedicated case worker. After all that time that they may have been too embarrassed to tell Centrelink that they cannot read and write well enough to fill in an application form a job, they will now have one person who they can talk to who can help them access one of the 30,000 literacy and numeracy places that we have funded in this budget. A homeless jobseeker might get the help that they need to stabilise their housing so that they have a place to have a shower and a good sleep and a place where employers can phone them so that they can get back into the workforce.

Non-government organisations will be working with us to identify the most important local changes that they can make. We have a local solutions fund of $25 million to support those local changes. The Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs talked about changes for teenage parents and jobless families. We want those teenage parents to reach year 12 or get an equivalent qualification. We want their kids to be school ready. We want welfare recipients to be able to keep more of what they earn, because we know that part-time work is often a stepping stone back into full-time employment and we want to make that part-time work count.

These are just a few of the measures that the government introduced in the most recent budget to target the most disadvantaged jobseekers. In mining boom mark II we cannot allow whole regions to be left behind as they were during mining boom mark I. We have heard very little from the Leader of the Opposition on these new measures since the budget two weeks ago. He continues to be all opposition and no leader.