Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, I can. In 2013-14, nearly 4½ million of the 12¾ million compulsory appointments were not attended by job seekers. That is a non-attendance rate of 35 per cent. This problem grew from over 238,000 job seekers in 2012-13 who had at least one participation failure applied to almost 280,000 in 2013-14. JSA providers have heard myriad excuses for job seekers not turning up to appointments, including hangovers and sleeping in. In the first three months of this year, nearly 20,000 job seekers chose not to participate in appointments. In the same period, nearly 12,000 job seekers did not turn up because of an unproven medical issue. Very simply, it is not good enough and we intend to make the system more robust. (Time expired)