Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Hanson for her question. Senator Hanson, you'd know that at the beginning of COVID-19 hundreds of thousands of Australians did lose their jobs. Many of those Australians—in fact, almost 450,000—have actually returned to the workforce as COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted. You'd also be aware though that at the outset of COVID-19, because the Australian government had to take the decision to close down parts of our economy, we determined that we would also suspend what is called, as you know, mutual obligation. However, as we have seen the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions across Australia, including now in Victoria, mutual obligation is now back in place. You would be aware, Senator Hanson, that on the coalition side of politics we fundamentally believe in the principle of mutual obligation, and that is that those receiving benefits or payments should be looking to take up work or, alternatively, the opportunity to upskill. We expect those on JobSeeker who are offered suitable employment to accept it. In fact, we make no apology for encouraging Australians back to work.

With the return of mutual obligation, we are now seeing penalties being put in place for those people who are refusing work. In fact, 242 work refusal failures for jobactive jobseekers have been applied by Services Australia since 4 August. We've also seen a total of 250,112 payment suspensions. So certainly mutual obligation is the mechanism by which you have Australians out there looking for work. In the event that they say no— (Time expired)