Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to make a few brief comments about the Auditor-General’s Audit report No. 49 of 2005-06, which by my count is the fifth into the Job Network and the fifth in which there has been quite a number of significant criticisms made of the government’s Job Network by the Auditor-General. For senators’ information, we had reports in May 2000 in which there were criticisms of the management of the Job Network contracts; in April 2002 on the management of the provision of information to job seekers; in June 2005 on DEWR’s oversight of Job Network services to job seekers; and in August 2005 on the implementation of contract No. 3. Then we currently have this report—as I said, the fifth in a fairly short space of time into one particular sector of the government—and that is on job placement and matching services.

The first point I would make is that it seems quite apparent from the plethora of Job Network investigations by the Auditor-General that this is an area where the government really needs to improve its game. It is very good at fudging the figures, giving good figures and giving a good headline—certainly the Job Network gives Minister Stone a number of media releases for her website—but the reality is there have been some very substantial criticisms by the Auditor-General of a whole range of matters associated with the Job Network and of Minister Stone’s and Minister Andrews’s department’s oversight of the Job Network. We are still waiting to see the extent to which the government acts to remedy those.

In respect of this particular report, the Auditor-General shows the way this government has fudged the figures of the Job Network. It also demonstrates that there has been poor management of taxpayers’ funds and it questions the design of the system. I want to briefly speak on a number of issues in the report. The first point I make is that record job placement outcomes claimed by this government, including the so-called doubling of placements in one year, were actually a result of a change in the way placements were recorded. So you change the parameters and get an improvement in the results, and then you put out a press release—just another example of the way the Howard government governs by spin and rhetoric rather than actual results. The fact is the placements would actually have dropped without the changed measurement.

The second point I make, and this is one that a number of constituents and people involved in this area say themselves, is that many placements are the results of people finding their own jobs; nevertheless, the government is still happy to take the credit for that. The report confirms that around $487,000 in placement fees may have been paid incorrectly by the government and, perhaps more worryingly, only 10 per cent of the $4.67 million in recoverable suspect payments are recovered. This is a concern; this is a substantial amount of public funds which is put into that network. Much of that money is used for useful purposes, but there is obviously a significant amount of money that the Auditor-General had identified as being, perhaps, poorly managed. We urge the government to improve its management, particularly in relation to recoverable suspect payments.

The Auditor-General also pointed out that, on average, placements are costing 40 per cent more than they did previously and, further, that each month around 47 per cent of vacancies are duplications and almost one in five vacancies advertised is eight weeks old and out of date. The Auditor-General also commented that there was no systematic compliance checking through site visits of job placement organisations to check compliance with service commitments.

In summary, the Auditor-General’s report demonstrates that there has been an inflation of the job figures and the success of the Job Network and that the government is guilty of taking false credit for getting people jobs when people have actually got the jobs themselves. The reality is that there is a lot of money spent each year on job placement services. It is an important service provided by government, but the government ought to do far more than it is doing to manage it properly. I was reminded of this just a few days ago when I saw yet another media release from Dr Sharman Stone lauding the Job Network’s success. I wonder whether Minister Stone is going to ensure that the various problems identified by the Auditor-General not only in this report but perhaps also in the four preceding it are actually remedied and focused on, because they clearly need to be—this is not the opposition saying this; this is the Auditor-General saying this—rather than the minister simply putting out self-congratulatory media releases.

My suggestion to the Senate is that yet again we have another Auditor-General’s report critical of many aspects of the Job Network. I hope the government will see fit to remedy some of the criticisms made, because this is an important area for both job seekers and the taxpayers, who fund these services. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.