Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Abetz, the Minister representing the Minister for Workforce Participation. Is the minister aware of recent criticism of the Howard government’s management of Job Network from one of its biggest and most highly regarded members? Is it not the case that a new report from Catholic Social Services Australia confirms that the government provides ‘perverse incentives to delay finding work for job seekers’? Didn’t the report also demonstrate that the government spends over $250 million of Job Network funds on administration and that Job Network staff spend up to half their time on administration rather than on direct client contact? Is it not the case that another major Job Network provider, the Salvation Army, has backed this report? When will the government pull its head out of the sand and acknowledge that Job Network operations require a major revamp?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Polley for her question and recognise that, from time to time, people in the opposition are simply handed questions to ask on behalf of the tactics committee, and so I understand that Senator Polley has been given the unfortunate task of asking this question. Since 1998 the Job Network has in fact been extremely successful in helping unemployed Australians to move from welfare to work, placing over 640,000 job seekers into jobs in the last 12 months. And yet we are being asked to believe, by the honourable senator opposite, that somehow the Job Network process is not working.

From time to time the way we as a government administer Job Network or, indeed, any other activity from government can be informed by suggestions from those within the community. We are not beyond listening to some of those suggestions and, in fact, dealing with them. There are a whole host of examples where we have been responsive. To suggest that the Job Network process has not been working is to fly in the face of all the objective data which shows that the Job Network process has been extremely successful.

Of course, if we cast our minds back just a few years, when the Australian Labor Party were trying to administer getting people out of welfare into work through the Commonwealth Employment Office, you see the fantastic result that we have been able to deliver to the Australian community not only by creating the environment where jobs are being created at a very substantial rate—

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I rise on a point of order going to relevance. Senator Abetz was asked a specific question by Senator Polley which went to the report of Catholic Social Services and criticism echoed by the Salvation Army when they suggested that there were perverse incentives that needed to be addressed. I ask you, Mr President, to draw the minister’s attention to the question, rather than having him waffle on, so that he provides an answer to that concern raised by providers, which we think deserves a serious response.

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is a very long point of order. Senator Abetz, you have a minute and a half to complete your answer and I would remind you of the question.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a bizarre thing when the Australian Labor Party has asked a question—which Senator Evans himself acknowledges is a criticism of the Job Network process—and somehow I as the government minister am not allowed to defend the Job Network process because Senator Evans does not want to hear the statistics about how well the Job Network process has been working. As I have acknowledged, no system invented by humans has ever been perfect. We have never asserted, Mr President, that that which are we are doing is perfect, but I can tell you that it is a damned lot better than that which the Labor Party had in place when we won government in 1996. Last year there were 640,000 Australians who are able to attest to the veracity of that statement that I have just made.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. It is pretty obvious that the minister has not read the report. Doesn’t the Catholic Social Services report help to explain why, on the Howard government’s watch, the number of people on Newstart for two or more years has increased by 100,000? Doesn’t this report confirm that even Job Network providers do not believe the Howard government’s Job Network is working?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In relation to the very last part of that question—the suggestion that Job Network recipients do not believe that Job Network is working—as I said in my answer to the previous question, 640,000 of our fellow Australians last year experienced the efficiency of the Job Network processes. There are 640,000 Australians—I do not know how many MCGs that would fill—who can attest to the fact that the Job Network is working. Senator Kemp, the Minister for the Arts and Sport, just told me that that would fill about seven MCGs. That is the success of Job Network. Without a policy of their own, the Labor Party seek to grab around in a desperate attempt to put a dent in us. (Time expired)

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.