Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This government treats people on income support and people who are looking for work with disdain and contempt. It implements policies which make their lives as difficult as possible, and it has invented a punitive employment provider system that prioritises compliance over genuine assistance. It has just come up with its next brilliant scheme for the next punitive approach, which is of course 'dob in a jobseeker', or, as it's now called, 'the DobSeeker line'. Also, it now intends to look at people's job applications, to see if they are appropriate and genuine.

Now, when there's one job for every nine people, jobseekers know that they are told to embark on a process that is a waste of their time through a system that is not meeting their needs. Of course I am talking about the jobactive employment service process and the disability employment services system. It's no use complaining through the official system, because they don't get adequate responses, and so people don't complain through the official system, but I tell you what: they certainly complain to us politicians and certainly to me as spokesperson for the Greens. I have for the last number of adjournments been reading out people's lived experience to try to get through to the government that this system fails jobseekers and people in the disability employment system. So tonight I'm going to let people know of people's lived experience yet again so, hopefully, we can get the message through to the government that the system doesn't work and it needs reform.

One person that wrote to me said: 'In the 18 months I have been engaged with a DSP employment service, I have never been offered a job, including employers with which they have professional relationships'. Another person has written to us: 'Job service providers are of no use to jobseekers. They are just an income stream for them. I had my payments suspended because I didn't turn up for an appointment on 4 January, although I did and the office was closed. A 150-kilometre round trip. I was able to secure a job on my own after doing a TAFE course which I paid for myself—again a 150-kilometre round trip to attend TAFE. When I did get a job, they threw money at me for petrol, work clothes et cetera.'

Another person said: 'They had me at full capacity despite my multiple disabilities and refused to help me organise a work capacity assessment. I only ever had one appointment, when I needed to sign a new mutual agreement, and my regular appointments consisted of a group where they would just go through the mutual agreements and tell us to check their job board (which never got updated). They keep pushing me to apply for manual labour despite me having my disabilities on my file and repeatedly telling them that I can't do manual labour.'

Another person said: 'I'm a social researcher with a bachelor's degree in social sciences. I needed professional help for writing selection criteria so I could be more successful when applying for a position. They were not able to provide professional assistance. They were also sending me advertisements and wanted me to apply for jobs unrelated to my qualifications for which I would not even be considered such as a psychologist, occupational therapist, solicitor and similar. They have suggested I go from organisation to organisation and give my resume in person, yet that approach is obsolete as all applications are required to be submitted online. My personal impression is that they are not adequately qualified and trained on how to provide meaningful support.' That is what I hear very regularly.

This person goes on to say, 'It seems they do not have up-to-date knowledge of the job market functioning but they are well instructed on how to impose punishments for noncompliance.' That's what this system is about. It is about punishments, compliance, and demonising and stigmatising people. It has to be reformed.