Amanda Rishworth Plans Major Australian Job Seeker System Reform
Amanda Rishworth is expected on Wednesday to outline australian job seeker system reform, with plans to ease Centrelink’s mutual obligations regime and move away from a one size fits all employment services model. The employment minister is expected to say the current system is ill-equipped for the one million Australians who use it each year.
Rishworth is expected to describe mutual obligations as not helping Australians find work and to say unemployed people are languishing with insufficient help. Her speech at the National Press Club is also expected to promise what she calls once-in-a-generation reform.
Rishworth and the National Press Club
Rishworth is expected to say the system wastes the time of people who use welfare and takes too much time from providers and applicants. She is also expected to say the current model incentivises job providers to place applicants in jobs that may be unsuitable.
The minister’s office said the government will consult on the new model’s design. That consultation is set to include a discussion paper, an advisory group and targeted talks with jobseekers, employers and providers.
Three streams of support
The government plans a new structure with three streams of support, depending on how much help a jobseeker needs. Rishworth will say the current model is ill-equipped to respond to the distinct needs of the one million Australians who access the system each year.
Mutual obligations cover appointments with an employment services provider, study or training courses, and applying for a set number of jobs or attending interviews. The proposed redesign would change how those requirements are delivered, but the advance notes for her speech do not spell out the final settings.
Centrelink obligations and criticism
Guardian Australia reported examples of people having Centrelink payments suspended while recovering in hospital after brain surgery and while recovering from psychosis. It also reported job training courses that required participants to rate friends and family, describe the role God played in their life and discuss pictures of Brad Pitt in a chicken suit.
Those examples sit alongside Rishworth’s argument that the system is not helping people into work. For jobseekers, the practical question now is how the new three-stream model will change the obligations they must meet once the consultation begins.
