Undeterred by a drizzly Sydney day, a group of protesters led by the Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union (AUWU) gathered at the new Minister for Employment Tony Burke’s electorate office in Punchbowl on Friday.
“They wanted to talk to us in opposition. Now they’re in government they don’t even want to know us,” AUWU president Tracey Smallwood said, earning a chorus of “shame” from the crowd.
The office was closed, foiling attempts to hand over a petition with 30,000 signatures supporting their cause. That didn’t stop protesters from addressing their concerns at the incoming minister and the new government’s revamped welfare mutual obligations.
Burke has committed to replacing the jobactive program with the Morrison-government designed Workforce Australia scheme, including its requirements for welfare recipients. Under the scheme, job seekers on welfare will be forced to earn “100 points” by completing activities like applying for jobs, training, studying, volunteering or taking part in the Work for the Dole program. If they fail to do so, their welfare payments will be reduced or stopped altogether.
Burke has been at pains to point out that this system was masterminded by the Coalition. “The previous federal government locked in the points system – and signed more than $7 billion worth of contracts with providers — shortly before the election,” he said in a media release. But he’s committed to implementing the new system, while making a number of concessions, including easing requirements and clearing past penalties.
There was no desire among the Punchbowl crowd to grant the Albanese government a honeymoon period. Labor says Workforce Australia will give welfare recipients flexibility while also helping them find work. But the AUWU have criticised the new system as cruel, demeaning and ineffective and called on Burke to postpone the introduction of the system by three months to have further consultations on its introduction.
“He’s known for months about how awful the system is, how much pain and injury it’s going to cause unemployed workers. We’ve been calling their offices, we’ve been emailing them, we sent them a report, we sent them a survey of 400 of their members. They haven’t responded at all,” AUWU member Jeremy Poxon said.
“We told them we were going to be here today, we wanted to talk to them about the pain they’re putting members through. And what did they do? They locked the fucking door.”
Protesters brought posters featuring testimonials from people who’ve experienced the current mutual obligation system and glued them facing inwards on Burke’s office windows. There were stories about chronically ill people being forced to work through pain and criticisms of onerous mutual obligations that aren’t fulfilled even when a person starts a new job. A giant “welfare excuse bingo” board lists the reasons why people refuse to change the system: “News Corp would murder us” and “if you keep asking impolitely you’ll never get a raise”.
Attendees were invited to share their own experiences dealing with a system that they described as bureaucratic and harmful. Kristin O’Connell, a spokesperson for the Antipoverty Centre, said one fear is that welfare recipients will be penalised for failing to adapt to a new, confusing system; penalties increased 600% after the last significant change.
Other protesters spoke about their early disappointment that the new government, in their eyes, isn’t taking them seriously. AUWU member Daniel Levy told the crowd about handing over a report with recommendations, a survey, a petition and requests to meet the minister — all to little avail.
“We busted our gut to do their job for them. Where is their obligation to us?” Levy said.
It’s almost like voters expected something to change with the newly installed ALP in government…
Yes. I’m not sure what makes people think that Labor is a workers’ party or ‘left’. In my two decades here I’ve seen nothing that would support these assumptions. Granted, they’re not the Coalition, but ‘not as bad’ doesn’t mean ‘good enough’. Labor certainly isn’t.
Unions and the Labor Party have historically always been extremely antagonistic towards the unemployed. Exclusion of unemployed workers associations has been going on at least since the early 1900s. Notice the the ACTU steadfastly refuses to recognise the AUWU as a legitimate workers association and to allow them to affiliate.
If the LNP can tear up a $30 billion submarine contract why cant Labor tear up the LNPs dodgy contracts with no doubt LNP cartel members for employment services. The truth is Labor are just another symptom of the corporate sponsored two party murdochracy disease thats killing Australian democracy.
The idea of a more flexible system is good, as it should give recognition for activities that help increase chances of employment and stop the minless and useless blanket 20 job applications per month. It may also help with longer term planning.
It also allows for individual targets less than 100 points.
As with all these things, the devil is in the detail and the points allocation seems strange to me.
Another big issue is to determine how this could be manipulated for profit as is the norm in the Job Network. Too much power has been given to Job Network providers who can enrol the unemployed in useless courses run by associated entities or dictate activities that benefit them rather than their client. The punitive powers of the Job Network providers are inappropriate and unfair.
Our whole social security system needs a thorough overhaul. Too many people are on Job Seeker who are unable to participate fully in the workforce due to physical, psychological, educational or familial limitations or a complex combination of factors. In the hands of some Job Network providers they are forced into numerous tasks, appointments etc that are at best irrelevant, at worst directly harmful.
The success of this new approach depends on allowing the Job Seeker recipient real power in determining what activities are appropriate for them AND points for activities really reflecting their value.
The system will supposedly allow more people to self manage, BUT if this is monitored by some computer algorithm we could see another Robodebt like scenario if human checks are not in place.
I am not sure how many commenters have actually looked at the proposed system.
The idea is certainly better than the blanket 20 job applications per month, BUT the devil will be in the detail and how it is administered.
This new scheme could have seriois problems and we need to see an overhaul of Centrelink staffing levels and improvements in call centre response times before new systems are introduced.
The biggest mistake was privatising the Job Network in the first place and turning our most vulnerable into a commodity to be exploited for profit.
Agree with your comments on the job Network. But the new pints system will be really confusing to many jobseekers, especially those without good English and it will be a nightmare to administer and, I would think, even more susceptible to arbitrary decision making. It’s all a tick-a-box system for the Job Network and does very little to help people get into jobs.
What we need is to fund not-for-profits like the Brotherhood of St Laurence who take on a more case management role for those who need help to find work ( they do some of this already). They would partner with training organisations and employers and tailor programs that actually lead to jobs that applicants can do. They could advocate for the unemployed persons and support them through the initial period of employment so that they succeed, and so that employers realize that they can employ people who can learn on-the-job, rather than demanding ready-made and experienced employees.
I agree with all you’ve said Pauline, including your qualms about the administration of this changed system and including specifically the appalling role and performance of the Job Network providers, though I too think that the introduction of more flexibility and acceptace of wider choices of involvement is a very beneficial change.
However I would also like to see us giving Labor a bit more of a chance. This is not an “Albanese government” scheme, it is another rotten recent inheritance from the LNP. Labor has only been in for 6 weeks so far and have an immense amount of inherited and developing problems and responsibilities on their hands, so let’s give them a bit of a chance and some more support to help them to improve this important big area of concern. They did start well in this broad field by jumping in to support the raising of low-level wages to reflect losses through inflation.
Having said that, I am glad that I am now too old to be entangled in this nasty situation including the low rate of relevant allowance (either me or through my kids), and I am sorry and angry for every single person trying to cope with it.
All the work over decades, the massive cost to taxpayers (and profits to private contractors), to get the unemployed into work.Yet unemployment remain in the 3%-5% range, sometimes bit lower, sometimes a bit higher. The reality is that there will never ever be full employment because that is how capitalism works. There will always be people struggling to secure work. There will always be those who want to work but find themseves excluded for various reasons. There will always be a very small percentage who simply do not want to work and will not. But that’s OK because the government sets up lucrative business opportunities for businesses to profit from the unemployed by “helping” them. Value capture.
Welfare is like the issue of national security – anything short of overkill is giving the opposition a free kick. In that respect, I’m not surprised Labor won’t do much on this issue. Anything that isn’t putting the foot on the neck of the unemployed goes against the prevailing social belief that the unemployed have it too good, and even if what they have isn’t enough then they should just get a job and be of value to society. We, as a society, want the poor to suffer.
It’s a pity that universal income isn’t talked about more. The issue over how cruel we should be to the unemployed would go away if we saw money as a means to social ends rather than a zero sum game over who should reap the benefits of our labour. Or in the case of investments, who should reap the benefits of someone else’s labour.