Bridie Jabour theguardian.com, Tuesday 7 October 2014
Assistant minister says the freshly scrapped proposal was for 40 job searches, not applications, a month
Concerns were raised in July about the proposal to make job seekers apply for 40 jobs a month, with industry and welfare groups saying it may be unmanageable. Photograph: Andrew Paterson/Alamy
The government has sought to argue it never meant to force people to apply for 40 jobs a month after ditching its controversial proposal for jobseekers.
Unemployed people claiming income support will continue to have to apply for 20 jobs a month instead, the employment minister, Eric Abetz, and assistant minister, Luke Hartsuyker, announced on Tuesday.
The policy U-turn came as the government opened tenders for businesses to provide employment services, including coordinators for work for the dole, from next year until 2020.
Hartsuyker said the original proposal was not for 40 job applications a month, but 40 “job searches”.
“The issue of job search, which was an issue of 40 job searches a month, was the original proposition, is not necessarily job applications, it’s getting out and about, projecting yourself to employers, putting yourself forward for a job,” he told ABC Radio National.
“We received feedback, from the industry and from the community that was too large a number, some thought, so we have listened to that feedback.”
Hartsuyker said walking the streets and handing out résumés could have counted as job searches under the government’s initial proposal.
“We have a situation where job seekers should be leaving no stone unturned to get a job, it’s vital that they’re very active in the job market. If you’re sitting at home, expecting a job to land in your lap it’s just not going to happen. It’s absolutely essential that job seekers are motivated,” he said.
When Abetz was defending the proposal in July he said 40 was a reasonable number.
“What we’re asking most of the job seekers to do is to seek a job of a morning and of an afternoon and I think that is a reasonable request to make of our fellow Australians,” he said.
The government is also backing away from a proposal to more strictly enforce requirements of job seekers on the dole which could see them stripped of income support for missing one appointment.
The job service agencies might have been forced to dock job seekers income support but the government will instead leave decisions about penalising job seekers to Centrelink, through the Department of Human Services.
Hartsuyker said the feedback from the industry was a “strong preference” for leaving the decision to Centrelink, and the government had listened.
“That leaves the employment service providers to maintain an arm’s length position from that decision-making and allows the employment services provider to maintain a better relationship, we believe, with the job seekers,” he said.
He defended the government’s plans to make every eligible unemployed person under 50 take part in work-for-the-dole programs. When questioned specifically about making 49-year-olds, who may have worked all their life, take part in the program, Hartsuyker said it was important to give back to the community.
“It’s very important that we keep our job seekers engaged and work for the dole has the ability to provide perhaps a new opportunity, a new skill set that that person may not have been involved in before,” he said.
Abetz said there was broad support for the government’s proposed employment services model and its increased emphasis on “payment for results”, flexible servicing and greater focus on Indigenous job seekers.
“The government has made some changes in response to the feedback, including keeping job search at 20 jobs per month for most job seekers and allowing flexibility to tailor requirements to individual circumstances,” he said.
Concerns were raised in July about the proposal to make job seekers apply for 40 jobs a month, with industry and welfare groups saying it could lead to poorly targeted applications and may be unmanageable.
Speaking about the employment service tenders, Abetz and Hartsuyker said they both hoped to award contracts to big and small businesses, but preference would be given to organisations that could service entire regions.
“It is important that there is good coverage and delivery of quality services in all employment regions,” Hartsuyker said.
“Changes have also been made to the purchasing process to encourage bids from partnerships and consortia which will assist small and specialist providers.”
The government will award contracts for employment providers, work-for-the-dole coordinators, the new enterprise incentive scheme, harvest labour services and the national harvest labour information service, he said.
