Dole recipients refusing to work has almost tripled in past three years

EXCLUSIVE: THE number of dole recipients getting away with refusing to work has almost tripled in the past three years, latest figures reveal.

Generic photographs of people entering the Centrelink building in Bankstown NSW Australia (following a fire drill).

THE number of dole recipients getting away with refusing to work has almost tripled in the past three years.

In 2010, the year after the Howard government’s welfare to work system was unpicked, 23 per cent of dole earners who were slapped with eight week payment freezes for refusing work had their penalties waived.

Today, that figure has soared to 62 per cent, according to new figures from the Department of Employment, prompting the government to escalate its calls for a crackdown on unemployed Aussies found to be doing the wrong thing.

The Abbott government has put legislation to parliament to toughen the penalties around welfare receivers who are leaving or turning down jobs.

The bill, which could come to a vote, would see any job-seeker receiving taxpayer funded welfare benefits forced to accept “any legitimate, suitable work that they are capable of doing” or have their welfare payments cut off for eight weeks.

Labor will oppose the bill arguing Centrelink should have the discretion to reinstate welfare payments if a dole earner is vulnerable or if they quickly re-engage with work or job-seeking.

The Department of Employment data shows in 2009-10 there were 376,798 cases of people not complying with their welfare obligations. Of these 10,838 received the maximum eight week payment-freeze penalty, and less than a quarter of these people had that waived.

EARN AND LEARN: Government’s hit list on its work-for-dole scheme revealed

DRUG TESTS: Ruled out by the Abbott government for dole recipients

Refusing to work ... welfare is costing Australians more through Centrelink.

But in the first six months of the 2013-14 financial year, 536,491 instances of noncompliance were already identified, with 26,698 people getting maximum 8 week nonpayment penalties, and 62 per cent of these being waived.

Assistant Minister for Employment Luke Hartsuyker blamed the former Labor government for the rising number of welfare receivers getting away with turning down work.

“Labor changed the rules and let lazy job seekers off the hook by allowing them to choose welfare over work,” Mr Hartsuyker said.

“It isn’t acceptable for job seekers to refuse a job and not pay any financial price — workers don’t get paid if they don’t turn up for work and the same rules should apply to those who are receiving welfare.”

But Labor’s employment services spokeswoman Julie Collins said the former government’s policy was designed to re-engage job-seekers, not “put them on the scrapheap and say they’re too hard”.

“What we were focused on was re-engaging job-seekers and giving them more intensive activity, rather than just penalising them with no payments,” Ms Collins said.

She said Centrelink was better able to determine whether there was a vulnerability or extenuating circumstance which would make an eight-week payment freeze difficult to endure.

In his speech to parliament, Mr Hartsuker said last financial year 73 per cent of dole earners targeted for serious failures for repeated noncompliance, had their penalties waived and nearly one third of those people, were their second or third episode of noncompliance.

Originally published as Dole recipients refusing to work has almost tripled in past three years