‘Not bludgers’: welfare drug tests to hit middle-aged men

Middle-aged men who have lost their jobs will be the potential victims of any rollout of drug testing and cashless debit cards.

Labor MP Nick Champion, said if the government wanted to help displaced workers in his seat they should ‘raise Newstart, not get them to pee in a cup’. Picture: Kym Smith

Middle-aged, blue-collar men who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own as the manufacturing sector tightens will be the potential victims of any rollout of drug testing and cashless debit cards for Newstart recipients by the Morrison government.

That’s the warning from ­researchers who worked closely with sacked workers from the Mitsubishi and Holden car plants who fear the blitz on drug-dependent welfare recipients in ­depressed areas could also snare diligent workers made redundant as a result of economic change.

The fears are at their most acute in South Australia, which this week recorded a second successive jump in the jobless rate to a national high of 7.3 per cent, with the figures showing a vast gender divide as traditionally male jobs in manufacturing disappear, with more growth in the female-friendly areas of aged care, health, education and welfare. The ­unemployment rate in SA now stands at 7.5 per cent for men ­versus just 6 per cent for women, with Adelaide’s northern suburbs, where the Holden factory closed almost two years ago with the loss of 950 jobs, again scoring the highest rate of unemployment in the state.

The landscape is complicated in areas like Elizabeth with an above-average rate of unemployment for diligent older men forced out of traditional manufacturing jobs, and a staggering rate of youth employment, more than 18 per cent, with many young people having never worked and succumbing to the scourge of ice.

The federal government is seeking Senate support for a bill to enable a drug testing trial for Newstart and Youth Allowance recipients in three locations, Mandurah in Western Australia, Logan in Queensland and Canterbury-Bankstown in western Sydney. The plan has prompted fears in SA that drug testing could also be introduced in Adelaide’s north, where the cashless debit cards are already in place for those welfare recipients who have trouble managing their money.

The federal member for the northern suburbs electorate of Spence, Labor MP Nick Cham­pion, said if the government wanted to help displaced workers in his seat they should “raise Newstart, not get them to pee in a cup”.

The drug testing approach was also criticised by Andrew Beer, the dean of research and innovation at the University of South Australia Business School, who led a study of 403 car workers laid off in 2004 and 2005 as the Mitsubishi plant in Adelaide’s south was wound down.

The study found that the workers battled isolation, depression and bureaucratic insensitivity as they struggled to find work in a tightening jobs market, and that while many found jobs, 40 per cent were in short-term or casual work where their median wages fell by between $25,000 and $30,000. Professor Beer warned that putting workers such as these on cashless welfare cards or subjecting them to drug trials could compound their problems.

“It strips away human dignity and reinforces their sense of displacement,” Professor Beer said.

“The solution to these problems has to be around targeted skills and the kind of support we give people to re-enter the workforce, and that should involve a bigger conversation about reshaping expectations around what that support for people on welfare looks like.”

The SA secretary of the vehicle division of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, Scott Bachelor, said displaced workers “have enough problems without being treated like drug addicts”.

“A lot of these guys have gone from having full-time jobs with a career path to part-time jobs with less money, or temporary work that means they might need to draw on Newstart … they’re not bludgers and they don’t deserve to be treated like bludgers,” he told The Weekend Australian.

Social Services Minister Anne Ruston denied the government had a hit list of suburbs for drug testing and said that, if its legislation passed the Senate, it would await the results of the trials in the three locations before proceeding with any further rollout.

Senator Ruston also said that the entire premise of drug testing was not to deny people welfare payments but to make sure that they got the treatment they ­needed to get off drugs.

“This trial is not a punitive measure,” she said. “Testing positive will not ­reduce a participant’s welfare payment by a single cent. The trial is about identifying Australians who are struggling with substance abuse and helping them through it, putting them back on a path to work so they can fulfil their ­potential.

“That’s why the government has set aside a $10m treatment fund to provide individualised ­rehabilitation support and case management for those who test positive. It will also boost drug treatment capacity in the three trial sites to make sure that anyone who needs treatment will be able to get it.”

Senator Ruston also said the government hoped that by putting people on the Basics Card, which prevents them from spending money on anything other than necessities, it might also make them quit drug habits early.