‘Robodebt-style’ employment services system harming long-term unemployed
Community organisations and unions want the Albanese government to use the 2024 budget to fix an employment services system that relies on a Robodebt-style automated payment suspension system.
The Albanese government must use its 2024 budget to start fixing the employment services system which is failing to cut long-term unemployment and inflicting serious harm through large-scale Robodebt-style automated payment suspensions, community organisations and unions say.
In a letter to employment minister Tony Burke a raft of mental health, domestic violence, faith-based and First Nations services, along with unions, are calling for wholesale reform to help more than 500,000 people who have been on Jobseeker and Youth Allowance payments for more than a year at a time of relatively low unemployment.
The letter, seen by The Australian, says many are unfairly restricted from being on more lucrative benefits such as a disability support pension, and the services delivered by Workforce Australia to improve their job prospects are “all too often (of) poor quality.”
“People are not getting the help they need to extend their skills and connect them to the right employer,” the letter says. “The system assumes that people will find employment if only they search harder. That approach has failed.”
The letter is signed by 23 groups including the Australian Council of Social Service, the Community and Public Sector Union, the Australian Services Union, Mission Australia and Suicide Prevention Australia.
It says the problems with employment services go beyond not helping and are actually harmful, particularly the Robodebt-style system of payment suspensions.
Around 80,000 people are threatened with suspension of their income support each month, usually for missing an appointment with a provider or not applying for enough jobs, the letter says.
“Like Robodebt, the system applies these payment suspensions automatically without the involvement of Centrelink (so) payments are often suspended before an employment service provider has met with the person … In most cases, it’s later established that they actually met the requirement or had a good reason not to.
“There is no justice in this system and the constant risk of loss of their only income is seriously damaging people’s mental health and putting them at risk of homelessness. One quarter of those affected are from First Nations communities,” it says.
ACOSS chief executive Cassandra Goldie said the employment services model was “broken”, and change was needed.
“(It is) inflicting serious harm and failing comprehensively to meet its stated aim of reducing long-term unemployment,” Dr Goldie said.
“ACOSS is urging the government to now use next month’s federal budget to commit to wholesale reform of Workforce Australia (including) stopping automatic payment suspensions.
“Threatening to cut off someone’s income support, damaging their mental health and putting them at risk of homelessness does not help people find employment. Right now, the system actively works to keep people in poverty,” she said.
CPSU national secretary Melissa Donnelly said last year’s parliamentary inquiry into Workforce Australia had “exposed the undeniable failure of the privatised, for-profit system.
“It is a system that is failing everyone it touches, and it’s time it was replaced,” Ms Donnelly said.
“The needs of jobseekers, employers and governments would all be best met by a return to a public employment service provider, supplemented by specialist community-based services.”
Mr Burke’s spokesman said the government “wants an employment services system that works to … connect people and jobs, and a system that employers want to use to meet their workforce needs.”
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