Budget 2016: Youth scheme offers ‘real jobs’ training

Business groups and the Australian Council of Social Services have backed the revamped work-for-the-dole plan.

Minister for Employment Michaelia Cash. ‘Best form of welfare is a job.’

Business groups and the Australian Council of Social Services have backed the Turnbull government’s $750 million work-for-the-dole plan, geared towards catapulting young people into jobs by pro­viding them with workplace ­training and a paid ­internship of up to 12 weeks.

ACOSS chief executive Cassandra Goldie was pleased at the new approach to securing young people paid work, arguing the ­budget revamp was a recognition of the problems with the previous work-for-the-dole scheme.

“(It) has instead provided an opportunity for young people to get work experience in real jobs with a wage subsidy, something we have urged for some time and (that) should be used more widely,” she said.

The chief executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, James Pearson, said the internship scheme would be taken up enthusiastically by business and jobseekers.

Council of Small Business of Australia chief executive Peter Strong also welcomed the initiatives, but said more needed to be done in the vocational education and training sector.

But unions criticised the program — in which jobseekers would be paid $200 a fortnight on top of their normal benefits —­ as “youth exploitation”.

The ACTU yesterday branded the voluntary PaTH scheme a “path to nowhere”, declaring the 12-week internships that will be ­offered to young people on the Newstart allowance “a US-style internship program”.

It claimed unemployed people would be paid $4 an hour for working in a supermarket.

As unions launched a social media campaign, ACTU secretary Dave Oliver said the initiative “amounts to a taxpayer-funded youth exploitation scheme’’.

“Why would a business employ a minimum-wage or lower-paid worker when the government is ready to supply them with free ­labour and a $1000 handout?” Mr Oliver said. “Instead of employing a worker on the minimum wage, businesses would be able to access a pool of free labour as part of a taxpayer-funded young worker ­exploitation scheme.”

Gerard Dwyer, national secre­tary of retailer workers union SDA, said: “Of course you’d hope the majority of employers would do the right thing, but by proposing a system whereby ­employers can basically get free ­labour the Turnbull government is just asking for trouble.”

Employment Minister Michaelia Cash sought to deflect the union concerns, providing a ­reassurance that employers who exploited the program would be banned.

“The youth employment package will equip young jobseekers by getting them ready, giving them a go and getting them a job,” Senator Cash said.

“The government firmly ­believes that the best form of welfare is a job and this package will help ­ensure young Australians are not confined to a life of welfare ­dependency.”

A spokesman for Senator Cash added that the unions were wrong to focus on supermarkets, because “there could be any number of ­employment opportunities across all industries”.

Opposition spokesman for ­employment and workplace relations Brendan O’Connor said the policy was an attempt to compensate for previous cuts to apprenticeship programs and came “too little, too late”.