Wrong-headed Welfare Working Group miss the point

The CTU backs beneficiary groups’ concerns about the recommendations in the Welfare Working Group’s report. “We are particularly concerned at the recommendations to remove 100,000 people off benefits over the next ten years and to contract out employment support services to private agencies,” says welfare spokesperson Eileen Brown.

“The report has a great deal to say about the responsibility of beneficiaries to seek work, but it says virtually nothing about where this work is to come from. And it promotes the dangerous myth that people on benefits are simply not trying hard enough to get jobs. The problem is not with the beneficiaries: it is with the job market and Government policies that don’t support job creation as a priority”, says Brown.

“We’d like to see an employment target of creating 100,000 decent jobs instead of a policy of pushing 100,000 off benefits. The unemployment numbers could be cut dramatically given two years ago we had 50,000 less than we have now on the unemployment benefit. Why not have full employment and intensive job creation as goals?”

The CTU says that job employment support must remain a government responsibility and under Government oversight. “We completely oppose this responsibility being contracted out to private agencies. There is no adequate explanation as to why private agencies would find it easier and be more successful at placing unemployed people into work. And there is considerable risk with these services being delivered by private for-profit agencies who are carrying out a contracted service and aren’t necessarily focussed on good community outcomes.”

“Our concerns are that policies that force sickness and invalid beneficiaries into work will push them into low quality, low-paid, high-stress work and oblige them to accept and endure unacceptable working conditions for fear of disqualification from further welfare support.”

“Simply requiring beneficiaries to look for work will not make jobs appear. Without a commitment from the Government to job creation and job opportunities there will be no improvement in outcomes for any of the beneficiaries targeted by the Welfare Working Group’s report”.

ENDS

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