Ben Small (Forrest, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Electoral Matters) | Hansard source

I absolutely agree that the dignity of work is fundamental to what it means to be a proud Australian, and I can tell you why. A couple of years ago, I started a bar with a friend of mine. Neither of us had ever pulled a pint, waited a table or poured a coffee for a customer, but we took the plunge into small business nonetheless. One of our regulars at the bar happened to be the general manager of an employment services provider in the south-west of WA. That regular patron provided us a challenge. She said: 'I've got a customer who has never yet been gainfully employed. He's someone with autism and severe anxiety. Could you possibly find him a role in your hospitality venue?' I talked to my business partner because someone that's suffering from autism and severe anxiety isn't necessarily the greatest fit for a busy, thriving, noisy and bright venue. But we thought the easy thing would be to say that, no, we couldn't find him a spot. So we sat down with our head chef and said, 'Chef, we've got to find a way to give this guy a go.' We did. He started with rolling pizza bases in the kitchen long before opening, when there was no-one else in the venue. Seven years later, we sold that business and that employee was still there. He was doing day shifts. He was doing night shifts. He was a valued part of the team. He was fundamentally a different person to the chap that walked in the door those many years ago. So, when we talk about the best form of welfare being a job, I can say from my personal experience that not only have I seen it with my own eyes but I'm very proud I've been part of giving someone that opportunity. It is that sense of purpose that employment gives someone that government programs alone cannot replace. That individual got a 13-week wage subsidy and, after that, had to carry his own weight, and I'm so proud of the fact that he did.

Australians don't judge success in these sorts of endeavours based on announcements, intentions or media releases. They judge success based on whether more Australians are getting into jobs and staying in them over the long term. The government's described these proposed changes as the biggest reform to employment services in 30 years. But scale alone doesn't guarantee effectiveness or success in converting people off welfare and into jobs for the long term. That is the only outcome that matters.

Presently, some 670,000 Australians are still unemployed, and underemployment is a massive issue in the Australian economy which means that many Australians who do have work are still not getting enough hours to support themselves and their families properly. There are signs that the labour market is softening, with Labor's rampant inflation and their addiction to spending undermining the private sector's prosperity and its capacity to employ in this country. Our position is that reform should always be judged on whether it's putting people into sustained work, not simply on how it appears in glossy media releases and brochures.

When there are more than one million Australians receiving JobSeeker and similar income support payments and when that number has increased by over 70,000 in a single year—that's a 7½ per cent rise in just 12 months—those numbers suggest that this system is not consistently moving people from welfare into employment at all. When it comes to matching those potential employees and their future employers, you would expect that those businesses should be privately owned and prosperous, not government backed—because jobs that require taxpayer funding aren't contributing to the size of the pie in this country.

There are more than 200,000 job advertisements across the country today indicating that demand is strong. Despite this, employers are consistently reporting in my part of the world that finding suitable employees is incredibly tough. There is a disconnect between jobseekers and the available jobs that the current system is not resolving adequately. This motion asks the House to support an intention rather than assess performance, and it's for that reason the coalition won't support it.

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