Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak of the experience of people who have been required to use jobactive services whilst looking for work. Since September there's been a Senate inquiry into the appropriateness and effectiveness of the jobactive program, and that has heard from a lot of witnesses. But tonight I'm not going to speak about the evidence we heard there. The Senate committee will report on that hearing.

Tonight I want to talk about the experiences that I have heard about from people who have contacted me directly, have made contact through Facebook or have come into my office, and these are constituents from Western Australia and from around Australia. Many of these people speak about their 'demoralising' or 'horrendous' experiences—and I'm quoting what they've said to me using those two words—in a system they feel is 'broken'. This is a program that is affecting the mental health of participants by causing unnecessary distress, anxiety around meeting unrealistic expectations, humiliation and depression. One participant noted:

The whole situation made my mental illness worse than it has ever been before, and pretty much killed my chance of ever really working from how much it has heavily worsened agoraphobia with panic disorder. The system is corrupt.

In their Voices of unemployment report, ACOSS surveyed 311 jobactive participants regarding their experience in the program. Of these participants, 65 per cent felt their jobactive consultants were not equipped with the training or skills required to offer any valuable assistance and were lacking in empathy or lived experience of living in poverty as an unemployed person. People have consistently told me of the frustration they feel working with their providers, the conflicting advice they often receive and the lack of support offered. One person commented on my Facebook page:

The system is completely broken and nobody has a clue what they're doing: This morning I was sent a message that I was suspended as I did not hand in my job search paperwork … I have not dealt with anyone on a one-to-one basis and have just been dealing with the receptionists manning the front desk … bad luck if I needed to speak with somebody privately. They've offered no funds for training and done absolutely nothing … The whole system is a complete joke.

The ACOSS report found that 73 per cent of the survey respondents were dissatisfied with their jobactive provider. Many noted the lack of assistance being provided and, where training opportunities or workshops were offered, they were inappropriate and inadequate. An overwhelming 79 per cent of respondents claimed that they would prefer to tackle the job market alone than continue working with their provider. Another commented on my page:

When I was with Max [Employment] in my late 40s they tried to tell me how to do a resume. Hello! I've been updating it for the last 30 plus years. They also sent me on a week-long course to help me work out the right kind of work for me which lo' and behold was exactly the kind of work I have over 3 decades of experience in. They then tried to force me to go to a job interview which was a work from home call center type role and when I said I couldn't do those hours as after school care closes at 6 they told me to lie and tell them that I was available and to just not answer any calls while I made the mad dash to pick up my son.

In their report ACOSS noted that 59 per cent of caregivers felt that their providers did not adequately take into account their family duties and regularly scheduled appointments at inappropriate times and often found jobs too far from home or involving night shifts. This inflexibility and insensitivity towards participants in caring roles has caused considerable distress to many. I have also heard how single mothers, in particular, are having to juggle parental responsibilities with their children with the demands of their providers. Participants also tell me of the increased levels of stress and anxiety they face manoeuvring through the system, which is confusing and overly complicated. If they have one slip-up, they face having their payments suspended. If they decline a job offer that is not suitable for their skill level or physical capacity, they risk being suspended for four weeks. Many do not understand, or have the resources to assist them through, the bureaucracy of the system and the appeals process. Many people, in fact, do not even know about the appeals process.

Let's not forget that the rate of Newstart has not been increased in 25 years. Many of these people are living in poverty. They are living from payment to payment, quite literally. When their payment gets cut off, that's a meal they can no longer afford or a rent payment they can't meet. What we are hearing is that jobactive providers are suspending payments within hours or, I've heard, in less than an hour. The process now means that they have to report within a very short space of time after somebody has 'missed an appointment'. I've heard many reasons why people have missed an appointment and not been able to contact the provider, and their payments have been suspended. While the jobactive provider has very little discretion, in fact I've been told that they're not even using the discretion that they may have when they're considering reasonable excuses. People are just being suspended.

We are even hearing evidence from people that their payments are suspended when the provider has missed their appointment:

I had a phone appointment … on Friday at 11.15 am. I asked her previously if I was to call her or if she would call me. She claimed I would call her, which I did at exactly 11.15. She wasn't available and I left a message. I now find that my payment has been suspended for not attending the appointment! … I am 57 years old. I am trying to get on my feet by working for myself and using my skills as a potter to get off centrelink payments … I do everything that is required of me and I do not deserve to be treated like this. No one does.

This is a program that is supposed to be helping people. It's supposed to be supporting jobseekers into meaningful employment. This is a program that is supposed to alleviate the stresses of unemployment by making clearer the path into work. There's an Employment Fund supposedly to help people with training and other things that are needed to try and overcome the barriers to work. Yet time and time again I hear from people that providers don't want to spend the money. I hear from people that it's too complex to get access to those funds.

What people are telling me personally is that this program is failing. It is not supporting them into meaningful work. They are going out and finding their own jobs. This program is not supporting people. It is not helping people to find work. It is leading to people having extreme anxiety and stress about the process. It is adversely affecting many people's mental health and making them feel helpless and hopeless. That's how people articulate to me how they feel.

Australians deserve a strong social safety net that looks after all of us when we are out of work, when we are on hard luck and when we are vulnerable. The Australian Greens will continue to fight for changes to this broken system to ensure that all Australians have access to the support they need when they need it and have proper support and training to help them find work in the circumstances that they are facing, with services that are particularly focused on their needs. So we should have services that are tailored for young people, services for people that are genuinely job ready and services that support older Australians to find work. That's the sort of individualised approach that we need and that unemployed Australians, and vulnerable Australians who are facing barriers, deserve. This system does not work. It's a top-down, very punitive, compliance-driven approach which the evidence clearly shows is not working for those people that truly need these services. It needs to be fixed properly, not with bandaid approaches.