Mutual obligations will be different for every welfare recipient, the employment minister says, signalling an end to jobseekers being forced to submit \u201cendless\u201d applications for roles they may not be qualified for.<\/p>\n
But welfare advocates and a key trade union have said Labor\u2019s employment system changes don\u2019t go far enough and fall short of the reform needed in the failure-plagued sector \u2013 they have called for an end to the privatised job services model, which Amanda Rishworth admits is not providing enough help.<\/p>\n
Rishworth\u2019s address to the National Press Club on Wednesday outlined an overhaul of the employment services system, with the current \u201cone size fits all\u201d model to be split into three separate streams, depending on a jobseeker\u2019s level of skills and work readiness:<\/p>\n
At the lower level, a digital service with \u201cindividualised resources and brief interventions\u201d for people who are work-ready but need help finding the right job.<\/p>\n
A \u201ctargeted provider-led\u201d stream to help people build skills and confidence.<\/p>\n
And at the upper end, more intensive services for people with complex requirements, who will be given more time, flexibility and support.<\/p>\n
Rishworth said unemployed people were \u201clanguishing\u201d with insufficient help, due in part to the current system incentivising job providers to ignore people with more complex needs in favour of people who are easier to place. The employment minister was critical that one in five people using the Workforce Australia program \u2013 around 140,000 people \u2013 had been in that stream for five years or more, a figure which was getting worse.<\/p>\n
But the privatised model will continue, which the Greens senator Penny Allman-Payne said would see jobseekers \u201cherded into a failed system\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese reforms aren\u2019t a shake-up, they\u2019re a screw-up,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cLabor\u2019s own inquiry into employment services in 2023 concluded that privatisation had failed and that \u2018fundamental change is needed\u2019. The reforms suggest that Labor hasn\u2019t read its own report.\u201d<\/p>\n
And despite a 2025 Commonwealth Ombudsman report finding nearly 1,000 people had their welfare payments unlawfully terminated<\/a>, Allman-Payne was also critical the government hadn\u2019t announced plans to reform that system.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n The exact details of the new system were not announced on Wednesday and will be developed over the next year in a consultation process with employers, jobseekers and providers. But Rishworth did signal changes to mutual obligations activities, which she said were wasting the time of people who use welfare<\/a>.<\/p>\n Guardian Australia has reported numerous examples of the mutual obligations system being unfair or cruel to users, or forcing people to complete menial tasks. These included people having Centrelink payments suspended while in hospital recovering from brain surgery<\/a> or recovering from psychosis<\/a>, and job training courses described as \u201ccondescending\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n While mutual obligations will remain, Rishworth said the activities must be \u201cmeaningful\u201d and would differ depending on an individual\u2019s circumstances.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you are close to the labour market, then putting in job applications in jobs that you\u2019re interested in and that are in your goal plan are clearly an appropriate activity,\u201d the minister said. \u201cIf you are very far from the labour market and do not have work ready skills, there is no point in that participant putting in endless applications.\u201d<\/p>\n Rishworth gave the example of the disability job service Inclusive Employment Australia, which had changed compliance action to be a \u201clast resort\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t believe that people are going into the system and deliberately looking [at] how not to engage and contribute, but we need to make those mutual obligations meaningful to actually getting a job,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Opposition employment spokesperson Jane Hume said the Coalition backed the new three-stream model, agreeing the system needed reform, but said she\u2019d be \u201cdeeply concerned\u201d at winding back the mutual obligations framework.<\/p>\n The Australian Council of Social Services (Acoss) said the system needed reform, welcoming changes to mutual obligations, but calling for that system to be abolished entirely.<\/p>\n The Community and Public Sector Union welcomed the changes, but national secretary Melissa Donnelly was \u201cdisappointed it has not gone further to overhaul the privatised model that has failed job seekers, employers and the government\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cAustralian job seekers are sick of being lectured by flashy \u2018entrepreneurs\u2019 who are milking the government for hundreds of millions of dollars and providing a broken, profit-driven service in return,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis privatisation fantasy has caused untold damage, and while today\u2019s announcement is very welcome, progress must not stop here.\u201d<\/p>\n Economic Justice Australia, part of the working group to consult on the changes, also said changes were needed to the privatised model.<\/p>\n \u201cWherever privatised employment service providers are given the power to suspend people from essential payments, not only will there always be a power imbalance, there will be a direct threat to people\u2019s ability to survive,\u201d said its chief executive, Kate Allingham.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mutual obligations will be different for every welfare recipient, the employment minister says, signalling an end to jobseekers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":697406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-697405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=697405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}