No solace for distressed welfare recipients in Workforce Australia inquiry response
4 million payment suspension notices were issued since the inquiry was announced – how many more people will suffer while we wait for promised change?
The government has finally published its dismal response to the Workforce Australia inquiry report, saying a “one size fits all approach doesn’t work” and promising to do better – something welfare recipients have been told after every review since employment services were privatised in the late 90s.
Quotes, media contact and crisis line information included below.
An inadequate government response is no less than we expected, but that doesn’t soften the blow for those harmed by the millions of Centrelink payment suspensions.
In the nearly 2 years since the inquiry was announced by employment minister Tony Burke, welfare recipients living hundreds of dollars a week below the poverty line were hit with Centrelink payment suspension notices more than 4 million times. A quarter of all payment suspensions and cuts affected First Nations people.1 It is no surprise that 1 in 5 deaths by suicide were people on an unemployment payment when everything from the JobSeeker rate to rules that cause payment delays create so much distress and despair.2
The Workforce Australia inquiry failed unemployed people in many ways. Our voices were marginalised while providers who profit from abusing us were treated as credible witnesses. We know the toll it takes to participate in these extractive processes, and acknowledge the contributions of hundreds of welfare recipients who put themselves forward in an effort to be heard by the people in power.
Despite its shortcomings, the government’s response to this inquiry is an open admission that the privatised services profiting from our poverty are hurting people. There is only one responsible thing to do.
Minister Tony Burke must immediately pause all payment suspensions until Workforce Australia is overhauled at the very least. There is no defence for allowing suspensions to continue while the system is redesigned. The work of developing a new approach must be led by people with direct, contemporary experience of unemployment and “mutual” obligations.
Finally, we say again what we have said many times before. The government knows what would help people find and keep a suitable job, they just don’t have the courage to do it: ensure no one who needs a Centrelink payment is living in poverty, abolish “mutual” obligations and create a high quality, voluntary, public sector employment service.
Quotes attributable to Antipoverty Centre spokesperson and JobSeeker recipient Jay Coonan
There is nothing in the government’s response that will help people who can't afford to pay their bills today. Nothing that will help people who just had their payment cut by an abusive provider. Nothing that will help people who missed an arbitrary points target because they were sick or working or doing something useful with their time.
This response does not offer us a sense of hope. It is full of the same spin we’ve seen in every past iteration of an employment services review.
One thing the government agrees with us on is that employment services need to change. And knowing that the system needs to change, there is no excuse for continuing to punish people under the current unfair and harmful rules.
Poor people do not have months or years to wait for “better” employment services to stop cutting our payments and throwing our lives into a tailspin.
For every day the government takes to design a new system, poverty profiteers who soak up billions in public money will continue to deprive welfare recipients of our an income when we already can’t afford to live.
Minister Tony Burke must immediately pause all Centrelink payment suspensions for people with “mutual” obligations, and meaningfully include unemployed people in every step of redesigning employment services to avoid repeating the failures of this inquiry.
Media contact: 0403 429 414 / media at antipovertycentre.org
Crisis support and counselling services
If you need support you can seek guidance, counselling or crisis help from the below organisations or talk to someone you trust.
Suicide Call Back Service – general: 1300 659 467
SANE Australia – general: 1800 187 263
13YARN – for First Nations people: 13 92 76
National Counselling and Referral Service – for disabled people: 1800 421 468
Headspace – for young people: 1800 650 890
QLife – fo LGBTQIA+ people: 1800 184 527
Full Stop – for people who have experienced sexual harassment and assault: 1800 385 578
Embrace Mental Health – multilingual service: embracementalhealth.org.au
MensLine – for men: 1300 789 978
Brother to Brother – for First Nations men: 1800 435 799
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. See: aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/data/populations-age-groups/deaths-by-suicide-among-centrelink-income-support-recipients