Posted: November 24, 2006

Both parties miss the point

Today the Federal Government issued directions to Centrelink to take a tougher line with the unemployed by way of more onerous activity tests including more advanced dole diaries and audits. The targets are the long-term unemployed. At a recent conference in Sydney attended by many Job Network providers a common complaint was they are sending breaching orders to Centrelink who do not act upon them. What a place Australia has descended into. The JN providers are meant to be training the LTU and instead seek to punish them. The JN failure is exemplified by the so-called skills shortage in Australia. More than a million people are without enough work, the JN has been receiving billions since 1998 and now we have a skills shortage. And the Government trying to further extend their punishment of the victims is going to make life even harder for the unemployed. First, run macro policy such that there are not enough jobs. Second, deny that you have done this and then punish the victims. It is hard to believe really.

Then after the Government makes its latest announcement of how mean-spirited it has become, the Opposition Labor Party spokesperson comes out with equally unedifying nonsense about skills shortages. Rather than condemn the Government for failing to create enough jobs for all, the Federal Opposition says that Labor believes anyone who can work should, but there are many Australians who simply do not have the skills to get a job.

The reports say that the Labor Party claimed that "we have to have proper mutual obligation provisions in place and we have to deal with people who aren't doing the right thing. So they need to look at the range of reasons why others, who are stuck on unemployment benefits, are not able to work. Some of them simply don't have the skills employers need, and we need to better utilise mutual obligation."

How about asking why there are not enough jobs? That is the patent fact. Until you have enough jobs for all you cannot really define any real activity test. It would be far better for the Government to take advantage of the huge underutilised labour pool and introduce employment guarantees such that the people would be required to contribute to community development and environmental protection in return for a living wage. The jobs can easily be designed to be accessible to the skill levels prevailing among the unemployed. Then the work (rather than activity) test is clearcut. If you don't want to work then there would be no income support (given you had the capacity to do some work). A mixture of income support and living wage would be provided to those who could only work some hours.

Then we would avoid this penal system where one member of the population is set against the other. Where the advantaged prosper while the disadvantaged a punished for the failure of the system to provide enough opportunities for all to participate, contribute and benefit.

Blog entry posted by bill