Mission Australia welcomes the recent news that the Rudd Government intends to relax some of the more harsh aspects of Centrelink’s penalty regime for job seekers.
According to the Department of Employment, Education and Workplace Relations, up to 60 people a day – or 22,000 a year – have their income support withdrawn temporarily after failing three times to meet their obligations, such as attending job interviews.
Under the government’s new system, people will be able to work off penalty payments by participating in work-for-the-dole programs.
Centrelink will also have greater discretion to consider people's personal circumstances before imposing penalties.
Unemployed people need to engage in ongoing efforts to develop their skills, experience and confidence so their chances of finding a job are improved. But at the same time government needs to be sensitive to the fact that many job seekers fall foul of the system through no fault of their own.
As the rate of unemployment increases during the current economic downturn, Mission Australia would like to see more emphasis on creating jobs through on-the-job training.
Rather than raising unemployment benefits, we should be focussing on creating work through subsidised work placement programs. Government funding should also go to creating jobs in the industries where we desperately need workers, such as child care.
There are also many opportunities for the government to combine meeting unemployment targets with sustainability targets.
Mission Australia would like to see green employment packages created where a portion of funding for insulation can be directed to creating jobs that help manage the total energy use of low-income households.
This would create jobs and result in significant carbon savings. Mission Australia’s Urban Renewal program is evidence of how this approach works.
2 comments:
The Rudd government needs to immediately allow student to be able to earn up to $400 not wait until 2011. Also the Government needs to immediately reinstate the supplymentary loan scheme to allow students to live and not become homeless while studying so they can live and survive and then pay it back when they are earning a certain amount just like the hecs scheme. It worked before why change it at a time of crisis for students or is the Rudd government wanting our students to fail. Maybe the plan to sell everthing off like in Queensland is the underlying stand of the Labor Governments now across Australia?
Well what can we say to youth of today but,, please be ready for the rest of us who will be joining you as we look for ,jobs and get thoses lovely letters from the government about how we can have are benifits stopped or cut off just because we can`t find work ,yes this is a single mum who has recived a letter from our government who claims to relax this penalty crap , but what about the job centres they can say and do what they like to people , they dont give a dam, they have jobs , to bad for people on benifits ,we all never chose to be in this situation but we are ,no work no jobs more and more people being layed off ,so what are we being punished for I know dam well I never got this country into this state .Im sure it was the howard government ,so why is mr rudd still following in howards shoes theres going to be more and more people on the streets and more children living in poverty by cancelling the benifits.
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