Want a job? You're dreaming

By Jessica Harrison

BASS Coasters are familiar with the offices of the job service providers around our towns, usually with innocuous names relating to “jobs” and “skills”. Thre are Most of us assume these businesses are there to help people take courses, improve their skills and get jobs.

But since 2018, privatised providers have had the power to punish those receiving social security benefits such as Jobseeker and Disability Support Pension. They can issue demerit points, suspend and cancel payments, under the “Targeted Compliance framework” (TCF) if requirements are not met. Mandatory activities include “engaging with a provider” within a set time.  

In 2024, the Commonwealth Ombudsman found almost 1000 jobseekers had had their payments unlawfully cancelled over two years under the TCF. A major problem was found to be automated cancellations, similar to “Robodebt”. 

More than 50,652 welfare recipients have now been invited to apply for government compensation for payments that were wrongfully cancelled. 

The government paused the penalties and promised a review and changes. Now, following the “review”, the department is reinstating the framework, allowing Centrelink payment suspensions and penalties to resume, instigated by the job service providers. 

The Ombudsman affirmed the pointlessness of this punishing and costly system, citing evidence that “… the majority of the 652,300 current job seekers are in fact unlikely to find ongoing employment no matter how hard they try, given that current unemployment in Australia is close to the natural level of unemployment with respect to the inflation rate.”

The Australian Unemployed Workers Union wants the abolition of “mutual obligations”, including compulsory volunteering, mandatory appointments, job searches and Work for the Dole. 

In Bass Coast, we hear daily from people surviving illness, rising food and fuel costs, high rents and the added stress of keeping up with their JSP appointments and compulsory volunteering. Travelling to appointments can mean hours waiting for public transport, or paying increasing fuel costs. And this is during a cost-of-living crisis.

A local man who worked milking twice a day was told he had to apply for a second job. Another man was told he should do an IT course, although he had no skills or interest in computers. 

On the AUWU advocacy line, I’m assisting a man who works a few days a week to top up his income. His JSP demanded he attend an interview on a day when he was working. He was then issued with a penalty point for not attending.

From 55 years, until you reach pension age, you can choose to volunteer to fulfill your “mutual obligations”. Our local op shops are staffed by people working 15 hours a week, with no time off if they have health issues or need a break. If they don’t “volunteer”, their payments can be cut.

Many people do not realise that there is no such thing as “sickness benefits”. If you are unwell, you are still expected to apply for jobs and undertake mandatory obligations, to receive JobSeeker, a payment below the poverty line. 

The Disability Support Pension is higher than JobSeeker, but it is difficult to apply for, and requires up-front payment for specialised medical assessment.

The current system has failed. According to the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations’ annual report in 2025, only 11.7% of jobseekers secured long-term work via job service providers, while over $5 billion in taxpayer dollars is funnelled annually to these same private providers. 

The AUWU envisages an alternative to the failing profit-driven punitive system, where a government agency collates jobs and publishes information, similar to the defunct Commonwealth Employment Services. 

We want social security payments to be above the poverty line. Then people can afford food, rent, bills AND medications.

An up-to-date list of free food available in the Bass Coast is available at Wonthaggi Neighbourhood Centre, 6 Murray St, Wonthaggi. Donations of non-perishable food can be left in the Inner Wheel trolleys in Woolworths and the IGA supermarkets. 

The AUWU Advocacy Hotline is open from Monday to Friday 10am-2pm. Phone 1800 289 848 or 03 9811 70649 or email advocacy@auwu.org.au. 

Jessica Harrison is the Wonthaggi-based advocacy co-ordinator for the Australian Unemployed Workers Union.