Why 'just getting a job' when you're on Centrelink isn't always that simple

ABC NEWS (Australia)

"Just get a job" is a common trope that many on Centrelink hear time and time again, but the process according to those on welfare benefits, academics and economists isn't always that straightforward. They say those kinds of comments unfairly characterise people receiving social security and there are any reasons some may struggle to find longer term employment.

Transcript

00:00 There are probably four main reasons why it's not so easy.

00:06 First is that people are working, but it's often unpaid.

00:11 So a lot of folks that are receiving Social Security are doing huge amounts of unpaid

00:16 work, particularly unpaid care work.

00:19 Another sort of big piece to this is, of course, that a lot of folks that are receiving, particularly

00:25 job seeker, have disabilities or illnesses.

00:29 So there's been a tightening of the disability support pension eligibility.

00:34 And so that means a lot of those folks that should be on those payments are now on job

00:39 seeker payments.

00:41 But they have a partial ability to be able to work.

00:46 And so we're talking about folks with psychosocial disability.

00:50 We're talking about folks who are battling cancer being put onto the job seeker payment.

00:56 And of course, they can't.

00:59 Income matters too, of course, because particularly the biggest form of unemployment in remote

01:05 parts of the country is that there's simply just not enough jobs.

01:09 And then lastly, is about policy.

01:13 Policy is a big barrier for folks.

01:15 Mutual obligations are particularly hostile and punitive.

01:20 But also, as I'm sure people are well aware, that the payments are so low and people are

01:26 finding themselves below the poverty line.

01:29 And that's a major barrier for people to be able to go out and look for work.

01:34 Let's pick up on the second point that you mentioned there, Elise, with many of those

01:38 working in the system have a disability, but they're on job seeker, not a disability pension.

01:45 And we know that job seeker is a lot lower paid than a disability payment.

01:50 Does the classification system need changing?

01:52 How can these people be classified properly?

01:56 Without a doubt.

01:57 In 2012, there was a tightening of the eligibility criteria for the disability support pension,

02:04 which is a higher rate.

02:05 It's still a very hard amount to live on.

02:08 It's still not a huge amount of money at all, but it's more than the job seeker payment.

02:15 And the other part of being on job seeker is sometimes you're then asked and expected

02:20 to do mutual obligations, which is a whole lot of hurdles people have to do to try and

02:26 look for work and kinds of trainings.

02:30 But when you're battling cancer or have a disability, you're not looking for work.

02:36 You can't be looking for work.

02:37 You're trying to stay alive.

02:40 And so the whole sort of rationale behind the job seeker is a complete mismatch to where

02:48 people are at.

02:49 Yeah.

02:50 On mutual obligations, these are the activities that people on payment, such as job seeker

02:54 or the youth allowance need to complete to continue receiving support.

02:59 The Department of Employment and Workplace Relations wrote a submission to a parliamentary

03:03 inquiry earlier this year, and they say that there is strong international and Australian

03:08 evidence that mutual obligation requirements speed entry into employment.

03:14 Yeah, I mean, I would dispute that.

03:16 The international evidence is extremely mixed.

03:18 It's also looking at different jurisdictions.

03:25 The Australian jurisdiction is specific.

03:28 There's a huge body of Australian specific research that shows that mutual obligations

03:33 works against people.

03:35 But on top of that, folks that are actually subject to mutual obligations don't want them.

03:40 They say that they're really harmful.

03:43 They're impacting their ability, their confidence, and their ability to go look for work.

03:48 They take up people's precious time to go look for work, and they're completely at odds

03:54 with where their reality is.

03:56 So there's a big, big piece of research, a big evidence base in Australia that shows

04:02 that mutual obligations need to be either dumped or completely reworked.

04:09 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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