Ed Husic tells ABC there are questions over safety and effectiveness of expanded scheme

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Ed Husic has said that work for the dole is “punishing people for not being in work” rather than helping them find a job in a sign Labor is preparing to dump the program if elected.

Labor’s employment services spokesman has ramped up his rhetoric against work for the dole after evidence in Senate estimates that 73% of participants did not have a job three months after completing the work-readiness program.

Work for the dole employs job seekers for up to 25 hours a week for six months a year as a form of mutual obligation to continue receiving the dole. The program expanded under the Coalition from 47,000 places in 2014 to 111,000 in 2016.

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On Sunday Husic told ABC’s Insiders the $600m program had “serious question marks over its performance and, in particular, whether or not it’s safe”.

“We need to ensure that we get young Australians working, not putting them through a program that clearly has either got an issue with its safety or an issue ultimately as to whether or not it’s putting people into work, skilling them up, getting them ready for jobs.”

Husic and the Australian Unemployed Workers Union have been campaigning for the release of a report into the death of work for the dole participant Joshua Park-Fing in Toowoomba in April 2016.

Husic cited that case and incidents of young people being exposed to asbestos, claiming that departmental audits had found work for the dole work sites were not safe.

The government maintains that the rates of injury incidents on the program are lower than across the economy as a whole.

Husic said that would be cold comfort to the families of children exposed to asbestos and argued young people feel they can’t make safety complaints for fear of losing their welfare payments.

Husic said that Labor is “absolutely committed to mutual obligation”. “We want to ensure that young people are not sitting on their hands. They don’t want to be sitting on their hands, they want to be put to work.”

Mutual obligations include training, developing a job plan, applying for jobs and attending meetings with employment service providers.

Signalling an intention to replace work for the dole, Husic said that a “future program” would retain mutual obligation so that job seekers are skilling themselves up and getting ready for work.

Husic said that 70% of work for the dole participants “don’t get themselves into jobs just months after being in it”. He said it “has been a useful program” in the past because Labor ran it “with a focus on skilling people up and in particular for those job seekers that haven’t had any work experience whatsoever”.

“The way it is being managed at the moment, the way it has been chopped and changed and the way it is not preparing people with skills that employers need demonstrate that the program being managed by the Coalition is becoming a dud.”

On Wednesday employment department officials told Senate estimates that between July 2016 and June 2017, 27.1% of work for the dole participants were employed three months after their participation in the program.

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The Greens’ family and community services spokeswoman, Rachel Siewert, said that more than 70% of people “languish below the poverty line after working below the minimum wage just to receive income support”.

“Here we have a clear cut example of work for the dole not working for participants, yet the government persists with the program,” she said.

Siewert said the program forced people to do “basic tasks” that “don’t necessarily build skills”. She suggested it should be scrapped in favour of individualised support and mentoring for young people to help them find jobs.