The Albanese government has flagged a major overhaul of Australia’s employment services system, with Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth set to tell the National Press Club that the current mutual obligation regime is not helping Australians into work. She is expected to argue that the system is ill-equipped, wastes the time of welfare recipients and leaves too many unemployed people languishing with too little support.
Rishworth will say the government wants to move away from a one size fits all model and replace it with three streams of support, depending on how much help a jobseeker needs. She is also expected to describe the change as once-in-a-generation reform of the employment system, with mutual obligations potentially giving way to a fairer approach.
At the heart of the push is a blunt assessment of how the system works now. Mutual obligations can require appointments with an employment services provider, study or training courses, and applying for a set number of jobs or attending interviews. Rishworth will say those requirements are taking up too much time for both providers and applicants, while the current model encourages job providers to place people in jobs that may not suit them.
Her office said the government will consult further on the new model’s design after the speech, including through a discussion paper, an advisory group and targeted consultation with jobseekers, employers and providers. The minister is also expected to say the present system is ill-equipped to respond to the distinct needs of the one million Australians who use it each year.
The reform pitch lands after years of criticism that mutual obligations have been more punitive than practical. Those rules are the conditions jobseekers on welfare must meet to keep receiving payments, and previous reporting has described cases in which people had Centrelink payments suspended while recovering in hospital from brain surgery or psychosis. Rishworth will argue that providers should be delivering flexible, personalised support, but that the evidence shows too often they are not.
She is expected to say healthy people with recent job experience are better served than those facing more difficult circumstances, because the current system rewards a narrow profile rather than the people who most need help. The government’s challenge now is whether consultation can turn that critique into a system that actually reaches the jobseekers it has been missing for 30 years.
