More on AUSTRALIAN CUTBACKS
to Unemployment Support

see also Jobs Letter No.46 and Jobs Letter No.47

According to Lisa Macdonald of the Australian GreenLeft Weekly, the 'savings' on unemployment payments will come from (1) paying fewer people, (2) reducing the level of payments, and (3) paying for less of the time that people are actually unemployed.

An Australian Department of Social Security internal circular outlines a timetable of reforms which will effect employment programmes and the unemployed over the next year. These include :

-- Introducing a job seeker diary.
-- Establishing dedicated telephone contact service for employers, popularly known as "dob in a "dole bludger" lines.
-- Additional computer based fraud detection.
-- Matching employment declaration forms against Parenting Allowance recipients' data and customers' aliases and maiden names.
-- Stricter requirements on and greater use of employer contact certificates.
-- Measures to increase voluntary work participation for the older unemployed.
-- Increasing the recovery of debts (overpayments made due to departmental errors, which are often discovered after it has been spent).
-- Changes to penalties for breaches of the Social Security Act (increasing the period of non-payment for breaches to six weeks, 13 weeks for second breach).
-- Stricter definition of "sufficient reason" for declining job offers or voluntarily leaving employment.
-- Stricter definition of "unsuitable work" (e.g. below award wages, casual/part-time rather than full-time work or requirement to relocate).
-- Expanding the definition of industrial action and tighten provisions relating to unemployment due to industrial action.
-- Changing holiday processing arrangements (so that payments affected by public holidays will no longer be made in advance).
-- Applying parental income test to Youth Training Allowance and Student Allowance customers under 18.
-- Modifying Job Search Allowance, Newstart Allowance and pensions advance scheme (currently these are repayable cash payments which can be made in advance for emergency situations).
-- Abolishing Employment Entry Payment and the Education Entry Payment (currently one-off small cash payments to help with initial costs of entering a new job or course of study).
-- Abolishing all earnings credit schemes (currently allowing beneficiaries to earn up to $60 a fortnight without affecting their level of benefit).
-- Introducing a separate lower maximum rate of rent assistance for single people who share accommodation.
-- Consolidate and simplify voluntary work provisions.
-- Extending liquid assets waiting period to a maximum of 13 weeks (currently four weeks).
-- Removing superannuation means test exemption for older people with no recent work force experience.
-- Replacing annual leave waiting period with "income maintenance period".
-- Redefining (tightening) recoverable debts under the Social Security Act.