Labor MP Julian Hill – who in opposition supported the Workforce Australia scheme – says privatisation has failed to prepare disadvantaged jobseekers for work and made others less employable by demeaning them, according to an article in The Guardian.
Employment services was privatised in the late 1990s by the Howard government and is now the Commonwealth’s second largest procurement after defence.
He reckons work for the dole and some parts of the welfare compliance regime resembled the TV show Squid Game, in which contestants compete in do-or-die trials.
Over the past two decades, successive governments have reduced job services spending and the welfare budget at “pretty much any cost”, he said.
Jobseekers are forced to do work-for-the-dole stunts that don’t help them get a job” and were punished through payment suspensions and cancellations, which push them further into poverty.
Hill also described the “Targeted Compliance Framework” (TCF) – which hands jobseekers “demerits” for non-compliance – like Squid Game in a dystopian reality TV show.
International evidence showed payment cancellations fell on those with the “most chaotic lives and push people – including those experiencing trauma, family violence and addiction – further into poverty”.