Dole stoush

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Dole stoush

SCHEMES designed to make people work for the dole do not benefit unemployed people, a forum in Wonthaggi heard last Tuesday (August 11).

Former Wonthaggi woman Rebecca Winter from the Dole Action Group said the Federal Government’s new jobactive scheme was simply raising revenue.

From July 1 this year, unemployed people are forced to do 15-25 hours of unpaid work each week for non-profit organisations to receive the dole.

Ms Winter’s group believed the government spent about $1.3 billion a year on funding Job Services Australia providers.

“We think Work for the Dole is a failed, pointless policy that punishes unemployed people,” she said.

“It has been shown Work for the Dole does not work and often it hinders unemployed people from finding jobs because of the time involved in taking part in the scheme.”

Ms Winter was a speaker at the Work for the Dole community forum that was advertised as promoting changes to work for the dole rules: “What are they, do they affect you and what can we do about it?”

The forum was hosted by Mitchell House, Wonthaggi’s neighbourhood centre.

“Join us to discuss this new government measure, what it means for people in our community and what we can do about it,” was the message on a promotional flyer.

But Job Services Australia providers who presented at the forum felt the Dole Action Group hijacked the meeting.

Job agency representatives told The Star they thought the forum was about promoting working for the dole programs that help non-profit organisations. They did not wish to comment further.

A brochure issued by the Dole Action Group said the Federal Government knew there were not enough jobs in Australia for all unemployed people, meaning up to 10 people were competing for every job vacancy.

The group claimed job service providers were forcing jobseekers to undertake training courses provided by other divisions of companies contracted as job service providers, and billed the government.

The group believed unemployed people had become commodities, with more money to be made from people facing harder circumstances.

A spokesperson for the federal Department of Employment said Work for the Dole was not about raising revenue for job service providers.

The spokesperson said it was fair to expect welfare recipients to be required to look for work and “undertake certain activities”.

“Job seekers and their employment providers agree on a job plan that steps out how the job seeker will both look for work and participate in Work for the Dole,” the spokesperson said.

The department also rejected claims training was ineffective.

“In the new jobactive model, the rules around training have been tightened to ensure job seekers are not being sent to training for training’s sake. Training must be directly relevant to local employer needs,” the spokesperson said.

 Talking work: from left, Jan Bourne of Mitchell House and Rebecca Winter of the Dole Action Group at the Wonthaggi forum about new Work for the Dole requirements effective from July 1.

Talking work: from left, Jan Bourne of Mitchell House and Rebecca Winter of the Dole Action Group at the Wonthaggi forum about new Work for the Dole requirements effective from July 1.

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Posted by on Aug 18 2015. Filed under Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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