Employment minister Amanda Rishworth plans to move system from a ‘one size fits all’ employment services model to three streams of support
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/may/26/labor-to-announce-easing-of-jobseeker-mutual-obligations-requirements-in-major-overhaul-of-employment-system
17 Comments
Oh finally. This is awesome news. The Job Network provider companies really need an overhaul.
Hopefully this involves front loading assistance. Anyone with a brain will tell you that the longer someone is unemployed the harder it is for them to find employment.
From the nine newspapers:
> It will separate people who are newly unemployed and already have skills to re-enter the job market, for example, from those who have been unemployed for long periods of time, disconnected from the labour market or face other barriers to employment.
> The first stream in the new system will be for people who are ready to work but need help finding a job; they will use a digital service.
> The second stream will cater to people who need help building skills and confidence to return to the job market. They will receive targeted, provider-led support.
> The third stream is for people who face complex barriers to employment, set to receive more intensive support that might span social services. This group of people is more like to be older, have medical or physical limitations, fewer qualifications and be in regional or outer-suburban areas.
> The new system will still utilise private providers but will rely less heavily on for-profit services. For example, there will be a stronger role for community-based organisations who have more experience linking people to housing or financial support
It’s great Labor are making these changes. It takes time to undo the mistakes of the coalition but they are doing the work now.
We used to have guaranteed jobs and government providers:
> Following a major review of the welfare system in 1988, the Hawke and Keating governments introduced a range of modifications to labour market programs to ensure greater compliance by income support recipients through targeting and providing incentives to encourage work and reduce welfare dependence. This emphasis on ‘reciprocal obligation’ was crystallised in the 1994 white paper on employment, Working Nation of which the Job Compact for the long-term unemployed was central. Through this initiative, the Government sought to provide the long-term unemployed with a guaranteed job within 6-12 months along with a program of targeted assistance. This was accompanied by high penalties for unemployed people who did not accept a reasonable job offer.
> When the Coalition came into government in 1996 Working Nation was replaced by more market-oriented initiatives which included the downsizing of labour market programs, deregulation of the training market, and privatisation of the employment assistance service with the introduction of Job Network from May 1998. In accordance with the mutual obligation principle, tighter requirements were introduced for the receipt of benefits and harsher penalties enforced for failure to comply (such as the ‘breaching’ of the activity test).
[Source](https://humanrights.gov.au/resource-hub/human-rights/social-justice-report-2001-chapter-2-mutual-obligation-welfare-reform-and) and another [Another source](https://aifs.gov.au/all-research/research-reports/reforming-australian-welfare-state). Both from 2000s
Hawke introduced the carrot and stick. Howard removed the carrot and made the stick bigger.
The bit that’s been found to be unlawful? The bit that they’ve had ombudsman and departments telling them to get rid of for years? That bit?
How magnanimous. When was the court date?
More people on the dole amazing
They would better off raising Jobseeker payments and creating more incentives to find and keep jobs.
Job agencies are a massive waste of time and money. They are greedy and rotten to the core, including the NFPs. The only way anything will change is if the Government financially penalises them or bans them for misconduct.
Im starting jobseeker in 2 days and will be on it for 6-12 months at least, is this likely to affect me? Or is it not taking affect until at least 2028
Will have to see how this works, there is clearly a need to change, but with employers doing stupid stuff in the recruiting sector – just changing how JSP’s operate is likely not going to be enough.
Dunno, sounds a lot like a more official version of the current system.
Great, next they should target the growing amount of companies posting ghost job ads and engaging in other bs hiring practices wasting time of people looking for work and indirectly keeping them unemployed longer. It’s currently more worse than it’s ever been for even people with a decade+ of experience finding it difficult to get hired(even for skills classified as ‘in demand’ that we import workers for). It’s an even more uphill battle if you’re a recent graduate.
Good. The system as it is, is based on the job market as it was maybe 20 years ago. Designed by out of touch people who’ve never had to look for another job outside of networking for most of their adult life.
The job market right now is an absolute disaster with the amount of fake jobs posted on Linkedin to gain followers, jobs processes made only to farm free work from applicants, AI-triggered layoffs etc. It doesn’t matter the amount of experience you have, how many jobs you apply to, the amount of extra courses you take, a second university degree or just one. None of these things are any remote guarantee of a job, let alone the chance of one. You’re applying to hundreds upon hundreds of jobs where you are lucky to get an automated AI written rejection letter to your painstakingly customised CV and cover letters. Applying to jobs just feels like a complete waste of time compared to what it was like even a couple years before.
Labour smashing it out of the park this year
The system is an absolute mess at the moment. I have been forced into one of the weird mandatory training courses after about 2 months of unemployment. The trainer is nudging 80 and keeps saying he doesn’t really know how to fill the day because the script he was given is too short to fill a full day. The training day runs from 9-5, but instead of finishing it early, we spend over 4 hours a day on breaks. Clearly the trainer wouldn’t get paid for a full day if he admitted its only a 4 hour course that he’s teaching from 9-5.
The difference is education levels is extremely jarring – there are people in the class with advanced degrees alongside people that are close to illiterate and don’t know how to use computers.
Today we did a personality test. And for some reason, we were getting Tony Robbins shoved down our throat? The student workbook/script this man was reading from was riddled with basic errors. It was all extremely odd and clearly not put together by someone with the skills or education to be doing so.
It seems like the training providers know their scam is almost over as the trainer and the training provider both acted extremely suspicious and dismissive when myself and other students requested to be emailed the workbook so we could follow along with the lesson.
I can’t understand how anyone would think this is an okay way to spend taxpayer money and I’ve been appalled by how clearly these trainers and providers are scamming Australia.
My blood has been boiling all night, so seeing this story has given me some sort of minor sense of optimism after feeling pretty close to just throwing the towel in.
Good to hear. They also really need to do something about the missing middle of the Centrelink system, people who are too sick to work but not sick enough to qualify for DSP. Those people are forced on jobseeker even though there’s little to no reasonable chance for them being able to consistently work. That includes people who are over 55 who won’t get hired due to ageism anyway and can’t work due to health issues, but get stuck fulfilling random job seeking obligations until they hit age pension age. My mum was one of them, sarcoidosis, heart failure, a few other things, hadn’t worked in 20 years yet had to meet with a job provider constantly to get paid. Both the job provider and her knew she wasn’t able to work but had to pretend she was looking for it, right up until the week before her 67th birthday. They need to either bring back sickness allowance (which was scrapped) or admit these people are not going to find work.