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Tag Archives: earn or learn

Baby boomer protection

Why is the Abbott government offering $10,000 to employ people who are over 50? We grew up in a time of free education and high employment so presumably these people already have some work experience which puts them in front of young job applicants. Very few over 50s would have young dependent children. Most would have accumulated some possessions over the years. They are also a lot closer to the end of their working life.

Whilst I can understand the despair of unemployment in middle-age, that $10,000, rather than being an inducement paid to an employer, could pay 40 Newstart recipients for a week.

The idea that young people are choosing unemployment because they are lazy is ridiculous. This may be true for a very small minority but there are already rules in place to deal with people who are abusing the system.

Policies such as work for the dole, ”earn or learn” and intensive job-seeking ignore social disadvantage. It assumes a level playing field, whereby all unemployed people can obtain work if they are incentivised to do so.

Anglicare have released a study into what works to get disadvantaged job-seekers into employment.

The paper, prepared by the Australian Centre for Community Services Research at Flinders University, says job-seekers’ individual aspirations need to be identified, as well as their life circumstances. It reports success with broader capacity-building around work, including depression management, communication, fitness, relationships, cooking, budgeting and computing skills.

People out of work for the long term need individual skills and capability development to help them find and sustain a job, rather than simply being matched to job vacancies.

“Beyond Supply and Demand is a research paper on our network’s evidence of what works for people excluded from the workforce. Its findings are that we are most effective when we recognise the person – and their goals and ambitions – at the centre of exclusion and acknowledge their circumstances, and the barriers and challenges they face. It’s what we call a “life first” rather than “work first” approach.

Anglicare services around the country tell us that a one-size-fits-all-approach to getting people into the workforce simply doesn’t work. Our most effective programs use a case management model, which provide services based on individual needs, build strong links with local employers and other support services, and provide post-employment support, such as job coaching, mentoring, peer support, personal development and career guidance.

Most Australians have hopes and preferences for their future, and many have important attachments to their families and local communities. People out of work are no different. They want a ‘normal’ life too; a job and their own home. And it is our job to see they get the chance.

Beyond Supply and Demand addresses issues at the heart of the McClure Welfare Review, how to shift the focus of working age welfare to getting more people into work. There is a lot of comment in the media suggesting people don’t try hard enough. Our evidence is that real jobs and individual support makes the difference.”

I was on the management committee for a homeless youth refuge. We provided medium term accommodation for 15 to 24 year olds. These kids usually did not have family homes they could return to. Many of them lacked basic life skills and that was a large part of our program with them. We worked on a rewards based system. Residents were not compelled to complete tasks but were rewarded when they did with things like mobile phone credit or a dinner out with a person of their choice. We helped them with applications for courses and jobs. We had partnership agreements with employers and community housing groups and would provide outreach support when our residents moved out. It was very rare for us to have to ask someone to leave because they were not pulling their weight in the house though we did have to refer a couple who were violent.

What is to happen to these kids if benefits are withdrawn for six months of the year? The refuge cannot run on the small government grant it receives alone.

It is at the start of someone’s life when they need the most help and support. It isn’t just work experience that young people lack, they also lack life experience and it can be very daunting trying to enter the adult workforce with no assistance. Continual rejection takes its toll on the sturdiest of egos let alone on vulnerable youth from disadvantaged backgrounds.

How are they to apply for 40 jobs per month or travel around to interviews if they have no income? Where do they live? What do they eat? What do they wear? How do they get anywhere? How do they stay healthy?

Suggesting that they should head off to Tasmania for the fruit picking season is so trite. Firstly you are asking them to move away from any family, friend, or community support they may have. It also does nothing for addressing meaningful employment that would see people sustain a job.

I also note that our Prime Minister was not willing to move to where his employment is, a decision that is costing us tens of millions of dollars which could have supported many Newstart recipients for a long time.

Our youth are our future and abandoning them when they need our help the most is cruelty. This government is fixated on punitive measures for our most vulnerable while working hand over fist to exonerate corporate malfeasance with amnesties for offshore tax cheats, changes to financial protection laws, and “safe harbours” protecting corporate directors from personal liability.

One must wonder at the priorities of these middle-aged white men who have reaped the benefits of the baby boomers era and who are now hell-bent on denying those same opportunities to our children.

Earn or Learn

A society where every person between the age of 16 and 70 is either working or studying is an unrealistic nonsense even in the best of times. Considering the Coalition are trying to tell us that we are facing the worst of times, I fail to see how they hope to achieve this goal. What makes it even more incongruous are their policy decisions which are actively working against this aim.

The budget has ripped $80 billion out of funding for the States for education and health. The Government’s justification for this (read Credlin-prepared spin) is that they don’t run any schools or hospitals. They seem to ignore the fact that citizens pay income tax to the federal government to pay for our schools and hospitals. I would much prefer that revenue to be spent in those areas than in defence.

They have also deregulated University funding and cut the Commonwealth’s contribution. This will have the effect of turning over our most prestigious universities to the wealthy who can afford the fees. Course selection at other universities will narrow. Decisions will be made on the basis of profit rather than benefit to society and certain areas of study will become exclusively the domain of those who can afford it.

I understand that students can choose to go into debt on which they will pay interest. In fact they have extended this privilege to tech courses. Foregoing income for several years and starting working life with a $100,000? debt and no assets would be very daunting for many people.

The government has also backed away from its “unity ticket” on needs based funding for schools by refusing to honour the agreement signed with the States. This move has gutted billions of dollars from education and reneges on an agreement signed in good faith and the commitment made during the election that “on education there is no difference between Labor and the Coalition.”

But it gets worse.

Hundreds of thousands of students in Queensland and New South Wales are expected to lose key opportunities to learn a trade while at school after the Federal Government axed $1 billion in funding for Trade Training Centres. According to estimates by the Opposition, NSW will lose 277 proposed centres and Queensland will lose 123.

AEU federal president Angelo Gavrielatos said students in struggling communities and regional areas would feel the brunt of these changes.

“(The centres) are vital right across Australia but are very important in regional centres where we need to ensure future development, future employability of our students and productivity of our regions. One would have thought this is the time to invest in skills development for their future and for the future productivity of Australia as a whole.”

Senator Kim Carr said Prime Minister Tony Abbott has broken vows made before the election there would be no cuts to education.

“Communities across Australia know how valuable Trades Training Centres in Schools are – they keep our kids in schools and give them the skills they need to get a job. Ripping $1 billion from Trades Training Centres means a generation of students will simply miss out.”

With unemployment rising and cuts to education, I cannot see how we are going to find jobs and courses for everyone. But for those who cannot find work, or who are not able to do a course for whatever reason (feeding their family perhaps?), how will they survive if they only receive income support for 6 months of the year? They are already below the poverty line. Are we forcing young people to stay in abusive homes or to live on the streets and survive by whatever means they can? Nothing has been done to address the affordability of housing. In fact the Coalition stripped $44 million from the capital works of the National Partnership agreement on homelessness – money that was to be spent on building accommodation for the homeless.

What sort of future does this offer to our young people? Has no-one in the Coalition ever had to struggle? Have all of them come from wealthy privileged families who can buy them a unit in the city and a car to run around in and pay for the cleaning lady to come in once a week? They do not understand the despair and fear that some young people feel when they find themselves on their own for whatever reason. Or they become an additional burden on their family who may well be living at subsistence level.

Since the Coalition came to power we have witnessed an unending stream of job losses – manufacturing, mining, public service, Qantas, charities to name a few. The only strategy to combat this is to spend tens of billions building roads that have had no cost-benefit analysis prepared or viability studies done. They are also recruiting almost 3,000 people for the military which adds nothing to productivity or the nation’s wealth.

Add to this the Newman government’s decision to axe $4.5million from programs after Skilling Queenslanders for Work (SQW) funding was cut. The programs, ranging from Green Army work placements helping flood recovery around Goodna to literacy programs, involved 918 participants.

15,000 of our young people will be conscripted into a Green Army which is essentially a workforce that is paid at half the minimum wage. These people were supposed to work with volunteer groups but the budget then slashed funding to the National Landcare Program which will lose $483 million of its funding over five years.

The remaining Landcare money will have to fund several programs new to its area, including cane toad eradication in Western Australia’s Kimberley, $9 million of fishing programs and a strategy to protect the Great Barrier Reef, the $40 million Reef 2050 plan.

It is unclear how, or whether, Landcare groups and the Green Army will work together but there is a whole new industry opening up in being a ‘service provider’ ie you organise the Green Army teams and send them out as free labour for which you will be paid a handsome cut along with being given the money to pay your staff (who get no benefits like superannuation) and to buy the equipment they need. I am sure that will be a very lucrative business. I wonder for whom?

 

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