AUWU Policy Blog: Fighting back with a seat at the table

The Australian April 17, 2014 TONY Abbott told an audience of leading employers that old-fashioned tough love could help solve the youth-unemployment crisis. Recalling working in a pub and earning cash for manual ­labour jobs, the Prime Minister told the Generation Success forum in Sydney: “You have to be prepared to have a go, work hard and don’t believe any job is beneath you. We all have to start somewhere.” The forum was organised by

24 March 2014 | Dean Maloney Red Flag newspaper Welfare quarantining (or income management), which locks up to 70 percent of a welfare recipient’s income on a government-controlled BasicsCard, will soon affect many more people across Australia. On 15 March, social services minister Kevin Andrews told The Australian that he was “considering the next steps for income management” and “keen to explore opportunities to expand it to other areas”. NSW Liberal housing minister Pru Goward has also argued that

The AustralianApril 14, 2014 THE number of long-term ­unemployed young people has trebled since the global financial crisis and has grown fastest over the past year, new analysis from a national welfare charity has found. Data compiled by the Brotherhood of St Laurence shows that one of the key indicators — length of time spent without work — is heading for the “worst-case scenario”. The unemployment rate for people aged 15 to 24 is more

  April 22, 2013 The Sydney Morning Herald   The $4.7 billion welfare-to-work scheme is at ”high risk” of being  defrauded by the government’s designated employment agencies, according to a  confidential federal government assessment. The assessment was ordered after an external audit of the Job Services  Australia program last year identified more than $100 million in fees in just  two years had been improperly claimed. Job Services Australia is designed to help the long-term unemployed

WELFARE recipients must have more regular assessments to address changes in their personal circumstances that require different levels of support, the country’s largest welfare organisation has told the Abbott government’s review of the sector. Feb 21 2014 The Australian Mission Australia chief executive Toby Hall said his organisation, which had participated in informal consultations with the review in recent weeks, argued the system needed root-and-branch reform because it was failing vulnerable Australians by not providing