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Abbott pledge on support for jobless
Annabel Crabb
Canberra
March 7 2002
The Federal Government has rejected the most controversial recommendations of today's Productivity Commission report into the Job Network, vowing not to strip job seekers of access to assistance.
The report urges the government to fund job-matching assistance for only the most disadvantaged unemployed, but Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott said these recommendations were "contrary to government policy" and would be rejected.
A recommendation to scrap the system's three-year contract system for private providers would also be rejected, Mr Abbott told The Age last night.
"We will continue to keep the job-matching payment, and we will continue to run a tender system for Job Network services," Mr Abbott said.
But he confirmed the government was currently considering changes to the $536 million Intensive Assistance program, which extends personalised assistance to the disadvantaged unemployed.
The Productivity Commission's report found that many of the chronically unemployed "receive little or no assistance" through the Intensive Assistance program.
Some providers, it said, "parked" difficult clients, accepting a government subsidy for taking them on but failing to give them any assistance because they were viewed as too hard to place in a job.
"Moreover, the job seeker may not know why (or even that) they are being parked, leading to frustration and de-motivation."
The Productivity Commission recommended that Intensive Assistance courses be cut from 12 months to six months, and that the government consider limiting the number of courses one individual is permitted to undertake.
It also recommended making participation in Intensive Assistance optional.
Mr Abbott said the government would consider these recommendations carefully.
"Certainly just churning people through the same programs isn't productive," he said.
The Productivity Commission's review, a draft report of which will be put out today for public comment, endorses the continuation of the government's privatised approach to employment assistance.
But it recommends slashing several programs - apart from the $100million job-matching scheme - which it described as "poorly targeted", including one program that helps unemployed people develop business ideas, and one that connects people with fruit-picking jobs.
Commissioner Mike Woods, the principal author of the report, said the system should provide better information and more choice for job seekers.
He also maintained that job-matching subsidies were unnecessary in most cases, as non-disadvantaged people tended to rely on more traditional techniques like answering job advertisements and could do so without extensive assistance. Opposition employment spokesman David Cox said the report showed "serious design faults" in the Job Network.
The Age

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