The Abbott Government follows the Dennis Denuto guide to government policy: just assert there is an age of entitlement or the welfare systems is being rorted. Don't worry too much about there being a paucity of evidence regarding the age of entitlement or that the welfare system is being rorted - the vibe will do.
One of the "more vibe than reality" policies has been that the youth need to be earning or learning. It's one of the policies that sounds great - surely the opposite of earning or learning is nothing, and something is always better than nothing.
Abbott will be thus happy to know that that is exactly what the youth of Australia have been doing - and indeed are now doing in record numbers. More Australian youth are now in full-time education than ever before (this includes those who are working while also attending full-time education). The trend has been long and steady for nearly 25 years.
When it comes to either earning or learning the 15-19-year-olds are doing that in record numbers. In May about 92 per cent of youth aged 15 to 19 years of age were either working or learning. This includes about 44 per cent who were employed, 5.7 per cent who were unemployed but doing full-time education and 42 per cent who were not in the labour force but were attending full-time education.
It's worth noting the ABS records full-time and part-time employment, but only full-time education.
Now lets move on to the Dole. The current rate for Newstart is $510.50 a fortnight - $13,273 a year. Given anyone earning less than $19,700 after tax is in the bottom 10 per cent of Australian households, those on Newstart are among the poorest of all Australians.
You would have to be either extremely deluded, or a member of the Cabinet to think people are choosing to stay on such an income.
Unless you have parents or the like supporting you being on the dole is crap. It is not how the government portrays it. Bands of youth laughing in the taxpayers face as they soak up the sun in Bondi. It actually sucks.
Now unemployed will have to waste 25 hours a week doing menial tasks that provide them with little help searching for or getting that all-important job. Which seems at odds with Assistant Employment Minister Luke Hartsuyker comment that
Quote:It's most important that jobseekers look for work. There are training options available under this job service model but a jobseeker's primary responsibility is searching for that all-important job.
How do they get that all-important job?
The way to improve a person's chance of getting a job is to assist them to be one of the "suitable applicants".
But such training gets in the way of finding that all- important job.
So why don these bludgers get a god damn Job?
In May there were 146,000 job vacancies with 720,000 people unemployed. Another 920,000 were underemployed and wanting more hours of work. Underemployment is a very important labour market indicator as, under the terms of internationally agreed labour statistics collection, an individual is counted as employed if working one hour a week for pay or profit.
This is the core reality of the Australian job market.
Lets not forget that the government wants those under 30 to wait up to six months before they get any money at all. So you better hope there is someone willing to put you up and feed you for that time.
Australia has always had a proud history of targeting the poor and disadvantaged.