It sometimes seems as if members of the Abbott government honestly believe there would be no problem whatever with unemployment in Australia if only those lazy people who were without work would get off their backsides and go and find the many jobs which are available.
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By this theory, people who are unemployed should be treated with deep suspicion and massive applications of the stick, accompanied by payments, given by discretion rather than right, that are as miserable and conditional as possible. Otherwise, apparently, all Australians will fall into a stupor of drugs, immorality and idleness, content for themselves and their descendants to fall so completely dependent on workhouse rations that they face the risk of soon becoming unemployable.
This idea, supplemented by a rich store of anecdotes of idle Melbournians while there are potatoes to be picked in Tasmania from unpersuasive figures such as Eric Abetz, the Minister for Employment, as well as the stock of prejudices of radio shock jocks may play in some quarters, but it is hardly a fair picture of modern unemployment and what can be and should be done about it.
Indeed, so obviously is it a false picture that citizens can be forgiven that all the punitive talk, and most of the punitive schemes said to be organised to deal with it, that they are designed for public relations consumption and ideology, rather than any genuine attempt to deal with unemployment, the changing needs of work in Australia, change in the characteristics of the workforce and the challenges of reskilling Australians whose traditional work is disappearing. And, no, even for the very young, the future for most is not, and ought not be, in casual work on minimum wages in the hospitality industry.
So offbeat is the tune on pressure to be put on the unemployed, indeed, that people are entitled to wonder whether the government is actually looking for more enemies.The plan for job seekers to spend a half-year in purgatory before being eligible for assistance, to make a minimum of 40 applications for work each month and to participate in work for the dole schemes does not seem focused at helping people find work, but on a public relations image.
Even the claim that old work for the dole schemes helped improve the job-readiness or work habits of young unemployed has not been demonstrated by serious reviews, for all of the confident assertions of the prime minister and others. The punitive approach sits comfortably alongside the widespread public perception this government "does not get it'' in terms of the problems faced by ordinary Australians, particularly young people entering the workforce. That's a perception fuelled by the government's continuing problems in getting traction for its budget strategy and its budget decisions: the feeling the government has been unfair in its approach, that it does not distribute burdens, or opportunities, equally or equitably and that its policy approaches are informed by ideology, conviction and spin rather than decency and a fair go.
There is in Australia a problem with long-term welfare dependency among a small group of an underclass whose separate existence and needs are too little studied or dealt with. It may well be true that a degree of tough love is part of a solution. But in most parts of Australia, the present crisis of unemployment, so far as there is one, is not of abuse by the underclass or even of an expanding one.
It's a problem of the poor state of the economy and the way that business has responded to changing demand and poor economic conditions by shedding staff or not recruiting. It's compounded by the fact the public sector has also been shedding staff. The overwhelming majority of Australians who fall out of work find new jobs reasonably quickly; welfare benefits may help tide them through a bad time but are hardly an incentive for idleness.
For the younger unemployed the problem is low demand rather than pickiness, and the paradox of preference for the experienced. The proper response is to encourage training and the acquisition of experience, not to treat every job seeker as a likely fraud, likely to be living the life of Reilly unless harassed by artificial rules and regulations about multiple interviews for jobs that do not exist. When they do there are ample ways of pushing the supply up to the demand.
