Labor's families spokeswoman Jenny Macklin has rubbished the government's new welfare blueprint, describing it as "disappointing" and full of broad "common sense" findings that lack practical detail.
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Social Services Minister Scott Morrison last week released the McClure report into Australia's $150 billion welfare system, which recommends sweeping reforms to government payments.
The recommendations in the highly anticipated report include streamlining payments from around 20 to five major categories, as well as up front investment in people who are at risk of long-term unemployment.
Welfare groups have responded cautiously to the report, praising the focus on early investment and simplification, while calling on the government to boost current levels of payments, particularly to those on Newstart, which pays less than $37 a day for a single person.
Ms Macklin, who has had a briefing from review head Patrick McClure, told Fairfax Media that simplifying the system and investing in high risk groups was not an innovative finding.
"Common sense says that we should invest in people early," she said.
"Of course we should."
The shadow families and payments spokeswoman - who was minister for families throughout the Rudd and Gillard years - said that discussion about welfare reform should not "ignore the huge cuts" that the Coalition had already imposed on the stressed system.
This includes $271 million worth of community grants funding that are biting services that help people with disability and the homeless, as well as those in acute financial distress and victims of domestic violence.
"You've got to actually do the investment."
Ms Macklin also said the investment model - which is based on actuarial modelling - was not new and had already been adopted by the previous Labor government as part of the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
"It's right at the heart of the NDIS," she said, noting it was used to assess and monitor what people would need over their lifetimes.
Ms Macklin said it was "disappointing" that the report - which was commissioned by former social services minister Kevin Andrews in December 2013 - had missed an opportunity to make "significant" recommendations.
She said there was no detail about how much investment was needed in a new system and measures to address unemployment.
Of the recommendation that the government develop a jobs plan and establish relationships with employers, Ms Macklin said: "Of course we should work with employers! But in what? And how much?"
Mr Morrison has praised the McClure review as an "excellent report that answers many of these questions and presents ... a very worthy vision of a more targeted welfare system".
The government is yet to respond specifically to the measures, but Mr Morrison has indicated his interest in an investment approach to welfare.
The Social Services Minister is also calling for bipartisanship in the debate around welfare, noting he is prepared to exit the "political combative space" to try and achieve reform.
