Solution to our failing employment system is simple: bring back the CES
Opinion article by CPSU National Secretary Melissa Donnelly, published in the Canberra Times and syndicated outlets on Friday 9 August 2024.
Australia's employment services system has found itself under a microscope over the past 12 months, and rightfully so. From unethical behaviour by service providers, through to lectures from the millionaires who own them telling people to just "get a job" - the system has never felt more ineffective or out of touch.
It's also expensive. The scheme is expected to cost taxpayers $9.5 billion over the next four years and is the single biggest Commonwealth procurement outside of Defence. So, are we getting bang for those almost 10 billion bucks?
Anyone who has encountered this system is shouting no, right about now.
The employment services system that exists today isn't the community driven, decentralised model the Howard government claimed it would be when it privatised the Commonwealth Employment Service in 1998.
It is dominated by just a handful of profit-driven multinational businesses, and with their profit-maximising motives, have come problems.
Providers are getting caught engaging in unethical behaviour, gouging as much money as they can from their already highly lucrative government contracts.
Whistleblowers have revealed that providers are falsely claiming credit for jobseekers who have secured themselves a job, enabling them to claim taxpayer dollars for doing absolutely nothing.
Media reports have uncovered that more than $40 million a year is being pocketed by these providers for shuffling jobseekers through jobs and training programs within their own companies.
And there is evidence suggesting that these large multinationals, such as Max Solutions and APM, have made hundreds of millions in revenue from employment services.
Job seekers, the community and government share the same goal, but employment service providers have a wildly different one. And that's where things are falling apart.
Job service providers are businesses. Their goal is to make a profit. And that goal is fed by the mutual obligations framework that underpins the entire system.
That's why the CPSU, along with a range of other unions and community groups, have been calling on the Albanese government to drop the privatised, failing employment services system and bring back the CES.
It's important to note that our calls for insourcing have always come alongside the call for the immediate suspension of mutual obligations requirements.
These requirements are a series of tasks and activities that jobseekers need to complete to keep receiving their welfare payments - applying for jobs, agreeing to a job plan, and undertaking training or education.
Employment service providers conveniently provide all of this in one place, clipping their ticket at every single turn.
The longer they keep someone in that cycle of unemployment and coming back through their doors, the more money they make.
It's simple: finding someone a secure and long-term job is bad for business.
Insourcing employment services through the creation of a modern, fit for purpose CES, would give multinationals the boot and put the public service back at the heart of this system.
A parliamentary review last year detailed the many ways the current system is letting people down and backed in the CPSU's calls for insourcing, recommending that the government develop and publish a plan to transition across to a Commonwealth Employment Services system.
The government's recent response to this report was light on detail and avoided timeframes but agreed with the need for reform.
Responsibility for this vital large-scale reform now sits with the new Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Murray Watt.
The CPSU urges the new minister to prioritise and progress these important reforms.
In the meantime, businesses looking for workers are missing out on getting the workforce they need.
Governments continue to throw money into the blackhole that is the privatised system. And jobseekers in big city centres, regional towns and rural outposts will continue to jump through the pointless hoops - ticking boxes, doing courses and showing up time and time again. All with the promise of a secure job and stable income just through that next hoop.
But it never comes, and it never will. Because the system isn't built for that.
That's why it is time for a better system, it's time to bring back the CES.
