Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today Senator Arbib shuffled his way through answers to questions from senators on this side of the chamber, stating much of what Senator Bilyk has just stated and Senator Crossin before her—simply rehearsing the details of the government’s new Job Services Australia plan.

It does appear as if none of these senators have any appreciation of the serious, persistent concerns which have been stated in a number of forums, including the Senate inquiry last week in Melbourne, about the way in which this program is being rolled out. Your ideals, the projects you want to get off the ground and the way you want to make this change happen are one thing: actually achieving that is quite another. I suggest that senators opposite who are not fully aware, as the minister appears not to be fully aware, of these concerns should go back and look to see what people on the ground, at the coalface, are saying about this process. People like Catholic Social Services Australia, people like Jobs Australia and people like the Australian Council of Social Service are not people normally known for supporting coalition initiatives, but all have expressed concerns about aspects of this process: the way in which it is impacting on the level of expertise and experience of our providers of job services in Australia and how that would be diminished as we move into this new phase and we lose that valuable experience. The National Employment Services Association said:

The loss of experienced, skilled and high performing employment service organisations weakens the sector and its ability to meet the needs of Australian job seekers and employers.

That represents a very large portion of the providers in this sector today. Those concerns need to be taken on board by the minister and by the Labor government. That statement was followed by comments from Catholic Social Services Australia, which made the point in respect of the weighting on previous performance in the sector of only 30 per cent that Senator Fifield referred to:

… the 30% weighting allocated to past performance was inadequate, allowing far too many proven performers to be dumped from the services on the basis of their written responses to selection criteria which we have already argued biases the results to larger, richer entities so often unproven in particular local areas.

ACOSS follow those comments by saying:

The playing field appears to have been tilted in favour of those with a strong submission, as distinct from a strong performance in the field.

If senators opposite, including the minister, think they can gloss over these concerns and run forward to this new start date of 1 July for their new contracts they are seriously overlooking the dislocation and disorientation taking place in this sector at the moment. I suspect they are going to find the large number of providers and job seekers who will be put out by this new system a serious surprise. That should not be the case, because the evidence that the government needs to take account of is there already.

Some providers in this field will be completely new to the particular areas in which they are operating, with no previous experience in those areas. The expertise that particular providers have already built up in those areas—the relationships with people at risk, young job seekers, Indigenous job seekers, those with disabilities and those with mental illness—is not easily substituted by a new provider walking in, with no background in that particular area, and attempting to take over. Some providers are multinationals, with no experience in Australia and the Australian job market at all. Some staff will be lost to the system; a large number of staff from the existing successful providers—ones with high performance under the previous system—are simply going to be lost to the system and that will be a great blow to the effectiveness and the expertise available within this sector. It begs the question: why did we throw that expertise away? Why have those people walked out the door?

On 1 July we will see just what happens with this new system; but I think we can reasonably expect a great deal of dislocation and a great many people with serious concerns about how this is going to be delivered. We are going to find people unable to connect with the services they need because of the loss of a trusted party at the other end of the telephone line or on the other side of the desk. The government and the minister appear completely unaware of that, and that is a great concern. I hope that in the next few weeks, before 1 July, the minister lifts his game and finds out what is going on, because if he does not know what is going on a great many people are going to get very badly hurt. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.