Advocacy is about adaptation

In this post, Jay Coonan discusses major changes to Australia’s employment services system coming on 1 July 2022, what those changes mean for people caught in the system, and why unemployed people should be at the table when policy is designed. Jay is an operations co-coordinator at the Antipoverty Centre  and JobSeeker recipient. Before establishing the Antipoverty Centre with others who rely on welfare to live, he was a policy officer for the Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union.

Next month the biggest overhaul to employment services since its privatisation will be occurring. We will see a mostly automated system for people who get a social security payment.

Antipoverty Centre analysis of historical data shows that more employed people are relying on welfare while working – the highest proportion ever as far as we’re aware.

The quality of jobs are so bad that people with a job are still below the poverty line and having to juggle ‘mutual’ obligations, including applying for jobs – an additional burden that is ridiculous.

It is unclear what has been going on in the department of employment, but they are implementing a similar and more punishing structure compared to jobactive.

Because of this, unemployed people are going to have to learn to adapt and fight back against the constant punishing and misguided attacks from government and industry.

What is the new system?

The new model, which starts from 1 July 2022, will be known as Workforce Australia and replaces jobactive.

The removal of private face-to-face providers for those the automated system determines have few barriers to employment will see many report their job applications and other attempts to get a job entirely online, although there will be a phone line intended to help those that need assistance.

An in-person service will remain, but only people deemed to have high barriers to work, such as disabled, formerly incarcerated and long-term unemployed people. There will be less person-to-person interaction in the new system, but for many the requirements will be more intensive.

There will be more compulsory activities at three, six and twelve months, replacing the current 12-month requirement, sometimes called the Work for the Dole phase. There is also new “employability skills training” at three months – set to be a continuation of past demeaning and unhelpful courses.

We’re yet to see how this new intensive activation program will work, given the unemployment rate has dropped to 3.9% while more employed people than ever are relying on social security to survive.

The new “digital workhouse” has completely diverged from the original purpose of employment services, which once upon a time arguably worked to assist people into a job.

Under jobactive, a punitive program that harmed far more people than it helped, providers occasionally assisted people with housing support contacts, obtaining medical evidence or other things to avoid payment suspensions.

Two of the highly concerning aspects of Workforce Australia are Points Based Activation’ (PBAS) and the algorithms that determine whether you are classified as having high barriers to work – and thus whether you will be placed in online or with a provider.

Points Based Activation

PBAS is a product of the ‘I Want to work’ report developed by government and industry, with consultation from employers and unemployed people, mid-way through jobactive. It remains rooted in the rigid ‘mutual obligations’ framework, which is an abject policy failure.

PBAS is supposed to make fulfilling your requirements more flexible. Despite this claim, applying for a job earns you only 5 points out of the monthly standard 100-point requirement. In effect, this is no difference from the current system, which mandates 20 job applications per month by default. There are various other activities that reflect those in the current system and attract low points values, such as a 20-point pittance for starting a new job.

This does not offer us more flexibility.

Digital screening

An algorithm will now determine whether a person is serviced online or in-person. This is likely to mean people continue to have their support needs incorrectly assessed. It puts people on poverty payments, particularly people with limited access to technology, low literacy or with limited confidence on computers at risk of losing their payments.

This is an adaptation of the existing ‘Job Seeker Classification Instrument’ which assisted providers to identify participants’ support needs.

Now, this will be done entirely by a computer by default, using an algorithm that is not publicly available. We don’t know how it will make these decisions.

This is more concerning when you consider how the automated ‘Targeted Compliance Framework’ operates. It applies demerits and potential payment suspensions if a requirement isn’t met, or a box is incorrectly ticked.

After the TCF’s implementation demerits and payment suspensions increased dramatically, despite the claim it would have ‘safeguards’ to prevent this.

We can’t help feeling the new algorithm, in tandem with PBAS, is a ticking time bomb where millions could suffer payment cuts as bycatch caught in the government’s welfare punishment net.

And the government doesn’t have a good record on data protection. What will happen to the data collected about people’s circumstances and personal details? Their family history, health information – all collected and used for what?

Our concern is this data has the potential to be misused against people and lead to wrongful Centrelink debts, as we saw with another failed algorithm: robodebt.

Adapting to changes

As governments continue to implement punitive welfare measures, people are going to adapt and fight back. It is exhausting. Sometimes it feels like the human spirit these systems seek to crush just isn’t strong enough to withstand the screws that are turned on us, that’s by design.

The issue that faces us as advocates and activists following the next stage of welfare digitisation is how to engage and support people to overcome the individualisation of punishment that further segregates us. The new system will exacerbate the social isolation that so many already experience due to living in deep poverty.

Our ability to mobilise and resist will see us rely even more heavily on social media spaces where people can remain anonymous as they organise to fight back against the new forms of oppression and state-led abuse likely to come with Workforce Australia.

The best example of this, was the ‘mutual obligations’ strike in 2020 led by and organised the Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union.

My comrades and I started an information campaign, under lockdowns, to inform people who were being lied to about their mutual obligations by providers.

People were being forced to apply for jobs under lockdown and even egregious attempts to get people to do meetings and take up work – whilst the government had entirely suspended mutual obligations.

People shared their experiences of self-advocacy through the medium of memes, threads and online engagement – whilst fighting back against the disinformation by job agents.

With the upcoming ‘employment’ summit, there has so far been no engagement by groups to include either the Antipoverty Centre or AUWU – hopefully this changes, as unemployed activists need to be centred in any policy discussions.

Otherwise, we will end up with continuously harmful and damaging programs like the upcoming ‘Workforce Australia’.

All this will result in is the compounding of social issues and the cycle of poverty, whilst the cogs in the poverty machine will continue to make their profits.

Content moderator: Antipoverty Centre