[Jan Fisher]

The government has quietly ‘decommissioned’ the hotline the Coalition established in 2021 for employers to dob in jobseekers who had turned down jobs or submitted dodgy applications.

In typical Aussie fashion it was quickly dubbed ‘dobseeker’ and ‘jobdobber’.

It cost $2.5 million and in 2021 Senate estimates hearings, despite the then-government claiming hundreds of cases were being investigated, only six people had faced compliance action at that time.

By the time it was ‘decommissioned’ it had received 4402 reports, and taken action in 544 instances. A total of $702,844 was spent on staff costs for the 2021-22 financial year alone.

Do you think is a need for a dob-in scheme for people on welfare? Would you dob someone in?

[KSS]

You would like to think it was closed down because, with such low unemployment, it was no longer necessary. Sadly I seriously doubt this was the case. It is just another example of the Labor Government dismantling everything the last Government did. In my view, if someone is taking unemployment payments it is incumbent on them to be doing absolutely everything they can to get off it and into work. There will always a minority who are not able to work for a number of different reasons and those people need and should be supported. But unemployment is not and should not be a lifestyle choice. There has never been a better time to obtain employment in just about any sector and that includes the unskilled and uneducated. Typical Labor ideology in play here and it is you that will be paying for all this largess through higher taxes.

[John]

The Labor government is dismantling much of the previous government’s legislation because it was a failed government that, after governing for eight years, left a legacy of neglect, incompetence, maladministration and confusion in most areas like education, defence, foreign affairs, energy, climate change and welfare (Robodebt). It was also led in its later years by probably the worst PM since Federation. The statistics cited by Jan Fisher indicate that the hotline was a costly and ineffective failure and hence the Labor government has decommissioned it. KSS is not thinking clearly in implying that Labor ideology is to favour rorting of the welfare system and has also bought the myth of Labor governments being higher taxing governments and poorer economic managers. The issue of how best to ensure “princely” unemployment benefits go to those who deserve them is a difficult one but the failure of the “jobdobber”system surely indicates that it is a very small minority who view unemployment as a lifestyle choice. The unskilled and uneducated will always battle to find employment as they do not have the skills and /or training in a society where blue collar jobs have reduced over the years.

[Author]

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