Mutual obligations can be “punitive” and a barrier to employment, according to the Labor party’s draft national platform, which advocates have welcomed as a step towards dumping requirements such as work for the dole.
The draft platform, sent to delegates on Monday ahead of Labor’s national conference in August, has dropped reference to supporting a “fair” system of mutual obligations alongside a range of other changes recognising affordable housing as a human right and recommitting to end LGBTIQ+ vilification.
The draft now recognises that “current aspects of the mutual obligations system can be punitive, cause stress and anxiety, and be a barrier to attaining employment”.
The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) welcomed the change as the beginning of the end for mutual obligations, which are currently being reviewed by a parliamentary inquiry.
The union will push at the Labor conference for the re-establishment of the commonwealth employment service (CES) to deliver services to jobseekers, a major shift away from the Workforce Australia network model of private service delivery.
The draft platform, seen by Guardian Australia, states that Labor “believes that unemployed people with the capacity to work should make reasonable efforts to secure work, and that government and service providers should provide services and support to job seekers that genuinely help attain secure employment”.
“Labor will review the nature and extent of mutual obligations and develop a revised approach that provides the help people need and is based on trust and shared accountabilities for government, service providers and job seekers.”
Mutual obligation requirements are designed to ensure that unemployed people are actively looking for work by requiring them to study, attend job interviews, improve literacy or work for the dole.
Melissa Donnelly, the CPSU national secretary, said “we were proud to launch our campaign to ‘Bring back the CES’ a month ago, and we’re proud to be continuing that work through developing strong and well supported amendments to the ALP’s national policy platform”.
“The current system is not only broken and no longer fit-for-purpose, but the mutual obligations framework that underpins it causes harm,” she said.
In March the commonwealth ombudsman told a parliamentary inquiry that mutual obligation system for welfare risks “subjecting disadvantaged participants to unreasonably onerous and punitive conditions”. Non-for-profit provider Wise Employment has also objected to mutual obligation.
In May the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, told reporters in Canberra that backbencher Julian Hill and the employment minister, Tony Burke, were working to improve employment services and the government would have “more to say” later in the year when the inquiry is complete. Hill is the inquiry’s chair.
In May the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, called for work for the dole to be reinstated, apparently unaware that the program still exists.
Edwina MacDonald, the acting chief executive of the Australian Council for Social Service, said the current mutual obligations system was “excessively harsh and not helping people into paid work, and Acoss strongly supports reform”.
In other changes, the draft platform retains a reference to housing as a “basic human right”, adding that it should be “affordable housing” and an acknowledgment that “the primary purpose of housing is to provide a home”.
In the platform Labor said it “supports an increase in housing density in areas with established infrastructure and services”.
The platform refers to implementing “taxation reforms to affect market changes and increase supply”, responding to a campaign from Labor for Housing to revisit negative gearing and capital gains tax reforms.
The Labor for Housing spokesperson, Julijana Todorovic, said she was “heartened by the reinclusion of housing as a human right as a positive step that indicates the government is serious about tackling housing inequality”.
The draft platform restores a commitment, omitted from an earlier draft, to “work to strengthen laws against discrimination, vilification and harassment on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or sex characteristics”.
It adds that “Labor believes that LGBTIQ+ Australians should be counted as part of the national census”, starting with gathering “relevant data” at the 2026 census.
