A 63-year-old woman from regional South Australia needs to make a 250km round trip to meet her mutual obligations and keep her benefits under the new $1.5bn-a-year Workforce Australia program.
Michelle*, who lives in Yorketown, on the Yorke Peninsula, has been referred to a job agency in Kadina, about one-and-a-half-hours’ drive or 125km from her home.
Under the mutual obligations system, jobseekers who are connected with a job agency must attend appointments with case workers at an employment services provider to keep their payments. However, these appointments do not count towards the new points-based activation system which requires jobseekers to complete various tasks to get enough points to keep their welfare payments.
It comes after another jobseeker told Guardian Australia this week he would need to travel 60km by bus to his appointment after the job agency in his town closed. According to public transport timetables, Joel Ribergaard would leave home at 10.40am and arrive back home again at 7.40pm to attend the meeting due to the infrequency of bus services in the Victorian region of Gippsland.
While there is a pause on welfare penalties until 1 August, jobseekers who do not attend their appointments have their benefits temporarily suspended for failing to meet their mutual obligations.
Michelle said there had been a job agency in Yorketown but it closed after the Jobactive program was replaced by Workforce Australia this month.
“When the Workforce thing came, they initially gave me an appointment in Adelaide, which is even further away,” Michelle said. “So I rang the helpline and they said the closest one is Kadina.”
After contacting her new provider, Michelle said she was advised her initial appointment would need to be conducted in person, as would every second meeting in the future.
“They were not sympathetic, they just said this is how it is,” she said. “I don’t know how other people get on, people who haven’t got a car.”
The requirements imposed on Michelle appear to be within the rules of the social security guide, which state that “reasonable travel should not exceed 90 minutes in one direction” for jobseekers, “principal carer parents and those who do not have a partial capacity to work”.
Michelle said she had not been offered any fuel vouchers to help cover the cost of the trip. Providers can use a flexible taxpayer-funded pool of money – known as the employment fund – to cover public transport, fuel or taxi vouchers to assist jobseekers.
Guardian Australia reported this week that there are 80 fewer job agency sites under the new model after thousands of jobseekers were instead referred to an online portal rather than a provider.
Michelle is currently working casually at a local cafe, but her hours have been reduced to between three and seven in recent weeks.
“I’m just annoyed, really annoyed,” Michelle said, noting the cost of petrol. While she is on the jobseeker payment, she said the situation would be worse for others who did not have their own car or had even more dire financial circumstances.
Welfare advocates have called for a 90-day suspension to all welfare penalties and argue appointments should be conducted online or by telephone at the jobseeker’s request.
A Department of Employment and Workplace Relations spokesperson previously confirmed jobseekers could be made to travel 90 minutes in one direction to attend appointments, but added that providers” must take into account a range of individual circumstances when considering whether the travel time is reasonable, including the duration of the requirement and the cost of the travel”.
Providers could offer online and over the phone services, “depending on the individual’s needs and circumstances”.
Anyone with “concerns about the service they are receiving from a provider, or their mutual obligation requirements” was advised to can contact the Department’s National Customer Service Line on 1800 805 260 or at nationalcustomerserviceline@dewr.gov.au”.
This may see a provider directed to “take action in relation to the issues that are raised” and could be “done in a way that does not identify the individual unless they provide consent”.
Asked why appointments with a job agency did not count towards a person’s Pbas, the spokesperson said these were parts of “core” compulsory requirements” that were required “in return for income support”.
*Name has been changed for privacy
