The Government's plan to outsource the responsibility for assessing disabled job seekers will lead to inequality and inconsistencies across the welfare system, according to the Australian Democrats.
Democrats Disability spokesperson, Senator Brian Greig, says outsourcing the new $316m Comprehensive Work Capacity Assessment (CWCA), to the private sector will likely see this program end up with Job Network providers.
This represents a fundamental shift in the way welfare support is delivered, Senator Greig said.
Senator Greig claimed this was not welfare reform in a positive sense, and that the main losers from this exercise will be people with disabilities.
The Government has effectively foisted those it regards as "too-hard" to cater for onto an ill-equipped private sector, Senator Greig said.
Senator Greig says under the new system, contractors will be under enormous funding pressure to provide cheap, fast assessments for people with complex medical and physical needs, to recommend against pension eligibility, and be left to locate hard-to-find jobs for hard-to-place people.
The Job Network has already been shown to be incapable of making fair and consistent breaching assessments, with six out of seven recommendations overturned by Centrelink. Now it will be given the additional power to make recommendations about who gets the payments in the first place, Senator Greig said.
Senator Greig says if the CWCA's are to be properly conducted, they will be expensive, requiring input from occupational therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists and workplace assessors.
Yesterday the Government withdrew $457.4m from Job Network funding because of falling job seeker numbers. Today it is redirecting those funds back to the Job Network by expanding its job description, Senator Greig said.
The Job Network has done very well out of the Federal Budget, with an injection of millions of dollars in new funds, the creation of tens of thousands of new clients, and now the rapid expansion of its role.
Support for the Job Network has been the Government's most successful job creation program so far, Senator Greig said.
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