A push to make young people wait one month for the dole is now destined to be blocked in the upper house after the Nick Xenophon Team ruled out its support for the move, leaving the government short of the numbers it needs to pass the legislation.
Nick Xenophon Team MP, Rebekha Sharkie, labelled the measure fundamentally unfair.
“There was nothing around this measure that helped young people get work,” she told reporters in Canberra.
She said it costs money to look for work and if people don’t have financial support they don’t have the capacity to find a job.
Senator Nick Xenophon said the government's intention to slash youth unemployment rates was admirable but there was a better way to do it.
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, who supports the change, has hit out at the Nick Xenophon Team for its decision.
She said the party was soft on bludgers.
“Our position is not soft. What we are saying to government is we think young people should be activated but they shouldn’t be starved to do it,” Mrs Sharkie said.
The Greens have long been against the move, which leader Richard Di Natale has labelled a nonsense policy from the government.
“What happens if you live in an area where there’s high youth unemployment? What are we saying? That those people need to be consigned to a scrap heap for a month?” Mr Di Natale told reporters in Canberra.
Under Tony Abbott’s leadership the federal government proposed a six-month wait for the dole in its 2014 budget.
It was later revised to four weeks following a widespread backlash from welfare groups and the federal opposition.
The government said its aim was to encourage young Australians into work and to keep them from spending a lifetime on welfare.
Wider welfare plans
The proposed changes are part of a wider overhaul of the nation’s $160 billion welfare system.
The federal government hopes a new $96 million fund will help develop ways to get young Australians and others off welfare.
It wants to target a group of more than 400,000 recipients who are capable of being in work or training but face no obligation to do so under current rules.
Phillip Fleming picks asparagus near Cowra in NSW Source: SBS News
“It gives me a sense of worth"
Phillip Fleming is a father of six who has been on and off welfare for the past seven years.
He has recently started a job picking asparagus on a farm near Cowra in western New South Wales.
“I love doing it. It gives me a sense of worth and value,” he told SBS News.
He said welfare payments helped to fill the gaps around seasonal work.
He earns $22 per hour and roughly $800 per week, which he said far outweighs his weekly Newstart payments of just $260.
“I'm surprised that a lot of people don't see that or can't vision the fact that there's a lot of money out here to be made,” Mr Fleming said.
The employment statistics in regional parts of the country are grim.
In Cowra, almost one in every 20 people receive Newstart benefits alone. More are on other welfare payments.
Cowra farmer Ed Fagan employs around 40 people on his 4000 acre property to help pick asparagus, lettuce, spinach, red onion and beetroot.
He told SBS that two-thirds of the workers on his farm are Australian and he prefers employing local workers to backpackers but locals are often harder to find.
“If the gap between Newstart and the base wage is bigger you'll have more incentive to go and work,” he told SBS.
Joanne Johnson runs an employment agency in the New South Wales town of Young and said she was surprised at the lack of local workers in the area.
She said for this year’s cherry season there were only about a dozen local applicants compared with 400 visa workers.
She said the benefits of working for young people are endless.
“I’ve had a couple of young guys who’ve been out of work for some time and I’ve got them into a job and just their whole attitude has changed,” she said.
