Dole recipients to lose payments for not attending interviews

The Federal Government is reportedly set to tighten rules on the Australian welfare scheme that will see recipients who refuse to attend job interviews or training lose their payments.

The Daily Telegraph is reporting that next month's budget will see the Government work to close a loophole created by Labor that allows welfare recipients to repeatedly skip job interviews or work-for-the-dole commitments but still have their welfare payments remain untouched.

As little as one per cent have faced a penalty for not turning up to job interviews new data reveals, with over 33,000 people telling Centrelink they ‘couldn’t be bothered’ turning up to a job interview on over 100,000 occasions last year alone.

In total, there were 380,000 cases where welfare recipients skipped job interviews or work but had no reasonable excuse, with 60 per cent of the people under 30.

Tim Webster from the Talking Lifestyle Radio Network told Sunrise on Monday the statistics are concerning.

“Fifty per cent, now approaching 60 per cent, of Australians don’t pay tax at all – with the income tax paid and the welfare received, the effective rate is nil,” he said.

“If there’s a job there and you don’t want to do it then stop sticking your hand in the tax payers money.”

Political editor of The Advertiser, Tory Shepherd, suggested another approach that’s been spoken about before – the cashless welfare card.

“All they [the government] can do is just take their money away for a little bit of time and it's obviously not working,” she said.

“Maybe we should try something different like the cashless welfare card where they can only access money for groceries and life's essentials - maybe the shame of being put on that might force them to do something and pull themselves into work.”

Labor introduced a waiver system in 2009, where recipients could have their penalty waived and have welfare benefits reinstated if they agreed to “re-engage”.

The system included agreeing to attend the next appointment and to a course of action such as training or volunteering.

Government analysis also shows the average Australian works 15 months full-time to pay enough tax for someone to receive welfare under the Newstart scheme for 12 months. In total, the cost of the welfare system is $160 billion per year — and growing by six per cent annually.

Independent Senator Jacqui Lambie told Sunrise it seems Centrelink tends to give people "the benefit of the doubt".

"If we’re going to cut down on 457's, you need people to fill those positions," she said.

"No one is a winner by allowing these people to continue on welfare when they physically and psychologically are able to work - we’re not doing them any favours by giving them a cheque every fortnight."

Human Services Minister Alan Tudge said welfare recipients cannot expect to be supported by taxpayers if they can’t even be bothered to turn up for work, job interviews or languages classes.

“The problem at the moment is that people are escaping any financial penalty because of the loopholes Labor created. We are working on fixing this,” he told The Daily Telegraph.