It has been easy for older people to see themselves as particular
victims of this budget. And I confess I never expected to see any
government courageous enough to pick on Grey Power the way Tony Abbott's
has. In his efforts to get people into the workforce, however, it's
carrots for the old and sticks for the young.
A major goal of this
budget is to increase everyone's ability to contribute to the economy:
"everyone who can contribute should contribute." Contribute doesn't mean
paying a higher rate of tax, of course, but taking a paid job.
"This
budget is about shifting our focus from entitlement to enterprise; from
welfare to work; from hand-out to hand-up." Don't you feel better
already?
To this end, the budget cuts benefits to sole parents and
stay-at-home mums, reviews the assessment of some younger recipients of
the disability support pension and imposes "compulsory activities" on
recipients under 35, cuts the benefit received by unemployed people aged
22 to 24 from the dole to the youth allowance, imposes a waiting period
for benefits of up to six months on people under 30, reintroduces Work
for the Dole and introduces a "restart" payment of up to $10,000 to
employers who take on job seekers aged 50 or over who have previously
been on benefits, including the age pension.
Get it? Older people
want to work, but suffer from the prejudice of employers, so they're
helped with a new and generous subsidy to employers, whereas the young
don't want to work when they could be luxuriating on below poverty-line
benefits, so they're whipped to find a job by having their benefits cut
and their entitlement removed for six months in every year until the
lazy loafers take a job.
Just how having their benefits reduced or
removed helps young adults afford the various costs of finding a job -
including being appropriately dressed for an interview - the government
doesn't explain.
But anyone who can remember the controversial
statements Abbott used to make as minister for employment in the late
1990s will know he has strong views about the fecklessness of youth and
the need for a pugilistic approach to their socialisation.
Consider
this from a budget glossy spin document: "The government is reinforcing
the need for young Australians to either earn or learn. The changes
will prevent young Australians from becoming reliant on welfare.
"Because
we want new jobseekers, especially those leaving school and university,
to actually look for work, income support will only be provided once a
six-month period of job hunting has been completed."
And if it
doesn't work the first time, give them six months on Work for the Dole,
then keep repeating the dose until it does. If that doesn't get 'em off
their arses, nothing will.
Really? Young Aussie adults are that
lazy and lacking in aspiration? No shortage of jobs, just a shortage of
effort that a monetary boot in the backside will soon fix?
The
notion that our young people should either be "earning or learning" has
intuitive appeal, but a moment's reflection shows it can easily be taken
too far.
How does it help to starve a youngster to the point
where they're prepared to undertake some pointless training course? Is
it really smart to take a university graduate who's having a few months'
wait to find a suitable job and force them into a taxpayer-funded
course on driving a forklift truck?
We've been hearing a lot
lately about the difficulty older people have in finding re-employment.
I'm sure there's much truth to it, and the government has acted. But we
hear much less about the way the young suffer whenever times are tough
and employers become reluctant to hire.
Everyone thinks a policy
of reducing staff numbers by "attrition" is a relatively benign response
to an economic slowdown. Big staff layoffs are avoided. But few
remember this transfers the burden from people already in jobs to those
seeking jobs, particularly those leaving education. The annual
entry-level intake is the first thing to go.
Before Abbott turned
up with his punitive solution to a problem few people realised we had,
the Brotherhood of St Laurence began campaigning to raise public
awareness of rising youth unemployment.
Unemployment among those
aged 15 to 24 shot up in the recession of the early '90s, reaching more
than 380,000 in October 1992. But by August 2008 it had fallen to less
than 160,000. That was immediately before the global financial crisis.
Since then it has climbed back to about 260,000.
The rate of
unemployment among 15- to 24-year-olds is 12.5 per cent, more than
double the overall rate. This means they account for more than a third
of the unemployed.
And it's not just more of them: over the past
five years the average duration of unemployment for young people has
risen from 16 weeks to nearly 29 weeks.
The funny thing is, the
executive director of the Brotherhood, Tony Nicholson, doesn't find much
evidence these people are happy to live on the dole forever. "They
aspire to a mainstream life - to have a home, to have some sense of
family, to belong. A key part of that belonging is the desire to have a
paid job."
Maybe the problem is not enough jobs rather than not
enough effort. If so, putting them on a starvation diet may not do much
to help.
