Job Agency Chief Calls For End To Experiment

Illawarra Mercury

Monday March 8, 2004

By WILLIAM VERITY

THE chief of an employment agency has called on the Federal Government to abandon plans to siphon disabled jobseekers into the mainstream Job Network.

Neil Preston, who heads Greenacres Association in Wollongong, has called on the Government to abandon a pilot program that would see disabled people served by non-specialist agencies.

``Why is the Job Network being asked to do the job of specialist disability employment providers?" he said.

Mr Preston said mainstream providers would not provide the continued support and training that most disabled jobseekers needed.

The answer to his question, according to Throsby MP Jennie George, was that the Job Network desperately needed more jobseekers to stave off a cash-flow crisis.

Ms George raised the issue in Parliament last week, accusing the Government of ``propping up an ailing system" that was in ``financial crisis".

Documents obtained under freedom of information law showed the Government had estimated about 780,000 people would use the system. The real figure was closer to 500,000.

Allowing disabled people to use mainstream agencies would boost numbers and help avert the crisis.

But this would be at the expense of disabled people, who would forgo the specialist treatment they deserved.

``We have a government obsessed with the need to prop up its ailing Job Network system, rather than ensuring the system works for those it is meant to help," Ms George said.

A spokesman for Employment Services Minister Mal Brough denied there was any crisis and said the mainstream Job Network already helped 50,000 people with mild disabilities last year.

``By no means is (the pilot) there to duplicate existing services," he said. ``This is about promoting the Job Network to people with a mild disability to help them gain employment."