Mr WILKIE (1:04 PM) —This inquiry gave members of this House an opportunity to directly benefit the estimated 103,000 who are currently of mature age and who are out of work. Importantly, the Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Workplace Relations has made a series of recommendations which aim to assist this target group. The report and evidence clearly demonstrate that Job Network is failing this important group in our society.

The recommendations cover a raft of areas—some practical and others not so. For example, in recommendation 3, which relates to a code of conduct, government members believe that it should be voluntary. I believe that the notion of a voluntary code of conduct is impractical. Good employers are already subscribing to good practice when it comes to redundancy and retrenchment; poor employers are not. I have seen little evidence that anything but a regulatory regime would work. This was reflected on by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which highlighted that frequently voluntary codes do not work in all circumstances.

In relation to recommendations 6, 7 and 8 as they relate to training, it became clear that many of the mature age recipients now in the Job Network system are not receiving training that was supposed to have been allocated to them. In fact, we have heard evidence that in many instances no training has been provided. Disturbingly, in relation to Job Network providers' training programs—detailed in recommendation 6—many providers have highlighted that there is not enough money in the system for both managing and training. This was clearly demonstrated by Mr Richardson of Mission Australia in response to a question regarding their organisation's training provision. He stated that about $1 billion was taken out of the overall budget between one group of programs and the other. He went on to state, `We are limited in the level of training. If there is one area that got sacrificed in moving from one suite of labour programs to the next, it has been training. That is simply because of the relative costs involved, particularly where you are dealing with long-term training.' He further added, `That is what the Skillshares were providing before'.

I found it ironic that many of these recommendations have taken us to again revisit the types of training that were supplied under the previous government's Working Nation system. Amongst the training was computer training. Recommendation 10 relates to employment subsidies. I believe that the recommendation clearly pointed to a policy that was abolished in the last term of the current government. Under the Jobsearch program, a subsidy was available to all who could get an employer to take them on and, as an incentive, a wage subsidy would be paid. It seems to me that the recommendations highlight that this measure was a success. I see the irony, but I do not think the unemployed would be amused.

In recommendation 27 the government talks about mutual obligation as the catchcry for the future. But what of the obligation to provide real assistance and real training to clients by service providers? Unfortunately the accountability requirements have allowed providers to ignore their obligations to ensure clients are given proper training and referrals to job vacancies. In this day and age where the unemployed have to seek out and provide evidence that they have accessed 10 job vacancies a fortnight to obtain benefits, we received evidence that was repeated time and time again of instances where people had been seen once by their Job Network provider and had not been contacted since their first visits, let alone been referred to a job vacancy. In the words of one such client who had had their first interview:

I was stunned to discover in discussions with the department that many intensive assistance service providers had not been visited beyond their initial set-up visit and that training provision, for example, had not even been assessed. More must clearly be done to bring service providers to account and I welcome recommendation 27, which will go towards addressing this situation.

In conclusion, I thank all members of the committee for their cooperationparticularly the Chairman, Dr Brendan Nelsonand all staff, whose diligent and efficient efforts were matched by their affable nature and the quality of their work. I also thank all those who participated in this notable inquiry and commend the report to the House.

Ordered that the report be printed.