*** E & OE - Proof only ***
DAVID SPEERS: Jenny Macklin thank you for joining us. Can I start with what you're actually doing for the long term unemployed. They will face tougher requirements now having to do more either work for the dole, part time work or volunteer work. Isn't the obstacle though often with employers to taking on the long term unemployed?
JENNY MACKLIN: That's very true David and that's why we're providing a range of different supports for employers including wage subsidies. We know how important it is to put both obligations on the long term unemployed. We're doing that, we're saying that you have to be out there getting yourself prepared for work, participating in activities for most of the year, but we're also recognising that employers need some extra assistance to take on someone who's been out of the workforce for some time.
DAVID SPEERS: I expect this will have a big, make a big dent on the number of long term unemployed. How many do you expect this will help back into the workforce?
JENNY MACKLIN: Well we certainly want to be acting on a range of different groups of people and different parts of Australia. So the long term unemployed, people who are on a disability support pension, single parents, teenage parents, and then as you'd be aware we're also really targeting in on ten different locations around Australia where we have unemployment at far too high a level. When we've got unemployment down to 4.9 per cent across the country it's just not good enough that we've got some areas where we've got 10 per cent unemployment side by side. So we're really trying to act on many of these different fronts.
DAVID SPEERS: I wanted to get to that but overall I mean, do you have a number in mind of how many all of these reforms are going to help move from welfare into work?
JENNY MACKLIN: Well, there's different numbers in different categories so if I go to the disability support pension area, what we're doing there is saying to people who are on the disability support pension, if you're under the age of 35 and you're capable of working at least a day a week, we are going to now require you to engage with Centrelink. And this will impact on around 90,000 people over the next two years.
DAVID SPEERS: They'll have to have regular interviews with Centrelink. Is there any compulsion to actually then do any work? Any more work than they might already be doing?
JENNY MACKLIN: In the first instance it's to engage with Centrelink It will be compulsory to attend these interviews if you are capable of doing some work. But of course this is the first time any requirements have been put on people who are on the disability pension, so we want to start in this way, make these interviews compulsory, set out the opportunities for people on the disability support pension, and then really provide the supports for them to get back to work. Demonstrate to them that it's going to be worth their while going to work.
DAVID SPEERS: Now the young unemployed. This is an area where you're extending by another year to 21, the earn or learn. You have to either be learning at some sort of course or earning otherwise you can't get the dole. You can't get Newstart. Now Tony Abbott's proposing a tougher measure here. He's saying the young employed if you don't take a job or move to somewhere where there is a job, you're going to lose the dole altogether. What's wrong with that sort of tougher approach?
JENNY MACKLIN: Well, it's really important that we get the balance right. We do need to have tough obligations on people and this Government has all been about saying to young people, you have to either be learning or earning. That means we want you at school or in vocational education. But what we also know is that you have to make sure that you provide the supports for people to do that and Tony Abbott just really has this sort of mindless negativity on every single issue. What we want to do (interrupted)…
DAVID SPEERS: He proposed a number of things though, and the other one, just finally, that he's talking about is the income management which you're now trialling in more areas beyond the Northern Territory, pockets of disadvantage requiring people to spend their welfare on the basics. He's saying why not spread that everywhere, make it National. What would be wrong with that?
JENNY MACKLIN: Well of course Tony Abbott says that in Opposition. He didn't do any of this when he was in Government. What the Government's doing is making sure that we get this right. We have applied income management across the Northern Territory. Across Western Australia we have a method of income management in Perth and in the Kimberley and now we are extending it to five very disadvantaged parts of Australia, so that if the child protection authorities think that a parent is neglecting their child, that Centrelink can make sure that 70 per cent of your welfare payments are spent in the interests of your children.
DAVID SPEERS: All right, we'll have to leave it there. Families Minister Jenny Macklin, thank you.
JENNY MACKLIN: Thank you.