Welfare in Australia as of 2026
The state of welfare in Australia is a mess, three departments police unemployed and underemployed people, and all are acting in the interests of a corrupt private employment services industry.
Society is divided into the haves and the have-nots. The idle rich and the working class. Of the working class, a good job will get one far if circumstances allow, one mightn't think there's a cost of living crisis at all if meeting rent still leaves some cash aside for Friday drinks, versus the casualised, gig or part time workers that keep the little things in life going, and the people which society generally deems unable to work such as the disabled and the aged. Here's the domain of Australia's social safety net, the JobSeeker payment and for the disabled, the Disability Support Pension (DSP). As people can come into the position of having disabilities where no formal diagnosis is accessible in an increasingly crisis-focused public health system, Services Australia performs their own disability assessment, the Employment Services Assessment or ESAt. This cheats disabled people into the lower JobSeeker payment and continues the cycle of disadvantage, being unable to access diagnosis or relief beyond a bulk billing GP - if they're lucky.
These payments are minuscule compared to the national minimum wage of $948/week,[1] $396.50/week for the full adult unpartnered, non-parent, rate of JobSeeker[2] and $539.85/week for the full adult unpartnered, non-parent, rate of the Disability Support Pension.[3] JobSeeker is pegged twice-yearly to inflation, whereas the DSP only sees increases in line with inflation once per year. Both payments are means tested lower if the recipient has some part time or casual work or is partnered. If a recipient had savings and assets before: now they don't.
Capable job seekers only need access the Workforce Australia website, reporting 20 job searches a month, which can be rejected out of hand if the employer or their agent does not readily provide a contact phone number or email. Fortnightly income reports come dressed in threats to make sure recipients correctly report a $0 income or face legal consequences, a constant reminder of worthlessness. A recipient may report an income and hours, end up losing up to 50c on the dollar up to the welfare payment being denied entirely, and will never quite get away from the idle threats for daring to access a payment. Too long on the system will tell Services Australia you might need help. They have contracts for it, but it's not coming.
Job Service Providers (JSPs) or Inclusive Employment Australia (IEA) providers work based on the concept that you must do something, almost anything to justify receiving a payment, of which DSP recipients aged under 35 are required to do in addition to JobSeeker recipients. Running an informal community soup kitchen would be out of the question, for example, but volunteering for a religious queerphobic op shop wouldn't. Providers are usually paraded around by politicians and the industry both as meaningful contributions to the skills and hirable attributes of a job seeker, but often are just pointless appointments, questionable personality tests, increasingly, AI "classes" in subjects better offered by a legitimate TAFE campus, and life skill sessions that stoop down to remind people to shower and use soap, in case they forgot. More often than not, appointments are a check-in which could be done by text message or email. A free computer at a public library does more than than any of these providers as far as identifying and applying for suitable work.
These appointments will be made regardless of the welfare recipient working or studying at the time specified, under threat of a payment suspension, something these providers regularly do, taking suspension actions 2,683,605 total times over the financial year 2024-2025, with around 1 million payment suspensions.[4] The interruption to routine and the necessity to get leeway for work, study or care commitments can jeopardise welfare recipient's existing career pathways and social networks.
In incidences of physical or psychological harm, recipients may seek temporary relief with a medical certificate, however Services Australia often overrules these for arbitrary reasons, often telling claimants to coach their doctor for better results next time in lieu of providing means to appeal. While one can appeal a payment suspension on "reasonable grounds," there is no way to get in front of it if a JSP is inclined to apply one, putting bill and rent money at risk. No employee would, or should, stand their employer treating them this way.
Long-term clients will be routinely subjected to these activities over actual help getting employment. There is a class of job seeker with an expectation they will never exit the system, ensuring JSPs will continue to receive payments for their working life, for no actual benefit at all to said jobseeker.
Meanwhile, JSPs send much of their ill-gotten gains up the chain. Donation Watch information shows APM Human Services International Ltd has spent nearly half a million dollars, more than Sportsbet, in donations to the Australian Labor Party from 2016, and another $353,495.50 to the Liberal Party since 2014, showing their dirty money is not particularly picky as long as their contracts are renewed.[5] Sarina Russo barely edges above 10% of that figure, having donated $48,420 to Labor, another combined $92,500 and $25,500 to the Liberal National Party and Liberal Party respectively.[6] This reveals that the running of the welfare system is a bipartisan problem, with little more than a rebranding exercise for the disability job services since the change of government in 2022, and former politicians like former WA Labor Premier Mark McGowan jumping in with APM when he was "exhausted," among other opportunities no long-term job seeker would ever be offered.
So, what is to be done? It's done every year when Mutual Obligations are temporarily suspended so there's no Scrooge-like holiday scandals about Aussie battlers having their Christmas cancelled, only to be unceremoniously re-exposed to the inherent harms of the system the morning of January 5. This absence of predatory providers and pointless activities can be the normal state of things, and perhaps someone might be inclined to offer a legitimate, voluntary, employment service, it might actually be worth paying for.
