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December 8, 2003
As mentioned in the previous post unemployment is commonly seen as Australia's worst economic policy failure. As John Quiggin says:
"At no time since the election of the current [Howard] Government has unemployment been an issue of real concern. Second-order trivia like the GST and waterfront reform have had far more attention. And, sadly, the Australian public has become inured to chronic mass unemployment. In the absence of a severe economic downturn, the government will pay no real political price for its worst policy failure."
Addressing unemployment means seeking to reduce regional inequality as well as enhance prosperity through economic growth. Sadly this regional approach is not being taken, despite calls by some State Labor Government, such as South Australia, for a reformed migration policy that could play an important role in revitalizing depressed regions.
In terms of governance the unemployed are now steered into the Job Network. This network is usually seen as a bundle of labour market programs and labour exchange arrangments that aim to deliver specific outcomes in terms of acquiring and retaining employment. The regulator of the Job Network is Centrelink.
This neo-liberal shaping of the unemployment problem over the last 5 years centres around market liberalization and cost effectiveness to achieve much reduced government expenditure. It instruments are contracts, competition, highly regulated quasi-markets, new public management and non-profit service organizations, such as the Salvation Army and Mission Australia. The neo-liberal policy emphasis is for greater competition, more deregulation and more market-based solutions.
Several problems can be identified with Job Network:
---'parking', or the reluctance by the job assistance providers to put the effort or expense into harder-to-place clients;
----'deadweight', or the high proportion of employment outcomes that happen without assistance;
----the difficulties experienced by non-profit community/charity organizations operating on the same competitve terrain in the Job Network's regulatory framework as for-profit organizations;
---the use of breaching as an enforcement and punitive practice to discipline jobseekers not complying with their mutual obligations.
The neo-liberal mode of governing a risky population is to coerce them to govern themselves in the name of becoming a responsible individual who takes responsibility for their job seeking activities. Being successful means showing the drive and initiative to land yourself a job through using your contacts, skills and streetsmarts. That is the individual identity that needs to be acquired through being shaped by the assemblage of instruments deployed in the Job Network.
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