Thread by @JenHogben

Thread. I'm going to talk about the interactive role between #Centrelink and Job Service Providers #JSP's. Centrelink runs under a different department from outsourced, privatised, JSPs. Centrelink wants us off #Jobseeker payments, so send us to JSPs.

When we talk to Centrelink on the phone, we may be talking to a government employee who knows what they are talking about, or an outsourced phone centre worker who is trained as far as box ticking. Either will tell us our situation as if it's fact, even if it isn't.

JSPs often only exist to be JSPs, including not for profit, where CEO's and Directors can still pay themselves huge incomes, or divert income to other enterprises. JSPs like Sarina Russo whose worth is $100m of public funds, profit administering the underemployed/unemployed.

While Centrelink exists to get us off jobseeker, there is no benefit to a Centrelink worker, direct or outsourced, to keep us on Jobseeker. JSPs profit by keeping us in their system. The only incentive to get us a job is payment, regardless of whether they get us the job or not.

If they can offer us in house 'training" they get paid, regardless of the quality of the training as it's never assessed. If we get a short term placement they get paid, and paid again when we bounce back. Some JSPs, like the Salvos, benefit again, by running work for the dole.

So they get paid for having us on their books, paid for finding us temporary work, paid when we return, and paid for putting us on one of their temporary, $4/hour, inhouse work schemes.
If you are unlucky enough to have health problems, Centrelink will accept a Medical exemption

..from Mutual Obligations, that is, being overseen by a JSP. You will still be on their books so they can make money from that, but they do nothing but direct us to government services we can find online ourselves. The Medical Certificate is supposed to be for unresolved and..

..ongoing health issues. In reality it is temporary, and there is nowhere for Centrelink to put us, except on DSP or with a disability JSP. As many of you know from experience, health issues can continue for years until either the condition is resolved, new conditions emerge,..

..or the condition becomes permanent. We are only eligible for DSP if the health issue is permanent and impedes our ability to work full-time by a set percentage, decided by the Centrelink DSP Assesor. That's another story I'll leave to those who have been through the process.

For those of us sent to a disability JSP, how do we get assessed by an outsourced provider, whose incentive is to make money from us, not look after our best interests? I have an uneven capacity to work, based on how how my health is. JSPs only work on a fixed ability to work.

I already have a job. I work as a contractor, doing government work. That work pays minimum wage, but before costs. We have to set ourselves up as a company for insurance and public liability reasons, the government does not provide this cover, or a car or petrol to do our job.

Centrelink does not recognise any job that doesn't pay minimum wage, after costs. That's almost every gig economy job. We are told to break down the hours we actually work to minimum wage, before they will recognise it as work. We have to work or volunteer a set amount of hours..

..a week to qualify for #Jobseeker payments under #MutualObligations. On top of that, we have to apply for a set amount of jobs, and attend regular appointments at the JSP, sometimes weekly. This is difficult enough for a healthy person, impossible for someone with health issues.

Applying for jobs in a climate where there are ten people for every job, means despite best efforts, nine of those ten won't get a job. For those of us with an uneven ability to work, the only work we can get is contacting work. Jobs the government has enabled and created. Jobs..

..the government's own departments refuse to acknowledge.
So where does that leave us? #Centrelink has refused to accept my Doctor's advice. The JSP won't know how to find me a job on uneven work capacity, and 2 million of us are competing for one in ten jobs. Meanwhile we..

..are having our social security cut again, under the poverty line. We are punished for being underemployed or unemployed, with or without health issues, because our @ScottMorrisonMP #LNP government doesn't think we deserve to exist. #Jobseeker #auspol

Should have warned, LONG thread. There's a lot to cover!