The Coalition has been accused of “heartless vilification” for releasing a list of welfare “bludger hotspots” across Australia.
The federal government on Tuesday released a list of 10 suburbs and towns with the highest jobseeker non-compliance numbers.
The list, which News Corp dubbed a “list of shame”, referred to the number of welfare recipients who failed to meet requirements, usually by failing to attend appointments or interviews with job service providers.
Second on the list was Blacktown in Sydney, where 333 people failed to attend an interview without a reasonable excuse in the past year, according to News Corp.
That is about 0.097% of the estimated 340,000 people living in Blacktown city council and 2.87% of the 11,597 Newstart and youth allowance recipients subject to mutual obligation requirements in the area last year.
There are also fewer jobs in Blacktown city than resident workers. The jobs to residents ratio was 0.76 in 2015/16, according to the National Institute of Economic and Industry Research.
Blacktown city’s mayor, Stephen Bali, described the attack as the “politics of poverty porn”.
“The heartless vilification of Blacktown’s disadvantaged residents does nothing to resolve the core issue of non-compliance for job-seeking requirements,” Bali said. “Holding up the dispossessed and incapable to public ridicule does not solve the problem of people not turning up to interviews.”
The co-host of Channel Nine’s Today program, Karl Stefanovic, questioned the human services minister, Alan Tudge, on Tuesday about the stigmatising impact of releasing the list without context.
“A couple of hundred people do not turn up in these particular suburbs, you have – whether you want to or not – embarrassed those suburbs. How does that affect small businesses in that area?” Stefanovic said. “How does that drive further employment in that area if you are embarrassing them?”
Tudge replied that it was not the government’s intent to embarrass the suburbs and said he was just providing the facts.
“That is not the intent, Karl. It is simply pointing out where some of these hotspots are,” Tudge said. “People in these suburbs also know where the hotspots are and they know that there are people who are not doing the right thing.”
The National Social Security Rights Network’s executive officer, Matthew Butt, said releasing the locations list was clearly unhelpful. Butt said the non-compliance numbers tended to be higher in areas of concentrated disadvantage, where the volume of welfare recipients was higher.
“I think the obvious point to make is that referring to suburbs can suggest that there’s some particular problem with the people or the culture of those suburbs, whereas the numbers tend to track the total number of people on social security,” Butt told Guardian Australia.
“It’s a simple truth in our society that disadvantage tends to be concentrated in certain areas. It’s not a helpful way of talking about things.”
The Australian Council of Social Service urged the government to ends its public attacks on the disadvantaged and instead sit down with local business leaders to talk about job creation.
Its chief executive, Cassandra Goldie, described the release of the list as “mean-spirited and inflammatory”.
“We’re very disturbed by this tactic that’s being used by the federal government to divert from the real issues,” Goldie said. “To put communities on a hit list is, we believe, absolutely counterproductive and I’m sure that there are many community leaders around the country who are very unhappy with what the government is doing.
“The issue is where are the jobs? Where are the economic opportunities? That’s what should be making the front page.”
The government also said 100,000 people across the country were consistently missing their appointments without a reasonable excuse and said less than 10% were subject to any financial penalty.
The Coalition plans to reform the compliance system and do away with a system of waivers for those who fail to meet their obligations.
The waiver system, introduced by Labor, is designed to keep welfare recipients engaged and in the job market, rather than pushing them further into disadvantage.
In its place, the government proposes a demerit points-style scheme that gives jobseekers a number of chances, before their welfare payments are docked.
Butt said the current compliance system, while not perfect, sought to strike a balance between encouraging compliance with jobseeking requirements and keeping jobseekers active.
Goldie aired concerns about the reforms, which she said were hoped to make $200m in savings a year. Goldie feared those savings would be made by cutting people off social security with increased frequency.
“The only outcome of that, from all the past experience, will be severe financial stress,” she said.
