One Nation will block the government’s proposed internship scheme, which would have paid businesses $1,000 to take on young unemployed people while they received $200 a fortnight.
One Nation has announced it will oppose the government’s Prepare Train Hire (Path) internship scheme in the Senate, citing the cost of subsidies and flagging an intention to release an alternative youth employment plan.
The party’s opposition means the bill, which is also opposed by Labor and the Greens, would be blocked in the Senate although it is possible the government could attempt to introduce it without legislation.
Under the Path scheme the government planned to pay businesses $1,000 to take on young, unemployed people as interns for up to 12 weeks. The young jobseekers working as interns would receive $200 on top of their fortnightly welfare payments.
The scheme is opposed by Labor, the Greens and unions, who fear employers will use it to churn through free workers rather than creating real jobs.
On Monday evening One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts told the Senate that his party, which has three senators and is likely to soon gain a fourth after Rodney Culleton’s disqualification, does not support the bill.
The government has now removed the bill from the Senate notice paper.
Roberts said that he recognised the benefits of internships but the Path scheme was “simply a subsidy to make work, and not a fulfilling job”.
He criticised payroll tax, which he said paid for the scheme and was “killing employment”.
Roberts asked why the Path scheme did not have a cost-benefit analysis and questioned its value for money.
“We have an apprenticeship scheme, which the leader of our party, Senator Hanson, will be discussing in more detail,” he said, flagging an alternative plan that Pauline Hanson was expected to announce on Tuesday before the bill was pulled from the notice paper.
Nick Xenophon Team senator Stirling Griff told the Senate that Path was a “positive step” that his party supported in principle but warned of several problems if the government implemented the program without legislation.
“If the government went down that path, it would mean the fortnightly incentive payments the scheme provides to participants will be treated as additional income and taxed accordingly,” he said.
“It would also potentially impact their Centrelink payments. This would undermine the intention of helping the jobseeker afford the costs that come with applying for or starting a new job.”
Griff said NXT would move an amendment to review the scheme after two years and would suggest other changes including lengthening the period over which the subsidy was paid.
Labor’s employment services spokesman, Ed Husic, said other members of parliament had come to the same conclusions as Labor about the “serious flaws” in the Path program. He said the opposition would be constructive if the government agreed to fix the program to prevent exploitation, displacement of jobs and to allow workers to earn the minimum wage.
The Greens family and community services spokeswoman, Rachel Siewert, told Guardian Australia she was pleased if One Nation’s opposition helped defeat the bill.But many design flaws, including the risk of “churning” jobseekers, and the potential to displace other workers were inherent in the scheme and not contained in the legislation, she said.
Siewert said she would be “deeply concerned” if the government pushed ahead with the program without legislation and suggested jobseekers would not take it up if the $200 payment counted as income that reduced their welfare payments.
The employment minister, Michaelia Cash, said the government would “continue to work constructively with senators to ensure this important policy is delivered”.
