Legislation that would force jobseekers under 25 to wait four weeks before accessing welfare payments looks set to fail, with three Senate crossbenchers vowing to shoot it down.
Labor and the Greens are against the social services legislation amendment (youth employment and other measures) bill, so the government needs the support of six of the eight crossbenchers in the Senate to pass it.
So far, it has the support of only one, the Liberal Democrat David Leyonhjelm. Three others – independents John Madigan and Nick Xenophon, and the Motoring Enthusiast party senator Ricky Muir – are resolutely against it.
The remaining four crossbench senators – Jacqui Lambie, Bob Day, Dio Wang and Glenn Lazarus – are still in negotiations and have not yet reached a position on the bill.
Its most contentious element is the proposal to freeze dole payments for jobseekers under 25 for four weeks, on top of the existing one-week pause.
It also seeks to extend the age of eligibility for the Newstart allowance from 22 to 24, at a cost to jobseekers of about $48 a week.
The bill was introduced for debate in the Senate on Thursday but the social services minister, Scott Morrison, conceded on Tuesday that the bill was unlikely to pass this week.
He insisted the measures would apply only to “job-ready” young people.
“The measures that we are trying to put through the Senate apply to only 50% of young people in that situation,” he said.
People living with mental illness, who have been released from juvenile detention or who are leaving domestic violence situations would not have to wait the additional four weeks, Morrison said.
“If you are job-ready then you don’t get to go straight on to the dole and we don’t want you to go straight from the school gate to the Centrelink front door,” the minister told Sky News on Wednesday night.
But Madigan told Guardian Australia he was opposed to the measure because it was “akin to kicking young people while they are down”.
“There is absolutely no evidence this will help get young people in to work, as the government has claimed. To my mind it is likely to have the opposite effect,” he said. “We know the longer someone spends out of work the more likely they are to become unemployed long term. It is therefore important to provide young people with the support they need when they initially reach out for help.”
The National Welfare Rights Network agreed. Its national president, Kate Beaumont, called the bill “ill conceived” and said it would drag jobless young people “down further”.
“It will save the government money first and foremost,” she said. “Destitution doesn’t help people get a job.”
Morrison pointed to results in New Zealand, which he said has adopted a similar approach.
“What they found is 40% of the young people in that situation didn’t end up going on the dole. Now that is a good thing, that is the back-up to why we are doing what we are doing.”
The Greens senator Rachel Siewert visited New Zealand in July to see for herself if the measures worked. She said Canberra was “cherry-picking” elements of Wellington’s unemployment strategy. “New Zealand just isn’t enforcing this [payment freeze],” she said.
A public backlash forced the government to back down on a 2014 budget measure that would freeze payments for jobseekers under 30 for six months. That would have saved the government $1.2bn.
Siewert did not think the public was as concerned about the four-week freeze. “I don’t think there’s not the same level of intensity of opposition,” she said.
Labor wants the government to abandon the bill. Its family spokeswoman, Jenny Macklin, said: “Whether for one month or six, Labor will not support a measure which pushes young people into poverty.”
Senate estimates last week revealed a rise in the number of young unemployed people who stay on the dole for longer than four weeks. The percentage who left welfare within four weeks has dropped from 14.6% in 2010 to 9.3% in 2014.
