The Commonwealth Employment Service (CES) should never have been privatised
The CES was privatised in 1998. In 2023 the campaign to Bring Back the CES is being run by Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU). Under the leadership of Steven Jones (now Assistant Treasurer & Minister for Financial Services) the CPSU affiliated with the Labor Party in 2007.
Full Employment – a Keynesian policy of the Curtain Labor government in 1946
Anthony O’Donnell’s book Inventing Unemployment chronicles the role and successes of the CES. However the CES did have a downside when it was regarded as a dole office by worker and boss in the late 1970s.
“But in the second half of the ’70s, as unemployment began to skyrocket, that became an increasing drain on the CES’s resources, and it also meant that the public perception of the CES was that it was the ‘dole office’ rather than a generalist employment exchange.
“So in the ’80s, there was a move to shift the eligibility for unemployment benefit back to the department that actually had full legal authority to determine it, which was the Department of Social Services,” O’Donnell said.
Privatisation
However, in 1998, Labor Party union officials meekly recommended that CPSU members accept redundancies despite a mass meeting of rank and file in Brisbane City Hall opposing both redundancies and the privatisation of the CES. This was one of the last if not the last mass meeting of CPSU union members in Brisbane. Was it because the Labor officials were worried that the rank-and-file would overturn their future motions of appeasement to Labor governments that followed? And why has it taken the union 25 years to campaign against the privatisation of the CES? That’s a whole generation of people who have been ticking boxes and getting nowhere in private employment agencies. With service providers making a profit of their misfortune. The Libers don’t care, it is they who is making the profits; but what was Labor thinking? Kick people off the dole because they can’t tick the right box or can’t tick enough boxes? I used to process peoples’ unemployment benefits forms. I know the mentality of many Department of Social Security (DSS) workers. They thought of it as their money so they were very cautious with it. CES workers had a different mentality. It was their job to find employment where there was none. In the 70s under the Liberals, unemployment rates were as high as 15 to 20% in some areas. The Liberals and their business backers were opposed to the full employment policies of Labor. Today governments keep saying that their numbers have improved, but is it true? The Reserve Bank is currently driving up unemployment and increasing interest rates at the same time. Their aim is to is to drive down inflation and thereby avoid a recession. But there is no reason Australia should join a recession in the United States and Britain (after Brexit). Our major trading partners are in Asia. But the United States is angling for a war with China and Labor-in-government want to appease the American hawks.
No Union affiliation with the ALP!
A whole generation of young people entering the workforce came through this private system. Very few of them ever became union members. During that time we have had only Labor governments in Queensland (with the brief exception of the LNP under Campbell Newman, a terrible oncer). So I find it quite ironic that a Labor affiliated-CPSU place all the blame on Liberal government. Sure it was Howard’s Commonwealth government that must shoulder the blame for the privatisation of the CES and the introduction of mutual obligation (read worker obligation). However Labor’s Kim Beasley refused to fight the 1998 election against Howard on privatisations of the Commonwealth Employment Service and Telecom. It was the Labor Party that introduced neoliberal policies into the Australian economy in the 1980s and 1990s. It was Labor-in-government that floated the dollar, sold the Commonwealth Bank, the airports and proposed the sale of the first tranche of Telstra.
Making money from the jobless
The person who has made the biggest fortune from the jobless is Therese Rein, former Labor PM Kevin Rudd’s wife. Rein has amassed a fortune of more than $210M providing services to unemployed and disabled people around the world. Rein company Ingeus has been in partnership with Deloittes which, according to an ANAO report, is involved in government contract scandals along with PwC. If the CPSU had any principles at all it would dis-affiliate from the ALP. But it doesn’t and it won’t. It should never have allowed the privatisation of the Commonwealth Bank, Telecom, or the CES in the first place.
To be sure I signed the petition even though the platform the CPSU uses comes out of Washington DC. But only because there is no alternative. Keynesian policies failed before, there is no reason they won’t fail again. – Ian Curr, Editor, 19 June 2023 (ACOA/CPSU union member 1984 – 2003).
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Sign the petition to help us build support to re-nationalise government employment services. Together, we can bring back the highly successful CES and ensure quality support for job seekers across Australia.
Back in 1998, the Howard Government made the regrettable decision to privatise the CES. They promised competition and improved services, but the reality has been quite the opposite. A small number of multinational corporations now dominate the employment services sector, reaping massive profits while failing to deliver on their obligations to job seekers.
Even the Prime Minister himself has recognised the shortcomings of the current system, admitting that it’s more about ticking boxes than providing genuine support. It’s time for a change.
In our submission to the Inquiry into Workforce Australia Employment Services, we recommend the following:
- Suspension of mutual obligations, recognising their punitive nature.
- An in-principle decision to end the use of for-profit employment services due to the inherent conflict of interest.
- An in-principle decision to rebuild a public sector-based employment service.
- Exploration of a new modern CES model, complemented by specialist community-based services, to provide enhanced support to jobseekers and rebuild APS skills and capacity.
- Measures to increase the number, range, and location of entry-level jobs in the Australian Public Service.
Now is the time to take action! Join our campaign and add your voice to the call for a fairer and more effective employment service system. Together, we can make a difference in the lives of job seekers and rebuild a public service that truly serves the needs of the Australian people.