A new discussion paper would split jobseekers into three tiers, with government-led digital help for the recently unemployed, contracted providers for people with employment gaps, and intensive community-based support for the long-term unemployed.
The redesign targets a system widely criticised as broken after a 2023 parliamentary committee said outsourced employment services were inefficient, fragmented and poor at judging whether billion-dollar contracts delivered value.
Private agencies would remain central in the middle tier, with the government proposing up-front, progress and outcome payments plus tougher accountability measures, including options to amend or terminate contracts.
Mutual obligations would also stay, though Rishworth says they would be tailored to help people find work rather than punish them for unemployment.
The plan expands public-service and local-service roles but stops short of the full rebuild some critics sought, preserving key features of the market-based model introduced in 1998.
Is Australia's $312M employment overhaul a real fix or just a costly rebrand of a broken system?
Will tailored support finally end the 'dole bludger' myth or just create new loopholes in the system?