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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 5 Hansard (2 May) . . Page.. 1374 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

It had become illegal in the ACT for job agents to charge a job seeker for a job that they find for them, but the department had continued with the practice in the wake of that legislation of charging persons $44 to get their names on a list-not to get a job; to get on a list. That was extraordinary, in my view, and it raised the ire of the community. Nowhere in nearby states is it permissible for people to be charged for getting a job. It was extraordinary to have that situation continuing in the ACT. I prepared a motion immediately for introduction into this place at the earliest possible moment. That is the motion I have moved today.

I should also draw to the attention of members for effect the conditions that apply for people who might be paying this $44 fee. I refer to some information I got from the Internet on Centrelink. I will just talk about the allowance per fortnight for some people. I refer firstly to single people with no children. For those under 18 years of age and living at home, it is $158. For those under 18 years of age and living away from home it is $290. The allowance goes up to $380 for a single person with children. For a partner with no children it is $290 and for a partner with children it is $318. For a single person living at home it is $234 and for a single person living away from home it is $352. For partners with no children it is $318.

Those amounts are not a king's ransom. Taking $44 out of them would knock a big hole in the budgets of those people seeking to get on a list for a job. In the case which drew my attention again to this matter, the guy could not afford the $44. He did not want to pay it, either; he thought it was extraordinary.

I will take the information from Centrelink in relation to youths and students a little further. It says that full-time job search means that people need to actively look for suitable paid work, apply for jobs and attend job interviews. In brackets underneath that it says that up to 10 job applications per fortnight may be required and they may need to be recorded in a job seeker diary. If this fee of $44 were widespread, people would be in a bit of trouble if they were out of work and on the jobsearch allowance.

All of the reasons stack up for ditching this fee. I said before that I think that it is particularly grubby to charge this fee. I suspect that over the years hundreds of thousands of dollars have been collected from job seekers, probably mostly teachers who are seeking part-time employment, such as teachers at university who are seeking practical teaching in schools. It is probably mostly about teachers, but there would be other people as well.

I offer as an example the case of the person who brought this matter to my attention. He was looking for a job as a kitchen hand, for heaven's sake, so it is not about somebody who is going to be a high-flyer by any stretch of the imagination. A full range of people have been charged this fee over many years. My recollection of when I was involved in recruitment in the fire service is that we did not force fellows wanting a job there to pay $44 before they could apply for the job. Before they were recruited, they went through a police check, but that was all paid for by the department. That is a quite routine process in other government departments, as far as I can make out. It is only for the Department of Education and Community Services. The government will say that it is necessary to have a police check of people who are dealing with kids. I do not have any objection to that. There is no problem with that. Somebody has to pay for it, but the point I make is that it should not be the job seeker.

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