Welfare isn’t a career: survey

MOBILE phone bills, car rego and home internet are fine, but Netflix, ciggies and restaurant meals are out for people receiving JobSeeker.

That’s the verdict of Australian voters, who think government money should be available only for necessities and tools that might help unemployed people secure jobs.

According to the Menzies Research Centre survey “Attitudes to JobSeeker”, voters believe dole payments should be kept at a level where basics are affordable, but frills such as dining out or buying takeaway, booze or premium-label supermarket food are off the table.

Televisions, laptops, mortgages and childcare also passed muster, while annual holidays, elective medical procedures and movie tickets got the thumbs down.

The poll found voters believed government payments should be linked closely to recipients’ willingness to work.

Almost 84 per cent of respondents agreed that “the amount of the JobSeeker payment a person receives should be dependent on their ability and willingness to work”.

Almost 80 per cent agreed that “work for the dole measures should be more strictly enforced”.

About two-thirds of voters said relocation grants should be available to those on the dole to help them move to areas where they might have better prospects of finding a job.

But there was a strong partisan split in the results.

While only 30 per cent of self-identified Liberal voters agreed that welfare payments in general were too low, almost 50 per cent of Labor voters and 53 per cent of Greens said they were not generous enough.

Only 23 per cent of voters in full-time work said payments were too low, while 70 per cent said they should be increased.

The figures come in the wake of the Morrison government’s move to raise the JobSeeker rate by $50 a fortnight while increasing the number of jobs recipients have to apply for from eight a month to 15.

The government is also implementing a hotline for employers to dob in people who turn down work for which they are qualified.

“The numbers show that people have got a more realistic attitude to unemployment benefit levels than some of the advocates from the social services industry,” said Menzies Research Centre executive director Nick Cater.

“Australians want to support people who are down on their luck, but not give them an incentive to take up welfare as a career.

“They are very supportive of any benefit that will help people get a job – professional clothes, a mobile phone – but what they don’t want is to pay for luxuries.”