Most vulnerable are worst affected by welfare payment suspensions, government data reveals

Tens of thousands of people experiencing homelessness, living with disabilities or who are Indigenous are being disproportionately affected by welfare payment suspensions under the mutual obligation regime, government data shows.

The data, reported to federal parliament by the employment department, comes as a separate study by the charity Anglicare suggests most jobseekers believe mutual obligation is doing little to help them find work.

To keep their payments, jobseekers must attend appointments with privatised employment service providers and log their efforts to apply for as many as 20 jobs a month.

The system had been paused for much of the pandemic but restarted across the country last month.

While the government argues the system ensures people are serious about finding work, advocates argue the system is punitive, does little to help jobseekers find employment and some businesses have complained it leaves them wading through unsuitable applications.

The system is also filled with complaints that payments can be stopped erroneously due to mistakes from employer service providers.

It shows more than 56.4% of the 64,123 jobseekers who have been flagged as having experienced homeless have had their payments suspended in the six months to September.

Among the 133,559 jobseekers who have a disability, 47.1% had received a payment suspension in those six months, while the same was true of 63.5% of the 70,150 Indigenous jobseekers. Some jobseekers will have been recorded across multiple or even all three measures.

The data confirms those considered vulnerable by Centrelink are more likely to face payment suspensions than the overall cohort in the jobactive system.

Overall, 43.8% of the 595,516 people in the jobactive system had a received payment suspension in the six-month period.

After five demerits, they can receive financial penalties, meaning their payments are reduced by half, or cut altogether for a fortnight. They can be kicked off welfare payments altogether for what is considered serious non-compliance.

The data shows that between September 2020 and September 2021, on 1,532 occasions people experiencing homelessness received one of these penalties.

Similarly, the employment department applied these penalties on 2,597 occasions towards Indigenous jobseekers and 1,495 times for those with a disability.

Only 19% felt their obligations were tailored to their needs and only 13% said they were getting the support they needed to find work.

A government-commissioned report, revealed by Guardian Australia in May, also found employment service providers were unsatisfied with the mutual obligations system.