The Final Report on the Advisory Panel on Employment Services Administration and Accountability was publicly released on the 21 September 2012, along with the Government’s response to the recommendations.

This week the Australian Council of Social Service released the Poverty in Australia Report 2012 which finds and estimated 2,265,000 or 12.8% of all people in Australia are living below the internationally accepted poverty line used to measure financial hardship in wealthy countries.

Jobs Australia's Policy and ATN Teams have submitted a response to the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency (formerly Skills Australia) Discussion Paper called Australia's Skills and Workforce Development Needs.

Jobs Australia believes that the Newstart Allowance payment is inadequate and should be increased. We also believe that the adequacy of Newstart needs to be related to the adequacy of resources for services and support available through the employment services system, so that long periods of unemployment are reduced.