An open letter to the Greens

To: Lee Rhiannon
Subject: Re: unemployed concerns about job network

Hi Lee et al,
congratulations on your election win. We know you must be very busy but are wondering if you could give some consideration to the long term unemployed especially with regard to current human rights abuses in Australia. "The billions of dollars spent on the employment services sector has done nothing for the long term unemployed but create anxiety and disempowerment. Most long-term unemployed want rid of this paternalistic bureaucracy and for these tax dollars to be spent on subsidizing jobs in the public sector and in the arts, education, environment friendly energy, infrastructure and cooperative employment ventures for the jobless instead. The massive expenditure on monitoring and supervising the unemployed is wasteful and is creating a permanent underclass. If we keep going this way we'll have one half of Australia being paid to watch the other half." from http://storyofbernadette.blogspot.com/2009/12/work-and-worklessness-in-newcastle.html

I know the Greens are supporting 10,000 new green industry jobs but will there be any guarantee that those jobs will go to the long term unemployed? Unemployed Australians cannot compete with trained experienced workers from overseas especially when sham job training from the privatised job service sector just leads to nowhere.

Could the Greens also consider the traumatised feelings of underemployed/unemployed clergy abuse survivors before devising any more joint initiatives between the Greens and the churches re unemployment? Your last letter listed some of the things it was doing to supposedly "help" the unemployed including:
'The Greens secured a $300 million fund to provide one-off grants to church, charitable, community organisations and local councils for pilot projects...'

Jobseekers would feel a lot less anxiety if the Greens help maintain the separation of powers between church and state. If your party is really interested in church business then why not hold a parliamentary inquiry into the plight of our clergy abuse survivors who are still unable to get justice within the courts and whose lives have been blighted by the appalling abuse of church power which now continues against the jobless?

Just like the sexual assaults perpetrated against defenseless children, there is nothing "charitable" about churches breaching the vulnerable long term unemployed. As researchers such as Bill Mitchell have described it in an online article at http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=3653#more-3653:
'Under the Job Network, we saw the churches who took out contracts to deliver labour market services reduce their charity work and embrace for profit the brutal system of breaching. For overseas readers, this involved the providers dobbing the most disadvantaged workers into the government who then fined them for minor breaches of their pernicious activity tests. Cases such as schizophrenics who were unable to attend an interview as a result of their illness were breached (significant loss of benefits).'

thanks for your time Lee,
would love to hear from you soon (but not another form letter from a staffer about the 10,000 new green jobs because we've already got that one).

regards Bernadette Smith