Comment
Time for older jobless action
Three recently released reports call for government action to end age discrimination and combat employer prejudice against older workers. VERONICA SHEEN, of the Council on the Ageing (Australia) reports.
Over the past two years, the Council on the Ageing (COTA) has been at the cutting edge of raising awareness of the plight of Australia’s older jobless. Our work towards getting some action has moved one step ahead with the release of three major inquiry reports in the past few weeks. COTA made major submissions to all three inquiries.
In July, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission launched Age matters: a report on age discrimination. This report argues that it is time for the Federal Government to take a stand and introduce new age discrimination legislation. At the moment there is age discrimination legislation at the state level but not at the federal level, which leaves a lot of gaps in coverage.
The report recommends a national public and business education programme to counteract negative stereotypes about older (and younger) people with respect to their abilities in the workplace. It also recommends the setting up of specialist agencies to assist older unemployed workers.
The second report, released in August, is Age counts: an inquiry into issues specific to mature-age workers. This report presents the findings of a year-long inquiry into older workers by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Workplace Relations, chaired by Dr Brendan Nelson.
The report stresses the importance of combating employer prejudice. The Standing Committee argues for a sustained national strategy targeting employers, to promote the benefits of maturity and age balance in the workforce. The committee also suggests a code of practice for more sensitive handling of retrenchments and redundancies.
There are also recommendations to improve training opportunities for older workers, implement phased retirement policies and improve income support arrangements for older unemployed people. COTA was particularly pleased to see that the committee recommended that the Government re-consider its policy of including superannuation assets in eligibility assessments for people over 55 on Newstart Allowance for more than 39 weeks.
Finally, the report of the Reference Group on Welfare Reform was released in August. The Reference Group, chaired by Mr Patrick McClure of Mission Australia, acknowledged the desperate need for assistance for Australia’s languishing older unemployed. Additional to recommending better services for this group to help them get jobs, the Group argues for specific initiatives to publicise the contribution that mature age people make to businesses and the community and to counter age discrimination in employment.
COTA calls on the Government to act on the recommendations of these three reports and end the period of inaction on mature age unemployment.
All three reports are available on the internet at:
http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/eewr
http://www.facs.gov.au
http://www.hreoc.gov.au
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