Mentions Department of Employment and Workplace Relations

Job providers are being paid millions of dollars in public money for work that jobseekers are finding themselves, with advocates saying there is “simply no reason” for the payments.

The Department of Employment and Workplace Relations has paid providers more than $3.6m in the past five years for pre-existing employment, where someone on jobseeker found a job prior to starting with a provider, according to data provided to Guardian Australia by the department.

The data shows there has been an uptick in pre-existing employment payments, with providers receiving $1.1m in the 2023-2024 financial year, more than double the $464,200 paid in 2019-2020.

Melissa Fisher believed her jobseeker payments would be cut off if she didn’t complete a resilience training course.

So the South Australian-based artist, who has a disability and has been on income support for several years, signed up. She found herself being asked to rate her friends and family, whether God played an important role in her life and if she felt grateful she had enough to eat.

At one point in the four-day course, she was shown pictures of Brad Pitt in a chicken suit to illustrate how people can go from “nothing to something”.

“I found all of it so condescending,” Fisher says of the resilience training run by WISE employment in South Australia.

“They said that who we have in our life is important and surrounding ourselves with successful people will make us successful. If we surround ourselves with unsuccessful people we will be unsuccessful.”

Fisher says she believed the course was part of her mutual obligations which jobseekers are required to undertake otherwise their payments can be suspended. Fisher says she was never told she could choose not to do the course – and other jobseekers across Australia say they also thought the same.