‘Largely aspirational’: What lawyers think about Rishworth’s Workforce Australia changes

Employment lawyers have welcomed the “admirable” move by the federal government to embark on a once-in-a-generation reform to the nation’s employment services system, but added that some scepticism is warranted.

Last week, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations Amanda Rishworth unveiled changes to support more Australian jobseekers into work by introducing three new service streams for Workforce Australia to combat what she called its “one‑size‑fits‑all approach” to getting workers into roles.

Among the changes are: a digital service that provides participants with individualised resources and brief interventions when they need it for people who are ready to work and need help finding the right job; high-quality, targeted provider-led support for people who need help to build skills and confidence to return to the job market; and intensive services for people facing complex barriers providing them with more time, more flexibility and more joined up support to build confidence and capability as they move towards work.

Moreover, a new assessment and triage system will be used to identify barriers early and match people with the right level of support from the start, and Job Plans will be replaced by a new Employment Goal Plan, giving people a clearer pathway into work by setting out their goals, barriers and the practical steps needed to succeed.

The changes come as approximately one in five Workforce Australia participants have been in the system for five years or more, which is a significantly higher proportion than a decade ago.

The announcement is being backed by an investment of $312.1 million via the recent federal budget.

In a statement, Minister Rishworth noted that while unemployment is low, “there are still too many Australians missing out on the benefits of work, because of barriers to their participation in the labour market”.

“For too long, the employment services system has struggled to help people who need more intensive employment support. This is about ending the one‑size‑fits‑all approach and building a system that recognises people’s individual needs,” she said.

“We’re getting the fundamentals right: identifying barriers early, matching people to the right support, and helping them move into suitable, meaningful work.”

In conversation with HR Leader, Paul O’Halloran – a partner at global law firm Dentons – said that Workforce Australia’s approach has long failed jobseekers by misaligning support with individual need, including parking complex cases, offering inadequate digital services, and incentivising unsuitable job placements.

For employers, the government pledge for better matched candidates, with provider incentives tied to sustainable placement outcomes rather than mere referral numbers, “is a welcome change from a system that has frustrated businesses for years”.

However, he added, scepticism is warranted.

“Stream-based approaches were tried under the Abbott government without lasting success, and this iteration still relies on the same privatised provider model whose entrenched behaviours drove the problem in the first place,” O’Halloran said.

“This latest announcement remains largely aspirational. Key design details are still subject to consultation, and current contracts are simply extended for 16 months, leaving a substandard system in place in the interim. The entire architecture also rests on an as-yet unproven assessment tool being able to correctly classify over 1 million jobseekers from day one.”

Against the scale of reform promised, he surmised, the $312 million investment looks modest.

James Parkinson, a partner at national law firm Kingston Reid, added that the government’s goal to establish an individualised employment support system that seeks to provide tailored assistance to participants to further the goal of greater (or full) workforce participation is “admirable”.

What will be interesting, he said, is the extent to which the government requires the private sector and employers to participate in the framework of the scheme for it to be effective. As Minister Rishworth told the National Press Club, he said, the one-size-fits-all approach “is letting too many people in the caseload fall through the cracks, and failing to support them into a job, and even where people are being placed into work, the incentive structure for providers often means there is not enough regard for whether it is suitable work”, leading to poor job fits, then poor outcomes, and one in six people who have exited Workforce Australia end up re-entering the system within a year.

Ensuring suitable job matching, Parkinson continued, requires some degree of investment in the needs of employers to ensure the scheme’s effectiveness.

“The government has expressed that the task before it is ‘major, complex reform’. Whether this means certain reporting, disclosure or participation requirements from employers to facilitate beneficial job matching is yet to be seen,” he said.

However, if individualised support is going to be successful, it will require individualised effort from employers so that both sides of the coin are reaping the benefits of an engaged and productive workforce.”

The federal government has published a public discussion paper, which is open for submissions until 31 July 2026.

This paper, Parkinson said, will help inform the nature, scale and scope of reform contemplated by the government. “Employers should consider how these changes could fill labour shortages and how individualised support can be tuned to ensure long-term employment for those organisations engaging the scheme’s participants,” he said.

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Jerome Doraisamy

Jerome Doraisamy is the managing editor of Momentum Media’s professional services suite, encompassing Lawyers Weekly, HR Leader, Accountants Daily, and Accounting Times. He has worked as a journalist and podcast host at Momentum Media since February 2018. Jerome is also the author of The Wellness Doctrines book series, an admitted solicitor in NSW, and a board director of the Minds Count Foundation.