The Community Development Program (CDP) is remote Australia’s Work for the Dole (WFD) and 'job assistance' scheme. The CDP has been criticised by civil society groups, Indigenous groups, academics and even police, with allegations that it pays below minimum wage and its penalty system is punitive, entrenching poverty, causing housing stress and even hunger.

This report recommends that the Australian government immediately replace the current CDP compliance and penalty regime with obligations that are no more onerous than those of other income support recipients.

The current federal employment services program, jobactive, aims to: help job-seekers find and keep a job; help job-seekers move from welfare to work; help job-seekers meet their mutual obligations. This audit assessed whether the Department of Employment effectively designed and monitors the progress of the jobactive program.

The current safety net is outdated. It was designed for an economy with one type of job in mind – full-time, 9-to-5 employment – and with high barriers to employment, such as interviews and résumés. But the economy is changing, with new technologies that seamlessly connect willing and able labor to the demand for work.

There are calls for whichever party wins the weekend's election to take a good look at the work for the dole scheme operating in remote Australia. Service providers continue to raise concerns about the scheme. They're now worried Indigenous people are leaving remote communities to escape the program and that young people aren't signing up...