Approved mutual obligation requirements for mature age customers 001-09070140

Australian Disability Enterprises (ADE) is an approved activity that employs people with a disability, illness or injury often in a specialist work environment.

A Community Service Order can be imposed by the Court (with the offender's consent) on suitable offenders, sentencing them to perform community work for a certain number of hours instead of serving time in prison or in lieu of paying a fine.

The offenders perform unpaid work at approved organisations and are supervised during their community service. These customers are not considered to be in prison. A community service order is a type of Community Based Order that can be imposed by a Court.

Defence Force Reserves can be regarded as an approved activity and may include annual training camps, programmed courses, full time or part-time work in the Defence Force.

Disability Employment Services (DES) work with job seekers who have disabilities to help them gain and maintain employment.

• Job seekers are encouraged to engage in paid work as a way to maintain skills and increase opportunities to move to full-time employment. For some job seekers, part-time work may meet all mutual obligation requirements where the hours match work capacity
• The Restart wage subsidy may be paid to employers that employ a mature age job seeker
• Self-employment as an approved activity to satisfy mutual obligation requirements is a recognised approved activity
• Small Business Coaching as part of Self-Employment Assistance is an approved activity that assists eligible job seekers with training and support to establish a viable business

Employment Services Providers will determine the number of job search contacts required for a job seeker and include these in their points based target.

Customers identified as requiring assistance with language or literacy skills can be referred to the following programs:

• Adult Migrant Education Program (AMEP)
• Skills for Education and Employment (SEE)

Job seekers may benefit from one of the following activities that can only be approved by the provider:

• Undertaking an assessment of their present capacity or needs by a provider or organisation
• Drug and alcohol rehabilitation
• Intervention - non-specific
• Parenting skills program
• Health maintenance program
• Child care

The Restart wage subsidy is paid to employers that employ a mature age job seeker, who has been unemployed and on income support for 6 months or more, in a position:

• that commenced on or after 1 July 2014
• in which the employee works for a minimum of 15 hours per week
• that is a sustainable, ongoing position, where the employer knows of no reasons why the job will not continue indefinitely (the employment should not be expected to end when the wage subsidy ceases)
• in which the employer is not receiving any other government wage subsidies, with the exception of a Tasmanian Jobs Programme wage subsidy
• that complies with minimum standards for employment as established under relevant Commonwealth, State or Territory law (including any award conditions applicable to the position)
• that is not a commission-based, self-employment or a subcontracted position
• that does not displace an existing employee, and
• that will not bring the Commonwealth into disrepute

The subsidy will be delivered through Workforce Australia providers. The Resources page contains a link to information on Restart.

Part-time or full-time study may be undertaken as an approved mutual obligation requirement, depending on the job seeker's circumstances. Part-time study may be approved with additional job search.

Only providers can approve PSW - any job seeker participating in a combination of Study and Paid Work for at least 70 hours per fortnight.

Voluntary work is available as a voluntary mutual obligation requirement for customers who are 55 years of age or over. Voluntary work must be with an approved volunteer organisation.

Note: if the job seeker is required to attend a 'base' or like place and is participating in a work-like mutual obligation requirement for the duration of their time on call, these hours may count towards their voluntary work hours.

If the job seeker is going about their daily life, without participating in any work-like mutual obligation requirement while on call, these hours cannot be counted towards their voluntary work hours.

Centrelink and providers are able to approve Voluntary Work (VWK) and Voluntary and Paid Work (VPE) activities.

Under Workforce Australia, job seekers can participate in Work for the Dole (WFD) to improve their job prospects, get valuable work experience and help their local community. Participants are entitled to a supplement when participating in WFD.