In short:
Establish a federally funded national job guarantee program
- Properly measure unemployment and underemployment
- Regard full employment as equating to around 2 per cent unemployment
- Initially focus the job guarantee program on protecting and restoring Australia’s environment
Related policies
Policy Objective
Establish a federally funded national job guarantee program in order to ensure full employment, managed through the re-established Commonwealth Employment Service (CES), and initially focused on protecting and restoring Australia’s environment.
Policy Actions (Federal & State)
To support this objective, Sustainable Australia Party will:
- Properly measure unemployment and underemployment
- Regard full employment as equating to around 2 per cent unemployment, being people moving between jobs, and with no underemployment
- Provide citizens unable to secure other appropriate work (e.g. in the private sector) with secure work through the job guarantee program on (at least) the national minimum wage of around $40,000 per annum
- Initially focus the job guarantee program on protecting and restoring Australia’s environment, including:
- Conservation management, including via State national parks
- Further developing land stewardship funds to support relevant farmers and rural landowners to help manage biodiversity values on their properties, including areas that are either high conservation value and/or unsuitable or marginal for agricultural use (also see Regional Australia policy)
- Restoring failed plantations back to native forest
- Further developing humane reduction and eradication programs for high-risk invasive species (also see Animals & Biodiversity and Regional Australia policies)
- Rehabilitating abandoned mines
- Transitioning redundant fossil fuel-based mining employees into other work
- Operating a repair café in every suburb and town in Australia
- Retro-fitting housing for energy efficiency
- Undergrounding powerlines to minimise bushfire risks, as recommended by the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission
- Other projects appropriately determined by local councils and state governments
"...the [state’s stock route] network also harbours campsites and areas of ecological and cultural significance, leading to furious discussion about who should ultimately pay to maintain key infrastructure that will benefit a diverse stakeholder group." InQueensland
"In Australia, you have tens of thousands of abandoned mines — abandonment of mines still happens now. You have mines that are put on 'care and maintenance' and that's it." ABC
- Later consider other health and wellbeing-related industries in the job guarantee program