JOSH Smith, 21, of Burnie, Tasmania, left school when he was in Year 8. He’s never had a job, never had a job interview. This is what intergenerational poverty looks like up close. If dysfunction was searching for a poster boy, Josh Smith may well be the man.

He was a good kid, he said, until about the age of 12. Then, amid family disputes, he started stealing, getting into trouble with the police and ended up in foster care. Josh’s teenage years were a trudge up and down dry gullies. He didn’t have a stable permanent home. He left school at 14 and never went back. No one seemed to notice. He harvested potatoes for a bit, but that never worked out either. At the age of 17 he hooked up with a girl called Sheryl-Lee, who was 16. Sheryl-Lee got pregnant.

He and Sheryl-Lee have split up, but still live together in the same dismal housing commission house in Upper Burnie with their daughter Nikayla, now three. His prospects of finding work are grim. He doesn’t have a driver’s licence because he’s never had access to a car, or someone to teach him to drive, and he can’t afford lessons; there are no trains and the bus service is patchy. He left school in Year 8 and while he’s done a couple of courses, he has no real qualifications.

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Josh has applied for a bunch of jobs — but for entry-level positions in Burnie, stacking shelves at Woolies or waiting tables, there are upwards of 200 applicants. He has never even had a job interview. The proposed new rule that the unemployed should apply for 40 jobs a month simply cannot apply to him if he stays in Burnie. There aren’t that many jobs for him to apply for.

Read Greg Bearup’s disturbing portrait of life among the entrenched unemployed tomorrow in The Weekend Australian Magazine.