He was so bored and had so little to do, he came to view the program as one designed to punish the unemployed, not helping them gain skills and experience.

Now Mr Bennett, 25, is involved in building a union for the unemployed, in a bid to better advocate for the nearly 750,000 Australians without a job.

Unemployment has been rising and is up by more than 100,000 people in the past three years. The Abbott government has responded with new programs of Work for the Dole and a proposal for unemployed people under 30 to wait up to six months before they receive welfare.

It recently shelved a proposal – regarded as too onerous on employers – requiring the unemployed to apply for up to 40 jobs a month.

The move by Mr Bennett and others is not the first attempt to create an unemployed union.

In the 1930s, during the Depression, the Communist-inspired Unemployed Workers Movement grew rapidly to fight evictions and to successfully push for sustenance payments  - known as "susso" - for families in need. In the early 1990s recession another radical unemployed union formed and one of its first acts was to try occupy a CES office in central Sydney, but it petered out.

The latest iteration, the Australian Unemployment Union, is using a mix of old and new tactics.

It has about 600 people signed up to an email database as well as a presence on Facebook and Twitter and an organising committee with people from three states. There has also been old-fashioned rabble rousing with activists going to Centrelink offices to hand out leaflets and agitate.

"Unemployed people don't have the same bargaining power as workers," Mr Bennett said. "We do need someone to advocate for us."

Mr Bennett said a challenge is that the unemployed often felt isolated and "ashamed about being unemployed".

"There's an internal battle around unemployment, people feel inadequate if they don't have a job. They feel they are at fault."

He said there was a need for much higher unemployment payments, a return to full employment and to tackle government programs that seek to "punish" the unemployed. "It's an ideological battle as much as an economic battle."

They are being helped by the National Union of Workers, which is trying to broaden its reach by launching "community memberships" for people who support the union's values but are not in one of the industries they represent that include warehouses and poultry.

National secretary Tim Kennedy said the union had been campaigning on insecure work – such as labour hire and casual labour – and wanted to expand that beyond a "narrow labourist" approach to involve the community including students, the retired and unemployed.

As part of that it is offering the Australian Unemployment Union use of its Docklands offices as well as advice on organising techniques.

Mr Kennedy said the issues faced by its members and the unemployed were similar. "There's an issue around rising inequality in this country and an agenda of trying to impose austerity on those least able to fend it off."

Unions have suffered from a falling share of the workforce, in particular in the private sector, where only 12 per cent of the workforce is unionised.

Mr Kennedy said the community membership idea had been successful in Britain, with the union Unite. "Other collective unions have worked out in order to be effective in today's fragmented economy you need to reach out in the communities we work."