Liberals to axe disability pensions

Bob Briton

The elections are well and truly over and the Libs' $66 billion 
vote-catching spree has come to an abrupt end. The distribution 
of all those taxpayers' dollars stacked up through "careful 
economic management" of a "thriving economy" has stopped and we 
are back to talking all those intolerable drains on the economy 
that simply have to be plugged.

High on the list are old people with a recent Productivity 
Commission report on our ageing population. Workforce 
participation rates are reportedly set to fall by eight percent 
by 2040 and (wouldn't you know it) the Pharmaceutical Benefit 
Scheme will not be viable into the future in its current form. 
Increased productivity is clearly not going to be spent on the 
elderly — that will be taken in private profits.

Indigenous Australians are being talked about again for special 
treatment in the area of social security. Whole communities may 
be punished in future for non-compliance with a range of 
Government directives. According to leaked documents, individuals 
may have deductions made from their "smart card" accounts for 
transgressions including failure to have a shower!

The hit list does not stop there. The more than 670,000 
Australians struggling on the Disability Support Pension (DSP) 
are also, as far as this government is concerned, an intolerable 
drain on the economy.

Their affairs have already been transferred from the Department 
of Family and Community Services to the Department of Employment 
and Workplace Relations. A new Minister for Workforce 
Participation, Peter Dutton, is now on their cases and pushing 
the new "work first — welfare second" line in the media.

The government has just released a final report on an $800,000, 
six-month pilot scheme involving 1100 DSP recipients. The report 
contained conclusions that were news to absolutely nobody. For 
example, over 90 percent of the participants "really want to 
work". The response of the government, however, is to promote the 
idea that DSP recipients do not have any real obstacles to 
rejoining the workforce and that a disability pension is 
available simply for the asking! Nothing could be further from 
the truth. 

Members of the trial group, who were given the maximum assistance 
available through the largely private Jobs Network, had varying 
degrees of success in gaining employment. Of the roughly one in 
five of the participants who found work, 39 percent got casual 
jobs, 31 percent got part-time positions while only 22 percent 
scored a full-time job. Another eight percent had started 
studies.

The government is working hard to rectify the "misconception" 
among disabled pensioners that taking up some of the McJobs on 
offer in today's labour market might make them worse off. "An 
immediate priority is to ensure that more people on DSP are 
informed about their option to give work a try and not be worse 
off, and of the assistance available under the Jobs Network", as 
Mr Dutton puts it.

It is unlikely that Mr Dutton has ever received a DSP or any 
other Commonwealth "benefit". If he had, he would know that the 
complex thresholds for payments and the similarly complicated 
reporting system imposed on recipients would try the patience of 
a saint.

ACOSS President Andrew McCallum summed it up the results of the 
experiment this way:

"This pilot study underlines how hard it is for people with 
disabilities to find work and the importance of employment 
assistance. Of the 1100 voluntary participants who started this 
pilot only 57 percent completed it and less than 10 percent of 
them obtained a substantial paid job."

And it is noteworthy that only 57 percent of this small group of 
"winners" in the Government's pilot scheme considered themselves 
to be better off financially.

The Minister maintains that people "choose" to remain on a DSP 
out of ignorance of the "option" to work. It seems that 
pensioners believe the government would seek to deny them their 
benefits if they did manage to get some of the scraps of work on 
offer around the place. And they are absolutely right! Mr Dutton 
must think DSP recipients all suffer from short-term memory loss!

Coercion

During the Howard Government's last term in office, it moved to 
reduce the number of hours a disabled person can work before 
losing any benefit at all from 30 hours to just 15! Persons 
deemed able to work 15 hours or more would have been forced onto 
the unemployed NewStart allowance and lose $52 off their base 
rate straight away. They were set to lose their $5.80 
pharmaceutical allowance and concessions on a number of utilities 
and for transport.

Only a hostile Senate prevented the Government from carrying out 
these plans. Of course, Howard no longer has this particular 
obstacle to overcome. Mr Dutton was not able to specify to the 
media how many DSP recipients were currently rorting the system 
when asked about the situation last week. It seems, though, that 
he is happy for the press to bandy around the figure of 150,000 
individuals who might be forced to look for work. He also 
encourages the idea that his plans to apply the pilot's methods 
will save in the order of $1 billion. Dutton speaks openly about 
the need to use "coercion" on those resisting the government's 
assistance.

For the record, prior to the attempt to enact the "work for the 
pension" model in the 2002/3 Federal Budget, Howard's own 
Department of Family and Community Services was obliged to make 
the following, very revealing, points:

* Nine percent of those receiving the pension are already working 
— "a figure that is growing";

* Although the number of people on the pension is growing, "the 
actual rate of increase is slowing";

* The majority of new pension recipients in 2002, 55 percent, 
were "transferred onto Disability by the Department";

* Many women (58 percent) with disabilities have, in the past, 
been disguised through receipt of other types of payments e.g. 
Widow B and Wife Pension, which, through previous "welfare 
reform" measures, were discontinued.

Still, it is an ill wind that blows nobody no good, as they say. 
The publicly funded but mostly privately operated Jobs Network is 
about to have a large batch of new "clients" forced onto their 
books.