Budget 2002-03:
Disability Pension changes: cruel and unworkable

John Howard and Peter Costello's planned changes to the Disability 
Support Pension have met with universal outrage and condemnation. In an 
effort to scrape up every available dollar to fund Australia's 
international war effort, beefed up "border protection" and "domestic 
security" measures, hundreds of thousands of disabled pensioners will be 
forced onto the dole queue. The Labor, Democrat and Green Senators say they 
will block these measures.

The Federal Government's budget plan is ludicrous, cruel and unworkable.

Mr Howard, citing a blow-out in the number of people accessing the 
Disability Support Pension, says the Government will introduce tough new 
eligibility requirements, and harshly reassess existing recipients to 
drastically cut numbers.

The effect on one of the most disadvantaged groups in society will be 
severe.

A disabled pensioner deemed only able to work 14 hours or under per week 
will still receive full disability pension, including discounts on phone, 
gas, electricity and transport.

However, after assessment under new rules they may be required to perform 
volunteer community work. (Read: "work for the pension" along the same 
lines as "work for the dole").

A disabled person deemed able to work 15 hours per week will be moved onto 
NewStart allowance, immediately losing $52 a fortnight off their base rate, 
plus their $5.80 pharmaceutical allowance. (This will happen at the same 
time the Government increases the charge for their prescriptions by 30 per 
cent.)

They will lose the concessions on phone, gas and electricity and pay more 
for transport. If the person is not currently employed, or is working under 
15 hours, they will be required to apply for up to 10 jobs a week.

The financial impact of these new arrangements will be devastating.

Howard and Costello are hoping the budget measures will put one-third of 
Australia's 625,000 disabled into work. The inevitable fact is that they 
will be left languishing on the dole-queue with the current 650,000 
unemployed.

This then makes a furphy of John Howard's prediction that unemployment will 
remain at six per cent over the next 12 months — adding 200,000 to the 
queue for jobs would see the unemployment rate rocket straight to eight per 
cent.

Mr Howard, you can't have it both ways.

The scheme may also backfire horribly on the government. Pensioners who are 
rehabilitating in an effort to build up their part-time work hours may 
cease their efforts, knowing of the draconian measures that will be forced 
upon them should they reach 15 hours.

Those who are already currently working between 15 and 30 hours may cut 
back — knowing that it may be cheaper in the long run to work less and 
earn less, but keep the disability pension with its pharmaceutical 
allowance and utility and transport discounts.

The Government has already made its intentions known that it will target 
those over 45, people with chronic asthma and back problems, and the 
mentally ill because of trials it is already conducting in certain 
locations

The pressure on a 50 year old asthmatic with a mental illness being forced 
to apply for 10 jobs per week may have untold compounding effects on their 
existing health problems.

And the likelihood of that person finding a job when competing with able-
bodied job-seekers would surely be slim at best.

The proposed changes would also make life extremely difficult for people 
whose chronic illnesses are cyclical, for example those with cystic 
fibrosis, HIV, or bi-polar mental illness.

While they may be fit to work a 25-hour week for two or three months in a 
row, they may be completely unfit for the three after that.

Will such a person be forced to go through a medical re-evaluation and 
benefit change each time there is a fluctuation in their illness?

How could such a person hold down a part-time job with an unpredictable 
illness that required irregular leave from work?

As a "sweetener" to the deal, the Government has offered an extra $743 
million over five years to the States to fund services for the extremely 
disabled such as housing, rehabilitation, education and (predictably) job 
search programs.

However, to produce this "extra" funding the Government is using the oldest 
budget trick in the book: re-announce a previous commitment as new. In this 
case the Government had already earmarked $500 million for this purpose.

Even then this sugar comes at a price: the States must find and extra $743 
million in their own budgets to match the Federal Government's; and that 
the Labor Premiers must pressure their State's Senators to pass the budget 
intact.

To sell the Disability Pension changes to the Australian public, Mr Howard 
says that the number of people accessing the pension is growing at an 
alarming rate, and cannot truly reflect the number of truly disabled, i.e., 
those who are not fit to work 15 hours a week, in the community.

Yet a closer examination of the figures reveals this as baseless hysteria. 
Data from the Mr Howard's own Department of Family and Community Services 
on the disability pension population show:

* nine per cent 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 per cent, were 
"transferred onto Disability by the Department";

* many women (58 per cent) 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.

* Similarly the raising of the age for recipient of Aged Pension for women 
from 60 to 65 has also artificially increased the population of Disability 
recipients over time.

The Government has continually cited the McClure Report on welfare reform 
as the basis for all of its changes to the welfare system.

"Work for the dole", "activity diaries", "preparing for work" contracts, 
and the financial penalty system are all faithfully applied as per the 
report.

Yet it has long been clear that the Government has picked apart this 
report, selecting only the points that they can interpret in ways that meet 
its economic agenda.

These changes to the disability system are also said to reflect an outcome 
of the report.

Yet the chair of Mr Howard's own welfare reform committee, Patrick McClure, 
said on ABC Radio, "Where I have concerns is this modification of 
eligibility criteria, so one of the modifications is that they're going to 
reduce the hours worked from 30 to 15.

"It just doesn't have the balance and it's not the spirit of our report 
which was that there was no aim to disadvantage people who were on a 
disability support pension."