Australians with disabilities need some positive help

[donnashuggy]

Seems like they are being punished instead and life is going to be made harder for them.

[boris1gary]

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@punch*drunk wrote:

What percentage of people with disabilities have or require carers? I know several adults & children with disabilties and none have a carer recieving the carer payment. Even the profoundly disabled. I doubt that removing people from the carer payment is an alterior motive.

I also doubt that this kind of policy would target those that need carers.

I think there are almost certainly some people receiving DSP that could work and should therefore be reassessed. Its a tricky area though because no 2 disabilities are the same so I guess there will be some that are unneccesarily inconvenienced by getting reassessed and found to be still unable to work.

Perhaps some will want to be reassessed so they can get some assistance to get work.

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Inconvenience? It's already extremely difficult to get on the DSP and it has been for sometime. There is nothing "tricky" about being unable to work because of a disability. Doctors know what that are doing, there is absolutely nothing to gain for a Dr to agree that a patient can't work. This govt will simply "raise the bar" then have the assessments done by "independent" Dr's, maybe like the UK, even nurses.  Those thrown off will still be unable to work and will be forced to attend time wasting "job search" meetings, where the only thing they won't find is a job. What do you imagine this "assistance" to get work is?

Up until recently their were incentives for disabled people to try and gain some work, not anymore. Check out the story below.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/22400354/not-disabled-enough-for-pension/

Former Telethon child Prue Hawkins has been told she is not impaired enough to get the disability support pension.

When her Legal Aid contract ended in February, she reapplied for the DSP, had a face-to-face assessment with Centrelink and started looking for a new job.

A leader among WA's disabled community, the 33-year-old wheelchair user has osteogenesis imperfecta - also known as brittle bone disease.

She currently has a broken leg. Despite her severe physical restrictions, she completed a law degree, then worked as a disability discrimination and family lawyer from age 28 to 32.

[punch*drunk]

But personally I've never known someone with a profound disability to not require a carer,

Agreed, but they are not all on a carer payment and that was the point I was really getting at. Reassessing DSP recipients is not really some kind of back handed way to get at carers, the disabled that require carers are the least likely to be assessed as capable of working. And there are many, many disabled that dont require carers at all.

[freakiness]

It all boils down to income units with this grossly over-budget commission of audit. 

[cherry*135]

Someone mentioned earlier the low pay rates the disabled people get  working in Govt subsidised Industries jobs. Which they get in addition to their DSP.

There is a  case about to go before Fair Work Commission about the low pay rates .However, if wage rate is raised the places that provide work may no longer be viable (due to high wage expenses). A legal victory would affect up to 10 000 disabled workers.

May 12

The Health Services Union and United Voice will lodge an application in the Fair Work Commission today seeking to have all wage assessment tools removed from Australian Disability Enterprises (ADE), formerly known as sheltered workshops, and replaced with the Supported Wage System (SWS).

The SWS, created in the 90s, is used to assist disabled employees enter the open employment market. ADEs are government-subsidised businesses and usually support workers with greater needs and lower skills, some of whom are paid as little as $1 an hour.

The move by the unions, which is supported by the ACTU, comes after a landmark appeal in which a Federal Court judge found the Business Services Wage Assessment Tool (BSWAT), used by up to 60 ADEs, was discriminatory and its competency test was unfair and led to lower wages for disabled workers.

[bella_again]

Last week I think it was there was a decision.  I can't find the newspaper article but here is a discussion about it

http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2014/s3999328.htm

[lane-ends]

Without carers doing the job they do the trainwreck of uncared for disabled will have to be born by a medical system that cant cope with the consequencies.

Just for a double wammy it is the disabled that need a lot of Drs and hospital appointments so they wil get hit yet again  for that,. Thats before we even talk about raising costs of prescriptions and raising safety nets.

How are these disabled supposed to get jobs and be employable when the govt is dumping even more fit and healthy workers back into the jobs market to compete with

[bella_again]

Yes its scary Lane ends, they want participation, you do participation they remove the support and they expect better results... It's awful. It looks like they are going to review everyone under 35 now on top of that.  What hope do they have ?  So many carers will be tempted to chuck the towel in, its hard on them already with out this added BS 😞  I hope they leave those who are severely disabled alone and that those manifestly approved will not have to go through the review process.

[lane-ends]

It will force the carers to take on extra work to pick up the slack due to any cuts or additional expenses. This is not the same as unemployed doing more work as that obviously solves being unemployed. With a crer that simply means doing two jobs, earning and caring, and as less time is available for caring, it becomes less effective. The disabled become worse and put even more strain on the medical system.

More support for the carers and this will ultimately reduce the strain the disabled put on the medical system. Nurses and social workers cost more than I do. Picking up the mess that I prevent from happening in the first place costs more in the long run, even if you take the human factor out of it.

[*elizabeths-mum*]

It appalls me that caring for the disabled is such an undervalued occupation.

[bella_again]

Sadly carers will have to be really careful. I had read that they are changing the criteria re participation again to try and reduce the amount of people on carer payment.  I will do some research on that and try and get back if I can find it.  But it seems if they do too much to try and change or better their situation they will lose out even more. It is so crazy!

Yet they save the government millions every year.  Wonder what would happen if a few thousand of us dropped out kids off at Joe Hocky's office and ask the government to fund the 200 - 780,000 per kid to go into resi care,  Bet they would reconsider their policy very quickly.

I'm appalled.  I normally try to stay positive but honestly I'm so worried about the future and what that holds for my girls.  I just want to cry 😞