Not everyone on the Disability Support Pension is a bludger, a shirker or a fantasist, writes Samantha Maiden.
BASHING up disability support pensioners as an army of bludgers has become a national sport with painful consequences for deserving recipients.
Families with disabled children who have no other choice but to rely on the DSP don’t need a “tough love’’ cure. They need people to stop suggesting their kids are bludgers when they struggle, in many cases, every day of their lives.
Endless debate about reducing payments or changing the system has provoked enormous anxiety for those families.
It’s one of the reasons why many will applaud welfare expert Patrick McClure’s call today for the current system to be effectively abolished in favour of a scheme that covers only the permanently and seriously disabled.
Cleaning up the mess of welfare payments in Australia is not just about saving money. It should also be about public confidence in the system and certainty for vulnerable people who rely on it.
In a report to be released on Sunday, McClure will propose a new system that reserves the DSP for adults with no capacity for work.
It would involve kicking hundreds of thousands of Australians off the DSP system. But they would not be left without support. Instead, they would secure a working age payment and support for getting back into the workforce when they are ready.
McClure is proposing a tiered working age payment to replace the DSP. It would bridge the gap between the dole or Newstart and the DSP. Rather than a “set and forget’’ payment, the idea that it is a temporary payment for a temporary disability would be upfront.
That’s an important shift.
The goal is ending the perverse incentive to “get on’’ the DSP because it pays recipients more than the dole and attracts less mutual obligation to look for work.
Currently, you can secure up to $800 a fortnight on the DSP. That compares with up to $500 on unemployment benefits.
The system that McClure is proposing would create a middle ground between the dole and the DSP for people who are not permanently disabled.
For some people on the dole who did not qualify for the DSP but do suffer from anxiety or depression it may involve extra payments and support.
It’s an idea that Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews will now ask Australians to debate as the Government prepares next steps in the welfare reform agenda.
Currently, there are a startling 830,000 working age Australians living on DSP payments.
It’s something of a myth that it’s easy to get on the DSP. Labor and Liberal governments have tightened eligibility. But an ageing population is a big factor.
Some suggest the DSP is something of a de facto retirement option for older Australians too young to claim the aged pension. That is a problem the Government must address now as it confronts an ageing population and even greater pressures on the DSP.
A Commission of Audit report released in May said the big drivers of growth on the DSP are rising numbers of women qualifying since partner-related payments including the wife pension and widow allowance were closed down, the widening gap between the DSP and the unemployment benefit, and increases to the age pension age.
Over the past decade the number of people claiming the DSP on the basis of psychological illness has also increased by 90,000 to 256,380. Once, the most common complaint was bad backs and musculoskeletal problems. But that’s been falling in recent years with anxiety, depression and schizophrenia rising.
THERE’S little doubt some Australians are rorting the system. News that some of the jihadists living out toy soldier fantasies in the real battlefields of the Middle East were declared “disabled” by the system is an indictment on the status quo. But we shouldn’t besmirch the reputations of the disabled in calling for necessary reforms.
Not everyone on the DSP is a bludger, a shirker or a fantasist. In many cases, psychological illness can be a debilitating barrier to finding and holding on to a job.
We also should not kid ourselves that these reforms will save money in the short term.
Welfare reform is expensive and providing the long-term unemployed with the training many need to be attractive to employers is not cheap.
Armchair experts can forget it if they think kicking a few thousand rorters off the DSP will fix the deficit. The growing burden of Australia’s ageing population and the ballooning aged pension bill is a bigger problem.
Finally, there’s another big reason why bashing up DSP recipients is counterproductive.
Many employers are already reluctant to hire people with a disability. By arguing that everyone on the DSP is a bludger, critics are creating another barrier to people with a temporary disability getting back into the workforce. That would be a perverse outcome.
By stopping the rorts, the Abbott Government will give deserving recipients the dignity they deserve.
samantha.maiden@news.com.au
Originally published as Stop rorts but don’t dismiss those in need
