Disability Pensioners Living Overseas

[icyfroth]

This was being discussed on the breakfast show this moring:

THOUSANDS of Australian disability pensioners are receiving taxpayers' money to live overseas, many in places best known as holiday destinations.

Australians are paying $100 million a year to fund 7300 recipients of the disability pension living overseas.

Official figures show the greatest number, more than 1200, live in Greece, while hundreds more live in Turkey, Croatia, Thailand and New Zealand.

The Philippines and areas of Indonesia, including 83 people in Bali, are among the other destinations where Australian disability pensioners are living at a cost to the taxpayer of $99.9 million a year, News Corp reports.

Social Service Minister Kevin Andrews has told News Corp he has asked for information clarifying residency requirements for such pensioners, saying he's concerned some pension recipients may be choosing to live overseas for lifestyle reasons at the expense of taxpayers.

The federal government now disallows the pension for those who are overseas for more than six weeks.

From Here

The consensus of callers invited to comment felt that disability pensioners should be living in Australia. That is my opinion also. $100 mil for aussie pensioners living overseas permanently is money that's not going back into the Aus economy.

[*crikey*mate*]

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@am*3 wrote:
What life would you choose?

1. To be healthy and fit and have full employment.

Or

2. Have an permanent illness and/or disability that means you can never work again and be in receipt of a meagre Govt benefit. ( which also allows you to be in receipt of that pension if you live overseas)

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genuine question on this topic, and please note I don't have an opinion either way.

The person receiving the DSP and living overseas, are they subjected to the same income/asset scrutiny that those who remain in Australia are?

I mean, if they live in Greece, are they monitored that they are not earning extra income somehow, like on eBay or at the markets iykwim? or that they are genuinely still disabled and unable to work? what kinds of medical checks etc are in place for those receiving the DSP, and are those who choose to live overseas subjected to the same requirements?

[*crikey*mate*]

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@am*3 wrote:
Residence requirements for Disability Support Pension

To be eligible for Disability Support Pension you must satisfy residence requirements. You must:

be an Australian resident, and
be physically present in Australia on the day you lodge your claim
You also need to have been an Australian resident for a continuous period of at least 10 years, or for a number of periods that total more than ten years, with one of the periods being at least five years, unless:

This bit here, requiring us to only live here for p[eriods totalling 10 years. If we lived somewhere else for another 10 years inbetween, are we eligible to collect the DSP from that country as well as Aust? kind of like double dipping iykwim. (I know not all countries have the DSP or similar, but of the ones that do)

so can i get a payment from both New Zealand AND Australia? (for example)

you are a refugee or former refugee, or
your inability to work or blindness happened while you were an Australian resident, or
you were a dependent child of an Australian resident at the time your inability to work or blindness happened and you became an Australian resident while you were a dependent child
You may need to meet the above residence requirements for as long as you get this payment.

If you have lived or worked in a country with which Australia has an international social security agreement, it may help you meet these residence requirements.

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[*crikey*mate*]

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@am*3 wrote:
The aged pension eligibility for how many years you have to live here first is very complicated and needs to be addressed on each individual.. How long , what country they came from, if they are going to live in another country when retired etc..

Can be 30 years.

A DSP person living overseas coming back to Australia for medical treatment.. Not sure. They would be Australian citizens to be eligible for the DSP. Whether they would still be eligible for a medicare card if they lived oseas permanently would be the issue.

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up there a bit, it just says they have to be a resident

[*crikey*mate*]

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@am*3 wrote:
Residence requirements for Disability Support Pension

To be eligible for Disability Support Pension you must satisfy residence requirements. You must:

be an Australian resident, and
be physically present in Australia on the day you lodge your claim
You also need to have been an Australian resident for a continuous period of at least 10 years, or for a number of periods that total more than ten years, with one of the periods being at least five years, unless:

you are a refugee or former refugee, or
your inability to work or blindness happened while you were an Australian resident, or
you were a dependent child of an Australian resident at the time your inability to work or blindness happened and you became an Australian resident while you were a dependent child
You may need to meet the above residence requirements for as long as you get this payment.

If you have lived or worked in a country with which Australia has an international social security agreement, it may help you meet these residence requirements.

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citizen or resident?

[cherry*135]

"If has been assessed as having NO FUTURE WORK CAPACITY can remain outside Australia indefinitely."

I don't imagine it would be easy to fake that assessment.

If they are assessed as having no future work capacity, then that would be it, why monitor them?
I doubt many would get assessed with that per year.

[*crikey*mate*]

AM, I'm not arguing, ok? I M TRYING TO LEARN and understand (sorry about the caops lock stoopid keyboard)

Iso only those with no future work capacity can live overseas? Is that ruight?

or is the clarification "no future work capacity in the usual field where the person was employed" iykwim

so a person may no longer be able to work in brick carrying, or whatever, the career that they specialized in, but can still maybe work in an office or a home business like eBay. kinda thing

I'm just thinking there seems to be a bit of a worry on the trading boards when it was announced that the ATO was now looking at eBay members who turned over $10,000 or more, there are clearly a few people out there, maybe not declaring everything they do iykwim.

I daresay that Christopher reeve would have qualified for a DSP, yet he was still able to generate income.And one of the past directors of CERN, same thing, he was still able to generate income even though he was severely disabled.

[lind9650]

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@lionrose.7 wrote:

You have to be a Australian Citizen to get the Australian old age pension, disability pension or any benefit, does not matter how long you have lived in Australia.

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If that is a fact, then Centerlink has some slack staff. I know of one person that is not an Australian Citizen. Never got naturalised and still spouts how proud he is of his nationality of his country of origin. He has been in Australia for 56 years and for most of the time avoided to pay taxes by being self employed and never claiming cash transactions, but he does receive the full Age Pension.

Erica

[cherry*135]

The rukes for aged pensions ( for citizens not born in Australia) have tightened a lot in the last few years.

If I returned to NZ as an aged pensioner I wouldn't get the full Aust pension.. It may be higher than the NZ one and the AUD being higher than the NZD would mean I would get more than. NZer on a NZ pension. The idea is you shouldn't be better off on an aged pension than the other people in the country you live in.

Aust has reciprocal agreements with some countries.. Aust may pay Aust citizens living in NZ their pensions and the NZ govt pay vice versa. Or they pay half each.

Years ago it was different, people could double dip with 2 countries pensions.

It is really complicated, depends on how long you have lived in Aust and what country you come from.

[cherry*135]

Some people if they arrived in Australia before a certain year (1965?) got the same benefits as Aust citizens without having to formally take out citizenship...the could vote as well. That may have depended on if they came from a Commonwealth country to, not sure about that.

I know you aren't arguing crikey, it is just a complicated area where individuals need to find out for themselves from Centrelink ( esp for aged pension for those not born in Australia).

[cherry*135]

Centrelink's definition of a 'resident'

Australian resident
An Australian resident is a person who is living in Australia and is either:

an Australian citizen
a permanent visa holder, or
a 'protected' Special Category Visa (SCV) holder

Special Category Visa (SCV) holder
People who arrive in Australia on a New Zealand passport are generally issued an SCV on arrival.
SCV holders who arrived in Australia after 26 February 2001 are generally considered to be 'non-protected