Pro-Government Head-kicker Michael Brissenden?Welfare [Social Services] sector braces for cuts?
KERRY O'BRIEN: Federal cabinet adjourned today still undecided about the final formula for what has become politically one of the toughest reform challenges the Government will face this term. For the past two decades, the disability support pension has been one of the fastest growing welfare payments [social security payments.] in the country and while unemployment is significantly lower these days, there are more people claiming the disability pension than ever before. The welfare [social] sector is bracing for the inevitability of a tougher Government approach, particularly after it takes control of the Senate from July. But there's still a great deal of argument about how reforms should be applied.
Political editor [Government Stooge and Corporate Media headkicker with eyes like Satan] Michael Brissenden?
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Mel Harrison is just one part of an alarming statistic - she is one of the 705,000 people in Australia who now claim the disability support pension.
MEL HARRISON: I've been in a wheelchair since I was 14 years old. Throughout my life I've had scoliosis and a range of other problems with my spine.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Australia has one of the highest rates of people on disability support pension in the world and the numbers are growing every day. For any government, this is a costly welfare crisis.
JUST US: But their medical practitioner and the government qualifies the numbers.
These people are not simply shunted on to the disability support pension. They claim they're sick and are provided with a medical certificate (to say that they are disabled) and the government is suppose to check it out and qualify those resuts and they did and they do. In other words they are certified less able!
And it is not as costly an exercise as reaping the 300 billion in corporate tax revenue received every year by the federal government! And if you account for the GST then the Government, Mr Brissenden, gets half the money back? Then if the government go on and spend that money on military hardware or war then one could easily argue that that money could be better spent on the social dollar?
PETER DUTTON, WORKFORCE PARICIPATION MINISTER: We know over the last 24 years, the disability support pension (DSP) cost has gone up by 34 per cent. The Australian population has grown by 35 per cent. It's almost a tenfold increase over and above population growth. There's 300 people a day go on to a disability support pension. There is about 705,000 on a DSP. We know that is a phenomenal growth?
JUST US: Really Mr Dutton so where are these figures? 300 PEOPLE A DAY GO ONTO A DISABILITY SUPPORT PENSION? Clearly that is just nonsense and because no one else argued against it and there are no figures shown to prove it, then what you and Brissenden are saying is we all have to believe you?
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Why is it happening? For all the seriously disabled recipients like Mel Harrison, critics say there are many others for who the DSP has become a refuge. It's attractive for the permanently unemployed for instance. There's no requirement to go out and there are no work tests?
JUST US: For all the serious disabled recipients? Excuse me but does that mean the others aren't serious? They're just faking it? Fake doctors certificates? Fake injuries?
Then who let them undeservedly get through the gate? In other words someone is not doing their job and has caused fraudulent claims that have burdened the real claimants?
PROFESSOR BOB GREGORY, SOCIAL SCIENCES, ANU: These are the sort of people, on average, who might have had unskilled factory jobs, warehouse jobs driving trucks and things and all those unskilled jobs, especially amongst the men, have largely disappeared.
JUST US: Well perhaps these are some of the people, on average, who might have had unskilled factory jobs that are now obsolete because of improvements in technology and got sick of looking for a job because there weren't any and became depressed? That still makes them disabled if they have been provided with a doctor's certificate and can prove they are disabled. And certainly they are not the majority of claimants.
HERE WE GO AGAIN?
PETER DUTTON: Three hundred people a day in this country going on to a disability support pension raises alarm bells for anybody objectively looking at the DSP.
JUST US: 300 HUNDRED PEOPLE A DAY! THEN YOU HAVE THE FIGURES? OR YOU ARE NOT FOLLOWING THE CORRECT PROCESS THAT PREVENTS JUST ABOUT ANYONE TO GET THROUGH THE GATE?
THE ONLY ALARM BELLS THAT ARE RINGING ARE WAR BELLS. SPENDING THE SOCIAL DOLLAR LIKE IN IRAQ 300 MILLION A YEAR TO SEND MORE MILITANTS TO KILL THE INNOCENT! RING, RING!
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: The Government has proposed changes to tighten up the tests for the disability support pension before?
[BUT, BUT, BUT], but the legislation that included a proposal to half the work test to 15 hours a week was blocked by the Opposition in the Senate. Currently pensioners are moved on to the dole if it is deemed they can work for 30 hours a week or more. Only a few weeks ago a tough report from the OECD also recommended that eligibility for the DSP should be tightened. Now it seems the time has come. Today Cabinet put a number of proposals to tighten up the criteria back on the table. After July, there won't be an intransigent Senate and as a result there surely will be a tougher DSP regime. All the groups and the Government agree assessing the extent of anyone's disability and their capacity to work is an extremely grey area.
JUST US: But does than mean most people who are not disabled average 15 hours work per week? What about 30 hours per week? Then they're disabled in relation to an able bodied person, who can work untold hours per week?
IF THEY CAN WORK THEY HAVE TO DECLARE THEY WORK AND IT CAN BE CHIECKED OUT ON THEIR TAX FILE?
IF THEY FAIL TO DECLARE THEIR INCOME THEN THEY ARE TAKEN OFF THE DISABILITY SUPPORT PENSION?
And THE DISABLED should get support, for the duration of time they cannot work. Unless you are going to argue that, 15 or even 30 hours on an average pay rate with an additional $10 dollars (they get from working for the dole) and (loss of their current benefits) will then average out their income? Then the government is simply robbing the disabled blind.
PHILLIP FRENCH, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES: It's not so much whether a person can lift a pen or speak on the telephone or do any number of other tasks, but whether they can get on the bus that they need to travel to work on or whether they can get on the train they need to travel to work on. Whether their employer is capable of making workplace adjustments that would allow them to get into the building or use an alternative to a keyboard and those sorts of things.
JUST US: Or whether they lack the ability, or whether they are too sick, or whether they're marginalised, or whether they're victimisedhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif, or whether they are vilified?
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: One of the proposals being looked at by the Government is the idea of a comprehensive testing and assessment regime by a panel they'll might include psychologists, labour market specialists and therapists.
JUST US: But they already have a number of those people who have gleaned the files, after their own doctors have certified them, and in some cases by more than one doctor and by Centrelink?
PETER DUTTON: I think it's a more comprehensive work test that would provide support to people with a great diversity of abilities and disabilities. When you talk about 700,000 people, you are talking about a great variance of conditions. Some people with the same condition have a very different work capacity. That is one of the great challenges the Government faces?
JUST US: The great challenge the Government faces is trying to SPIN THE GENERAL PUBLIC INTO BELIEVING THAT DISABLED MEANS SOMETHING ELSE OTHER THAN WHAT IT ACTUALLY IS!
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: But for the Government the emphasis is not moving people off welfare, rather they say it's helping people into work.
JUST US: Not helping people into work Michael but ahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifsking the disabled to do more work than they can. Reducing their income and benefits. And spending the social dollar on warfare and not welfare? Where is the justice in that?
PETER DUTTON: We know that is a much better outcome for people if they are able to put welfare behind them and move on to a job. It provides for a better future for them and their family.
JUST US: We also know Peter that it is much better for people to do what they naturally can do so that their nature will be satisfied. In other words most disabled people already work part time or do volunteer work for the community!
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: It has to be said the truly disabled are wary. Mel Harrison, for instance, says the current system allows her to both work and claim benefit. She's certainly worried that the proposed changes would prove to be a disincentive for her to continue working. Hardly the outcome the Government is hoping for.
JUST US: THE TRULY DISABLED? Yes doctor BRISSENDEN qualified are we to make those assumptions are you? Went to medical school did you? You spinner of the week! And not truly a disincentive for her to continue working but for every other disabled person.
MEL HARRISON: I'm currently working 28 hours a week, paid. If these changes go through, that is over the amount of hours that I can actually work without losing my disability pension. I would not be able to stay at my job if the hours are decreased because my position is only a part-time position, which enables me to work up to 30 hours a week. I wouldn't be able to stay there if I could only work up to 15 hours a week.
PHILLIP FRENCH: I think Mel is a great example of a person with disability who faces substantial barriers to gaining employment, but nevertheless very strongly wants to be able to participate in the work force. If she fears that as a result of attempting employment she will lose her pension, then she will become risk averse and her health professionals and so forth will say she's too disabled to achieve employment.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Clearly this is not just about the seriously disabled? Economists like Bob Gregory point out the disability support pension has become a symbol of a wider economic problem that has yet to be adequately addressed. He, and some in the disability support area, worry that the wider social and structural problems will be overlooked in an effort to rein in the increasingly expensive welfare problem.
JUST US: More worrying is the wider economic social problem of paying the disabled $10 dollars for working for the dole? Taking away their benefits?
The Government then saving the difference of $20 dollars a week by posting them to Newstart and then spending their welfare dollar on military hardware and war?
BOB GREGORY: Those who come from unemployment benefits, about 40 per cent, have already been unemployed for four or five years or more. There may be people who are there that shouldn't be there, but that is not what this is about. This is about a large growth in people who can't find jobs in a modern economy subject to all the pressures that a modern economy generates.
JUST US: NO BOB THIS IS NOT WHAT THIS IS ABOUT.
THIS IS WHAT IT IS ABOUT!
Welfare Reform for Warfare Expenditure?
John Howard: "Self-evidently we would have liked the major combat to have gone differently ... [but] coalition withdrawal or defeat is unimaginable."
By Just Us 31 March 05
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Welfare Reform for Warfare Expenditure?
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Corporate Welfare
Corporate welfare or how to steal social services?
Ever wondered why there are so many homeless, why we need a 10 pc GST, lack of services for mental disability, still paying off the Olympics, poor public transport planning etc etc etc?
Unemployed:
Work for the dole is legal slavery
Work for the dole was originally sold to us by Howard as a warm and fuzzy light work project. We would be working for nothing but we would be enjoying giving back something to the community, so it was reckoned.
FIGHT UNEMPLOYMENT!
Peter Costello commended this result in his budget speech. Even if we were to believe this figure it still means more than half a million living at a level much lower than that is recognised as poverty.
Mark Latham's, token gestures for older unemployed
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Work for the dole failure for two thirds
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Work for the dole? $10.00?
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Youth welfare system unfair: ACOSS
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Federal Budget: Tax cuts for the rich!
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Private job network agency blues
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Indigenous Social Justice Association Djadi Dugarang
INDIGENOUS EMPLOYMENT. Part 1
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Military Spending
Howard: We as a nation have got to invest heavily in defence?
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Hill primed for war!
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Troop deployment not a deepening of effort: Hill
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Auditor Generals damning defence report
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