|
Home
About
Us
Media
Priorities
Publications
Education
Students
Service
Guide
Contact
Us
|
SECTION 1 -
INTRODUCTION
a. Current
System Inequitable, Inefficient,
Outdated
The PDCN believes that the
need for a comprehensive review of social
security support for individuals excluded from
mainstream social, cultural and economic
activities is long overdue.
We welcome, therefore, the
major review initiated by Minister Newman of the
safety net supports for people with
disabilities. We believe that the current
support arrangements are inequitable,
inefficient and outdated.
The supports are
inequitable because:
- People with the same
physical, sensory or intellectual impairments
are treated differently depending on the
origins of those impairments - whether
acquired through an accident where
compensation is paid, for example, or whether
acquired by birth or through an accident
where compensation is not paid
- People with different
impairments are treated the same even when
the additional cost of living due to the
effect of disability are substantially
different. Some people receive a DSP benefit
even though they incur no additional costs
resulting from their disability, while others
receive no more than the DSP even though they
incur thousands of dollars of additional
costs due to their impairment and the social
exclusion resulting from
disability.
- People with the same
impairment are treated differently depending
on where they live. Differences occur not
only between states, but also across local
areas. Support systems which are designed to
promote social inclusion, such as Home Care
and PADP, have been increasingly restricted
and reserved to local areas in ways which
discourage a person from moving between
areas.
The supports are
inefficient because they discourage workforce
participation rather than encourage it, and
thereby lead to a wasted resource in the
Australian economy. (See p. 21 ff)) The supports
are outdated because they assume that people
with disabilities are a homogeneous group. The
reverse is true. Disabled people are a
heterogeneous group in which each
individual’s impairment requires that
support systems and organisations recognise and
respond to substantially different support
needs, significantly different social needs and
a different range of abilities. The differences
moreover have both quantitative and qualitative
significance.
People with
physical, sensory or intellectual impairments
have no more or less in common with each
other than do people with blue, green or
brown coloured eyes. People with disabilities
share nothing in common, necessarily, other
than their demand for society’s
acceptance of their difference. This common
demand provides a strong cultural and
political bonding, but the nature of any
individual’s need for support varies
across the community of people with
disabilities. In some cases the demand for
acceptance involves nothing more than
psychological acceptance. In other cases the
acceptance involves no more than flexibility
and a little problem-solving ability on the
part of the able-bodied. In some cases the
acceptance involves accommodations with a
financial commitment – by the community,
by the employer, by the retailer, by the
educator – sometimes a small financial
commitment, and sometimes more significant
financial commitment In some cases the
acceptance involves all of the above
elements.
b. Recognition of the
Issues
PDCN welcomes the
recognition that increasing the workforce
participation of people with disabilities is
important since people with disabilities face
social isolation and want to work. As has been
shown by the Australian Bureau of
Statistics’ Survey of Disabilities (1993
and 1998) people with disabilities have more
time and less money available than they would
like. For many, work provides the only
accessible social milieu apart from family or a
limited set of personal contacts determined more
by the constraints of an inaccessible
infrastructure than by personal choice. Work can
and does provide the means for the independence,
the self-esteem, and the dignity which every
human being craves.
PDCN welcomes the
recognition that increasing workforce
participation will require:
- “a host of other
services and supports” and a
“stronger focus on prevention and early
intervention” - since we believe that
Australian society as a whole and our economy
will benefit enormously from the significant
investment required to increase the workforce
participation of people with disabilities
(p.6 and p. 8 of Discussion
Paper)
- flexibly tailored
assistance focussed on the individual rather
than arbitrarily defined categories or groups
of people with disabilities, since the
support systems required vary significantly
across disabilities and cannot be homogenised
(p. 10 of Discussion Paper)
- a “social
coalition” – not only between
employers and people with disabilities, but a
coalition that seeks to include all
stakeholders in a more socially inclusive
Australia: builders, retailers, transport and
education providers, and all levels of
government. In short – all of Australian
society working together towards the common
goal of equality of opportunity. (p. 7 of
Discussion Paper)
- changes to incentives
and disincentives – focusing not only on
labour supply, but also on the demand for
labour and on the builders of
infrastructure
- a change in
anachronistic attitudes which assume that
people with disabilities cannot be employed
and do not want to work.
c. Issues of
Concern
While welcoming many of
the concepts of the Discussion Paper, we believe
that:
- in many places the
focus is too narrow, and should broaden to
include such issues as:
- the role of the
States and Commonwealth in ensuring
consistency, efficiency and
equity
- the background
community infrastructure which diminishes
workforce opportunities and
- systemic failures
and inadequacies which erect barriers for
people with disabilities that are not
encountered by other members of the work
force.
- in many places there
is undue focus on people with disabilities
and insufficient focus on the role of
employers, planners, builders, designers,
educators and other external factors
constructing barriers of inequality of
opportunity for people with
disabilities
- before major
structural reform of current income support
systems is undertaken, more research is
required into understanding:
- the causes of the
workforce participation-DSP problem
and
- the nature of
disability labour force
behaviour.
- framing the Discussion
Paper in terms of “welfare
dependency” instead of “social
exclusion” is unhelpful in promoting the
goodwill of people with disabilities to work
with government towards a better system of
income security, and has made many people
unnecessarily alarmed and insecure about the
Government’s real agenda.
PDCN believes that the
real issue of income security is one of low
workforce participation caused by an inadequate
social infrastructure, discrimination,
inadequate accommodation to the differences of
people with disabilities, and a cultural bias
towards competitive individuality and away from
mutually supportive and beneficial community
involvement and participation.
PDCN furthermore believes
that the social security challenge is not only
to increase the participation in the workforce
of people with disabilities, but also to
decrease the social exclusion of groups and
individuals who are excluded from the benefits
of a post-industrial affluent democratic
society. One goal of a reformed income support
system should be to eradicate the conditions
which result in some social groups and
individuals merely existing from day to day as
second-class citizens.
The basic thrust of our
submission is that the workforce participation
issue is global and structural (i.e. much
broader than the level of DSP and DSP criteria)
and requires meaningful multidisciplinary
research lead by development oriented economists
(as opposed to microeconomists) so that
Government and the community can begin start to
understand that:
- unemployed and poorly
paid people with disabilities are
economically wasted and exploited
- the positive economic
and cultural potential of people with
disabilities is real, and not merely a slogan
of political correctness
- there is economic and
political significance to the fact that
able-bodied people are only one incident away
from acquiring a disability, having a friend
or loved one acquire a disability, or having
a child or grandchild born with a
disability.
SECTION 2
ASSUMPTIONS AND
PRINCIPLES
a.
Assumptions
The Discussion Paper
asserts that the accelerating increase in the
number of welfare recipients is a problem,
citing the breaking in recent years of the
statistical relationship between the number of
DSP recipients and the unemployment rate. The
Discussion Paper asserts that the problem lies
in the social security system. While we accept
that there are enormous problems with the social
security system, we believe that the nature of
the problems are not well understood and that it
is premature to put the onus of solution on the
DSP simply because there has been an
acceleration in the number of DSP recipients and
a breaking of the relationship with unemployment
rates.
Thus how much of the
acceleration is due to a substitution of DSP
benefits for unemployment benefits? There is a
good deal of anecdotal evidence suggesting that
it has been the policy (of both Labour and
Liberal governments) to have unemployed people
move off unemployment benefits onto the DSP. The
suggestion is that governments
- don’t like high
headline unemployment rates because this
makes the majority of employed voters express
their anxiety against governments
- don’t mind large
number of DSP recipients because this makes
governments look generous, new recipients
grateful to be on a higher
“unemployment” rate, and makes the
majority of voters express their anxieties
against recipients rather than
governments.
This “massaging of
statistics” might better 1explain the lack
of correlation in recent years between
unemployment rates and the number of DSP
recipients than the Welfare Dependency model
proposed by the Discussion Paper (pp.
5-6).
The acceleration in the
number of DSP recipients also begs the question
as to the balance between demand and supply
factors since the location of the balance has an
important bearing on policy. Thus, how much of
the acceleration is due to changes in medical
technology and the nature of work and how much
due to changes in social security provisions?
The Discussion Paper pays no attention to the
technological factors which have increased
disability. Thus, improved Emergency Services
responses to road traffic accidents have lead to
spinal cord injury and ABI instead of death.
Similarly, our social welfare and support
systems face new challenges as a consequence of
development at both ends of the age spectrum.
Many more Australians are living to
substantially older ages than in previous
generations. Advances in post-natal support for
premature and/or babies with disabilities demand
new responses from all. There have also been
fundamental changes in the nature of work as we
move into the 21st Century, with increasing
substitution of intellectual work for manual
work and increased tension, stress and pressures
in the culture of the workplace.
Finally, even if it has
been generous social security provisions which
has lead to the acceleration in the number of
recipients, which PDCN believes is not the case,
there is no evidence to suggest that the current
DSP level is too high or that current DSP
criteria too lax as opposed to being the right
balance.
Before embarking on major
structural reform it is necessary to conduct
independent research into the causes of
structural changes. If the Government fails to
commission such research, there will be
substantial wasted expenditures and undue
insecurity. PDCN believes that radical
structural change based on assertion and
ideology is poor economic management.
Recommendation
1
That Commonwealth
Government should commission independent
research into the reasons for the
acceleration in the number of DSP recipients
and the number of people with
disabilities.
b.
Principles
While the principles which
inform the Discussion Paper appear to be beyond
debate, in practice the application of the
principles raises a number of questions, and the
principles fail to address many broader
principles which are important to many people
with disabilities.
i. “Maintaining
equity, simplicity, transparency and
sustainability”
While simplicity is a fine
ideal, it is perhaps idealistic and naive to
place it at the top of the agenda of principles
because it is more than likely an illusory
ideal. It is the potential for opportunistic
behaviour which makes policy makers introduce
and adopt complex rules, regulations, controls
and interventions. Yet because of the inevitable
heterogeneity of disability, there is much scope
for opportunistic behaviour - by people with and
without disabilities, by carers and service
providers, and by employers – so the system
must be sufficiently sophisticated and robust to
address the diverse needs of genuine applicants
while discouraging opportunism and/or abuse. If
PDCN has to choose between efficacy and
simplicity we believe that it will always be
correct to select the system that works instead
of a system that is simple.
The equity principle is
also a fine ideal. Nowhere in the Discussion
Paper, however, is there any reference to two of
the principal issues which lead to people with
the same disability being treated differently
– i.e. according to where they live, and
according to the circumstances or origin of
their disability. The equity principle, if it
remains undefined or inadequately framed, brings
into question:
- Commonwealth-State
relations since the source of many of the
labour market disincentives and mobility
disincentives arise from State supports e.g.
Home Care, PADP (see p. 21
below).
- compensation for
negligence since people who cannot prove that
their disability is acquired through a third
party’s negligence receive vastly
inferior supports compared to a person who
can prove negligence.
Both of these issues are
“big” issues which go beyond the DSP
into common law practice and Federal-State
relations.
Recommendation
2
That the Reference
Group on Welfare Reform should refer the
effect of Federal-State relations and common
law compensation practice on creating
inequities among people with the same
disability to the appropriate forum of
Commonwealth-State Ministers and the Law
Reform Commission respectively.
ii. Establishing
better incentives … so that work, education
and training are rewarded
PDCN wholeheartedly
supports the notion of improving incentives so
that work, education and training are rewarded.
As shown in Section 4(b)(ii)1 below (p 21 ff),
when taking into account
- the cost of going to
work
- the tapering of PADP,
Rental Assistance and the DSP with increased
labour market earnings
- the tax scales and
parameters that will operate under the New
Tax System
the effective marginal
cost of earning income at all but the lowest and
highest income levels will be more than 60% of
the income earned and in some income brackets
the marginal cost of earning income will be over
100% of the income earned. That compares to a
marginal tax rate of 17-30% for people without
disabilities.
Recommendation
3
That the Reference
Group on Welfare Reform should acknowledge
the effect on incentives to return to work
of:
- state programs such
as Home Care and PADP. These essential
supports must be ‘factored-in’
to calculations of levels of income
support in the new mechanisms that make it
possible for people with disabilities to
manage successfully the transformation to
work,.
- the impact of
‘user-pays’ for services,
whereby contributions based on the level
of income are increasingly to be called on
by disability service providers so that
they can cover their budgets
- systemic barriers
in social, economic and public life which
inequitably and
- unreasonably
restrict the opportunities of people with
disabilities to exercise the same set of
choices as other Australians.
- the inaccessibility
of the community infrastructure in
increasing the cost of
employment.
iii.
“Contribution to
Community”
ABS data confirm that
people with disabilities face high unemployment
and social isolation. They have more time and
less money available than they would like and
are therefore a wasted economic resource. One of
the principal reasons for an inability to
contribute to the community lies with an
inaccessible community infrastructure and
patronising and/or exploitative community
attitudes. To help people participate in the
community requires a reliable and secure
infrastructure of buildings, communication and
transport, service delivery etc. and
accommodative community attitudes and
expectations. The Discussion Paper fails to
recognise or acknowledge that systemic barriers
make it more difficult for some people to
contribute than others. People with disabilities
face multiple and complex barriers in the
physical, built, transport and work
environments. These barriers are compounded by
problems of attitude and approach to people with
disabilities held commonly by others by virtue
of fear, ignorance, lack of awareness or a
combination of all of the above.
In Regulatory Impact
Statements that have been undertaken in relation
to both the Building Code of Australia and the
Transport Standards, the economic contribution
of people with disabilities have by and large
been ignored by unsound economic methodology
while intersectoral distribution issues which
have no part in an economic analysis have been
highlighted. The unsound methodology has
diminished the economic contribution of people
with disabilities.
By narrowly focussing on
Income Support and Welfare dependency and not
acknowledging the broader issues which cause low
workforce participation, the Discussion Paper
also implicitly diminishes the potential
contribution of people with disabilities to the
economic and cultural life of the
community.
Recommendation
4
That, because of deeply
felt concerns about the veracity of much of
the statistical base used to underpin some of
the Discussion Paper’s assumptions, the
Reference Group on Welfare Reform should
re-examine the methodology that is used to
measure:
- the potential and
actual economic and cultural contribution
of people with disabilities
- the cost to society
of excluding people with disabilities from
participating in the economic and cultural
life of the community life.
iv. More Tailored
and Individualised Assistance
PDCN agrees wholeheartedly
with the notion of tailored and individualised
assistance, but are apprehensive about the role
of “expert advice and guidance” as
arbiters of individuality.
“Experts” who
“guide” are often the greatest
impediment to people with disabilities. We agree
with the need for checks and balances to ensure
minimising the number of opportunists taking
advantage of the supports and accommodations
supplied to people with disabilities. We believe
however that people with disabilities are
experts in their own right. People with
disabilities themselves will have the greatest
interest in providing the right balance between
individualised support on the one hand and
systems of checks and balances against
opportunism on the other.
Recommendation
5
That the Reference
Group on Welfare Reform should recognise the
crucial expertise that people with
disabilities bring to their own independent
living situation and aspirations. People with
disabilities are expert in their own right
and have the greatest interest in providing
the right balance between individualised
support on the one hand and systems of checks
and balances on the other.
c. Maintaining the
Government’s disciplined approach to fiscal
policy
We agree that good
economic policy is good welfare policy, but
believe also that fiscal policy should target
more than general employment growth and the
expansion of consumer goods.
While we accept that a
rapid growth in the production of consumer goods
and services, a decrease in inflation, and lower
general unemployment rates are necessary
conditions for good economic policy, they are
not sufficient conditions. The distribution of
income, wealth and employment; the stock of
social capital; and a sense of security and
reductions in levels of social anxiety are also
important necessary conditions which should
inform sound fiscal policy.
We believe that the
balances of fiscal policy is currently skewed
towards individual consumerism rather than
social cohesion, and therefore that the current
fiscal settings are unsound. While we appreciate
the need for a sustainable long-term budget
balance, we do not accept that this requires a
decrease in the size of government or social
investment.
We believe that the level
of taxes has been cut too far. We understand the
public’s lack of confidence in high taxes
which are accompanied by poor public investment,
but believe that this should be solved by
increasing the productivity of politicians and
bureaucracies rather than born by people with
disabilities. We believe that taxes to support
investment in disability policy will be accepted
by the pubic if politicians and the bureaucracy
make the effort to understand what makes good
policy, and then sell such policy to the
electorate that votes them in to lead in the
national interest.
Recommendation
6
That the Reference
Group of Welfare Reform recognise that
reforming welfare policy requires
acknowledgement that factors such as the
distribution of income, wealth and
employment; the stock of social capital; and
a sense of security and social calm are also
important necessary conditions which should
inform sound fiscal policy.
d. Additional
Principles relating to Social
Cohesion
The Discussion Paper fails
to recognise or acknowledge that systemic
barriers make it more difficult for some people
to contribute than others. People with
disabilities face multiple and complex barriers
in the physical, built, transport and work
environments. These barriers are compounded by
problems of attitude and approach to people with
disabilities held to commonly by others by
virtue of fear, ignorance, lack of awareness or
a combination of all of the above.
As a result, the Paper
ignores incentives to employers and unions, to
builders and transport operators, to educators
and service providers, to employment agencies,
and to local government and non-profit
non-disability community organisations. In
short, it fails to follow through on the
“social cohesion” model in its
enunciation of principles.
Recommendation
7
That the Reference
Group on Welfare Reform should add the
following principles to its examination of
the low workforce participation of people
with disabilities:
- Systemic barriers
in the world of work make it more
difficult for people with disabilities to
receive fair treatment in a competitive
employment market. Put simply, the
‘playing field’ is not level.
People with disabilities face barriers and
inhibitors that are not encountered by
employees and potential employees with no
physical disabilities. These barriers
occur in the built environment, transport,
personal assistance support, inappropriate
employer and public attitudes. Action must
be taken at the systemic level. If
necessary, incentives for employers should
be made available and improved to make it
more possible for them to employ people
with disabilities
- Incentives for
designers of goods and services
(buildings, transport systems, human
resource and communication systems,
delivery and distribution systems) should
be seen as part of the systemic reform
required to promote the adoption of
universal design criteria so that the
community infrastructure is accessible to
the whole community
- Opportunities must
be created for individuals without
disabilities, including employers and
employer organisations, to learn about the
need for systemic reform to make it
possible for employment systems to respond
equitably to the requirements of people
with disabilities
- A commitment by
organisations seeking to effect systemic
change to link realisable action plans
with reasonable time frames to new and
deeper understanding of the need for such
action planning will be essential to a
programme of reform intended to provide
incentives to work.
SECTION 3
COMMUNITY
INFRASTRUCTURE
a. Fundamental
Issue
There is little argument
that “those of us who can contribute to the
community should be encouraged and expected to
do so” (p.9 of Discussion Paper). It is
important, however, that we repeat our earlier
observation that Minister Newman’s paper
fails to acknowledge that people with
disabilities can and do already contribute to
Australian society in many ways, even though
systemic barriers make it more difficult for
those contributions to be made. More needs to be
done to remove barriers and provide social
investment support to people with disabilities
to enhance their capacity to contribute
further.
PDCN believes that change
of a more fundamental order will be required if
real progress is to be achieved. In the view of
PDCN, the “host of other supports and
services is needed” (p.6 of Discussion
Paper) which are needed include:
- reliable personal
assistance and support which extends to the
workplace, school and training/education
facilities
- accessible buildings
and transport
- flexible accommodative
work times and rosters
- a Disability
Discrimination Act with enforcement
provisions instead of a mere educative
role
- appropriate
occupational rehabilitation
- inclusive education
and
- employment services
which are fully sensitive to all the issues
of people with disabilities.
Without these reforms many
people with disabilities, particularly those
with severe and profound impairments will
continue to experience unjustifiable social
exclusion because they cannot even get to a job
interview let alone access the world of work
reliably and consistently. Thus,
If
the community infrastructure does not
provide relatively seamless movement in
time and space, people with severe and
profound disabilities cannot be certain
that it will be possible to get into an
employment interview on time.
If the community
infrastructure does not provide legal
protections against discrimination, a
person with a disability has little reason
to believe that s/he will be judged on
their ability rather than their erroneous
perceptions of disability.
If industrial
relations systems ignore the individual
needs of workers who have demonstrated
their ability to perform the tasks
required for a job, people with
disabilities may be placed at an unfair
competitive disadvantage relative to other
workers.
Without such reforms, many
people with disabilities will continue to be
denied routes into employment or will be unable
to remain in employment because there is no
‘level playing field’ upon which all
contributors can be judged equitably.
b. Necessary But Not
Sufficient
These supports and
services are moreover jointly necessary, while
none is by itself sufficient.
Thus:
- if a person needs
personal assistance and support to carry out
the tasks of daily living, then the absence
of such assistance renders virtually
meaningless any progress towards an
accessible transport system. Similarly,
accessible buildings are of little use to
people with disabilities if there are no
reliable, individualised personal assistance
and support services to help people get
washed, dressed, out of bed, etc., in the
first instance.
- if the transport
system is accessible but buildings are not,
then the transport system is of little value
to a wheelchair user or a person with
ambulant disability since there is no viable
destination. If buildings are accessible but
transport is not, then there is little
benefit accruing from that accessibility
because the new opportunity cannot be
realised by people with disabilities or
turned into an asset which operates in favour
of the community as a whole.
- if personal assistance
is available and the transport systems and
buildings are accessible but work rosters do
not accommodate time out for attending to
disability related functions, then there is
little value to the other access
components.
The need which PDCN sees
for each component of the infrastructure implies
that people and agencies, including Government,
must commit themselves to the necessary
processes of reform by adopting an holistic
approach which recognises and builds upon the
inter-connectivity of all components. We believe
also that there can be no ‘quick fix’
when it comes to welfare reform.
Increasing the workforce
participation of people with disabilities will
take a long time, over the lives of a number of
governments.
c. Critical Threshold
Community Infrastructure
The experience of people
with disabilities is that the community
infrastructure is not seamless. Crucially, any
missing single component can result in a whole
system collapse, which unreasonably and unfairly
disadvantages a person with a disability. In
addition to enormous levels of personal
frustration, the systemic failure leads to
considerable personal and systemic wasted time,
money, energy and lost opportunity.
People with disabilities
generally anticipate problems and plan movements
as carefully as possible, but not everything can
be anticipated and planned, and everything does
not always work to plan. As a result, people
with disabilities will only begin to feel
confident that the infrastructure is seamless
after a critical minimum threshold of
infrastructure components is in place. Up to
that point, the benefits of providing the
components of access will not be obvious to
either people with disabilities or to the
community at large. The lack of confidence by
people with disabilities in the whole system
will mean that they will not fully utilise the
component parts to their potential. Only when we
can show that the Australian environment of work
has attained the minimum threshold for equality
of opportunity, will people with disabilities
begin to feel confident that they will not be
required to overcome systemic
barriers.
Only beyond the critical
threshold will people with disabilities begin to
expect to get to a job interview on time at a
relatively accessible location with an
interviewer who will concentrate on ability,
experience and skills rather than irrelevant
matters relating to a person’s
impairment.
Only when we have finally
achieved the level of the critical threshold
will employers’ responses to the specific
requirements of individual workers who happen
also to be disabled people be negotiated with
respect and sensitivity.
AN
ILLUSTRATION
CRITICAL
INFRASTRUCTURE THRESHOLD
The
importance of the critical threshold of
infrastructure components can be illustrated
by taking a wheelchair user or person with an
ambulant disability who has planned to catch
a train then bus to a job interview. S/he
lives near an accessible railway station and
calls in advance to confirm that the
destination railway station and bus route and
the location of the interview are all
accessible. S/he does not confirm the
accessibility or otherwise of nearby railway
stations or bus routes, or to double check
whether or not the interview location is
fully accessible. (A person with no physical
impairments would not be required to make
such additional checks and in a barrier-free
environment, operating within principles that
promote social inclusion, the additional
checks would not be necessary.)
Despite
the best efforts of our exemplar, it turns
out that the lift at the destination station
is out of order. Where the community
infrastructure is “below the critical
threshold”, the interviewee may have to
travel two, three, four, five or more
stations to get off the train. S/he may have
to wait 40 minutes at the alternative
destination for a wheelchair accessible taxi
to complete the journey. Finally, only after
the taxi driver has gone, our job interviewee
– now running very late despite
confirming arrangements in advance - might
not be able to reach the lift buttons at the
interview location because they have not been
designed from a barrier-free perspective.
All
parties suffer as a consequence of the
systemic failures of an environment which is
below the critical threshold. The cost of
lost opportunity and frustration for all
parties will be great. The focus of the
interview - if it can still go ahead after
this not untypical scenario - is likely to be
(for both the interviewer and interviewee)
the hassles of transport and access rather
than the abilities and skills of the
interviewee and his/her suitability for
employment, given the demands of the job. In
a perverse reversal of circumstances,
responsibility for the trouble caused to the
applicant with disabilities by systemic
failures may be erroneously attributed by the
interviewers to the individual. Despite
superficial understanding that the problems
do not lie with the applicant, but with the
systemic barriers, some (perhaps many)
employers may identify the person with
disability as a difficult or problematic
candidate for employment.
With an
infrastructure that is “close to
threshold” the interviewee may still
have to travel extra stations but will need
to wait only 5 minutes for a wheelchair
accessible taxi, or be confident of catching
an accessible bus. At the interview location
s/he may find that although the lift button
is too high, the interview is scheduled to
take place in an office on the ground
floor.
With a
relatively seamless infrastructure i.e. one
that is “above the threshold” the
first station after the original destination
with its broken lift will be accessible, the
person will be able to catch a wheelchair
accessible taxi within 5 minutes, and the
lift button will be located in an accessible
position.
d. Failure of Both
Government and the Private
Sector
Currently, the community
infrastructure of transport, buildings,
communication and information dissemination,
personal assistance and support arrangements,
service delivery and legal rights have, by and
large, failed people with disabilities. This is
because:
- the private sector
ignores the needs of people with disabilities
and fails to develop market viability because
it perceives the interests of people with
disabilities to fall outside both the mass
market demands to which it caters and as well
the idiosyncratic demands of high income,
high wealth individuals to which it also
caters
- policy makers have not
given a sufficiently high priority to people
with disabilities who are not seen to make up
a sufficiently homogeneous voting
block.
The part played by the
community infrastructure in promoting social
inclusion or social exclusion is absolutely
critical. The strategy to ensure an accessible
community infrastructure by way of the
Disability Discrimination Act Standards-making
process has, however, been ineffective. While
people with disabilities originally had great
hope that this process would lead to more
accessible communities, this hope has been
dashed. Not a single Standard has been
implemented to date.
The complaints process has
been shown to be weak. The community education
process has been of highly questionable value.
And the law has been breached more often than it
has been honoured.
This issue of the
inaccessible infrastructure relates
to:
SECTION 4
INCOME
SUPPORT
a. The Additional Cost of
Living Resulting from a Disability
The additional cost of
living resulting from a disability has been
extensively studied, and a recently completed
study undertaken by PriceWaterhouseCoopers and
commissioned by the Department of Family and
Community Services was only released in early
December. All studies, including the
PriceWaterhouseCoopers study, show the
complexity of the issue because of the
heterogeneous nature of disability. PDCN has not
yet had time to critically examine the report,
but calls on the Reference Group on Welfare
Reform to examine the issue critically. PDCN
will itself be ready to comment on the Report at
a later date.
The study appears to
confirm earlier studies that have shown
that:
- · the additional
cost due to a disability varies greatly
across disability and even within disability
types
- people with profound
and severe physical activity restrictions can
spend up to half of disposable income on
non-discretionary goods and services related
to their disability and
- income and the extent
of disability are the only, albeit
unreliable, predictors of the additional cost
of disability, implying that the proportion
of income spent on disability goods and
services does not vary with income and that
the additional cost increases with the extent
of activity restriction. The latter
conclusion is intuitively obvious, while the
former implies that the needs of high income
individuals are more or less realised while
the needs of low income individuals are
largely unmet.
b. Current
Supports
The income support
received by people with severe and profound
disabilities is inadequate, inequitable and
inefficient. It is:
- inadequate in that it
does not recognise the substantially higher
cost of living faced by people with
disabilities and
- inequitable in that
people with the same disability and with the
same needs have the additional costs offset
differently depending on their marital
status, on where they live, on whether or not
they are receipt of compensation from a third
party, and on whether or not they find out
about community supports
- inefficient because at
all but the lowest and highest incomes, the
marginal cost of earning income is so high
that there is a failure to provide sufficient
reward for earning income.
i.
Inadequate
The DSP is currently set
at parity with the Aged Pension, above the level
of unemployment benefits. The parity with the
age pension is not designed to offset the higher
cost of living of people with disabilities but
is intended instead to reflect the permanent
nature of the workforce non-participation. PDCN
sees no justification for linking the Aged
Pension with the DSP since many DSP recipients
have higher costs and have had less opportunity
to accumulate capital during their lifetime than
have many Aged Pensioners.
Because of the higher cost
of living due to their impairment and the
paucity of financial recognition of these higher
costs, people with severe and profound
disabilities are forced to bear most of the
additional cost of living due the
disability.
PDCN believes
that:
- the additional cost of
living due to a disability ought to be
separated from the income support offered to
people who are unemployed
- parity with the Aged
Pension is not justified and
- an individualised
Disability Allowance to offset the additional
costs of disability ought to be
introduced.
Recommendation
9
That the cost offsets
of disability be separated from income
support and that the DSP be replaced by a
system of
a) Individualised
Disability Allowance for offsetting the cost
of disability and
b) income support
arrangement for unemployed
people.
This would mean
that:
- people with
disabilities who do not have additional costs
due to their disability but who are long-term
unemployed ought not receive a disability
allowance but ought to receive the same
income support as a similarly long-term
unemployed able-bodied person;
- people with
disabilities who have additional costs due to
their disability and are employed ought to
receive a disability allowance to offset the
additional costs due to their disability, and
that the allowance should not be
means-tested;
- people with
disabilities who have additional costs due to
their disability and are unemployed ought to
receive both a disability allowance and an
unemployment benefit; and
- people with
disabilities who have few additional costs
and are employed ought receive neither an
unemployment benefit or a disability
allowance.
PDCN reserves comment on
the details of an allowance subject to further
examination of the PriceWaterhouseCoopers
“Cost of Disability” report. Pending
further study of the Report, PDCN’s
predisposition is for extension of the Mobility
Allowance, CAAS and Pharmaceutical schemes
to:
- aids and equipment
including furniture and home
modifications
- personal assistance
and support in the home, at work and study,
and in recreation respite
- therapy services
relating to the disability
- oxygen
supply
- and other
non-discretionary goods and
services.
PDCN also believes that
the amount of the allowance should vary with the
extent of the activity restriction.
In order to maintain work
incentives, these Allowances should not be
means-tested even if in the interests of income
equity and fiscal responsibility the Allowances
are capped - at a meaningful level appropriate
for the individual.
PDCN reserves judgement on
the efficacy and equitability of alternative
Allowance models including:
- a single individual
Allowance
- several Allowances
based on individual assessments (equipment
allowance, travel allowance, personal care
allowance, respite allowance
etc.)
- vouchers based on
assessments and
- rebates for scheduled
goods and services.
ii.
Inefficient
1. The Effect of State
Programs and an Inaccessible
Infrastructure
Tables 1-3 illustrate the
disincentives to employment in the labour market
of the supports, taxes and taper rates to
operate under the New Tax System to be
introduced in July 2000. It is based on a single
individual who needs a taxi to get to work at a
cost of $25 per day because of the
inaccessibility of the public transport system,
and who receives the full rental assistance. The
individual is assumed to spend $2,000 per year
on aids and equipment which are on the PADP
schedule.
The Tables
show:
- income per
fortnight/annum (columns 1 and 2)
- the Disability Support
Pension (Column 3)
- the Mobility Allowance
and the Pharmaceutical Allowance (Columns 4
and 5)
- maximum Rental
Assistance (Column 6)
- assistance for aids
and equipment through state-run PADP scheme
(Column 7) – valued at $2,000 per annum
when no income is earned, and tapering off as
the DSP cuts out.
- the cost of going to
work – assumed to vary with the number
of days worked - at $25 per day for 1-5 days
per week for 40-48 weeks (Column
8).
- tax paid on earned
income under the tax scales to operate from
July 1, 2000 (Column 9) and
- disposable income
before expenditure on disability goods and
services (Column 10)
- the change from one
income bracket to the next income bracket in
disposable income divided by the change in
earned income i.e. the effective marginal
cost of earning income in the labour market
(Column 11).
Extensions to the model to
account for co-payments for disability services
and the cost of disability goods and services
would increase the effective marginal rates in
Column 11.
Column 11 of the Tables
show that at all but the lowest levels of income
and the very highest levels of income, the
marginal cost of earning income is over 60%, and
often greater than 100% when we incorporate all
the factors involved in earning income: i.e. the
taper rate of pensions and supports, income tax,
the cost of an inaccessible public transport
system, and means-testing of services such as
PADP.
The Tables particularly
point out the importance of looking at
Federal-State relations and the effect of
Disability Standards on work incentives since
the effect of PADP and the cost of getting to
work are critical in raising the marginal cost
of earning income above the nominal 40% taper
rate of the DSP. In particular, the criteria
applied by State programs can undermine the
effect of any Commonwealth incentives. The
Tables also highlight the inefficiency of
meanstesting.
Recommendation
10
In light of their
effect on incentives:
- the service
criteria applied by State programs should
be co-ordinated by the
Commonwealth
- cost-of-disability
offsets such as a Disability Allowance
should not be income tested
- the effect of the
inaccessible community infrastructure on
the cost of earning income be considered
in setting allowances designed to offset
the cost of disability
2. Taper
Rates
The Discussion Paper
points out that a lowering of taper rate
improves incentives to take up parttime and
casual work while reducing incentives for full
time work, while a tightening improves
incentives for full-time work while reducing
incentives for casual or part-time work. The
Discussion Paper calls for comment.
PDCN believes that income
support should be separated from cost of
disability offsets, and therefore sees no role
for a DSP following a review of the welfare
system. Furthermore, PDCN believes that to
maintain work incentives, the new Disability
Allowance should be independent of income
testing.
Nevertheless, in the
absence of such a separation, and in the
presence of continuation of the DSP, PDCN’s
predisposition is to prefer a reduction in the
taper rate for both the DSP and the Rental
Assistance Scheme because:
- the current marginal
rates are prohibitive after PADP and the
costs of employment are integrated into the
equation
- jobs are increasingly
being created in the part-time and casual
sectors for all classes of workers and
probably more so for people with
disabilities. It makes sense to increase
incentives in the sector where jobs are
increasingly likely to be made
available
- greater potential for
flexibility is generally available for
part-time and casual workers.
PDCN also questions why
the taper rate for pensions will be decreasing
from 50% to 40% under the New Tax System, but
from 50% to 30% for the Family Allowance. This
inequity is particularly galling in view of the
fact that the highest effective marginal tax
rate reported in Not a New Tax, A New Tax System
is 88.5% for families while the highest
estimated rate in Tables 1- 3 above is
150%.
Recommendation
11
That if unemployment
income support and cost-of-living offsets are
not separated and the DSP is maintained, the
DSP should be unlinked from the Age Pension,
and the taper rate for the DSP should be
reduced from 40% to the same level as Family
Allowance – expected to be 30% under the
New Tax System.
iii.
Inequitable
Inequities in income
support arrangements occur as a result
of:
- state programs
and
- common law
compensation for disabilities caused by
negligence.
1. State
Programs
Part of the offsets to the
additional cost of living due to a disability
occurs through benefits at the State level.
These include offsets to the cost of equipment
(PADP), personal care (HACC services), travel
(Taxi Travel Subsidy Scheme) and a vast array of
benefits available through State-funded service
organisations. There is enormous inequity in the
availability of these offsets as a result
of
- inconsistent service
delivery criteria and standards across
implementation areas and
- inadequate promotion
of services.
These problems are largely
due to the interplay of inadequate funding and
organisational and managerial
inefficiency.
With limited budgets,
local management committees become protective of
“their” existing clients at the
expense of “new” clients and local
managers acquire an immense power to dispense or
withhold service, making both existing and new
clients fear making complaints in expectation of
retribution at the local level. In addition,
some local management committees are more adept
at procuring funds from the State – not on
the basis of need in the area, but on the basis
of creative accounting to protect
“their” territory. The effect has been
to make State programs a haphazard affair, with
people in “good areas” receiving an
above-average service which enables them to
participate more fully in the life of the
community, while people in “bad areas”
receive an atrocious service which makes them
prisoners in their own home, unable to
confidently expect to participate in either work
or recreational activities.
While PDCN recognises the
organisational merit of decentralising service
delivery, the lack of transparent and
accountable central management control of
service delivery criteria and standards, has
made many of the offsets to the additional cost
of disability have become grossly inequitable
within States, as well as between
States.
The provision of vouchers
to clients together with privatisation of
service delivery have been canvassed in some
circles as the means to overcome the
inefficiencies and inequities of the current
system. While in theory this combination may
seem attractive, PDCN believes that for many
services the inefficiencies and inequities would
be reproduced or made worse because:
- one of the main
reasons for the inequities is inadequate
funding – which, if addressed under a
better-resourced system of vouchers, would
also presumably rectify the current system.
If no action is taken to increase funding,
inequities will merely be transferred from a
geographical basis to some other
basis
- privatisation
unaccompanied by competition leads to private
monopoly or oligopoly with the same
operational inefficiencies as the current
system but with a loss of the complaint power
that is represented by government-subsidised
service providers who are ultimately governed
by elected political
representatives
- competition is
unlikely since the size of a number of
specific disability markets is too small to
allow for more than one of two local firms,
and unlikely to be subjected to competition
from imports
- the arbitrary power of
local managers to determine who will receive
services and who will not, would be replaced
by the arbitrary power of the assessors who
would determine the availability of vouchers
made available to individuals.
PDCN is not in principle
against the use of vouchers and privatisation,
but we believe that any move towards such a
system must be accompanied by:
- service delivery
standards which accommodate the needs of
individuals with the highest support needs
and their right to live independently and
with dignity in the community and
- complaint mechanisms
which are independent and transparent and
with strong enforcement and deregistration
powers.
The CAAS scheme is a
privatised voucher program which enjoyed
community support until recently. The scheme has
lost its support, however, after tendering
processes changed the single supplier. PDCN
contends that the lack of an effective
complaints mechanism in a monopoly system has
led to the problems of supply which have
recently eroded the support for the
scheme.
Recommendation
12
That if the
Commonwealth Governments takes action to
organise trials of vouchers schemes and/or
pilot programmes of privatisation, such
initiatives should only be undertaken
if:
- there is certain to
be genuine competition between a range of
service providers
- an independent
complaint mechanisms with enforcement and
deregistration powers is
available
- service delivery
standards accommodate the needs of
individuals with the highest support needs
and their right to live independently and
with dignity in the community.
Recommendation
13
That voucher scheme
trials and any privatisation pilot programmes
for government service provision should be
considered only after meaningful consultation
with people with disabilities.
2. Compensation
Claims
Another source of inequity
between people with disabilities is by way of
compensation to people where the disability is
due to negligence by a third party. PDCN
believes that it is unfair that:
- a person whose
barrister cannot prove negligence in court
should receive less support than person whose
barrister can prove negligence;
- a person who is born
with a disability should receive less support
than person whose barrister can prove
negligence.
The demands and claims of
people with disabilities currently work on a
“fault” model. PDCN believes that
Australia should adopt a no-fault model of
disability insurance which accepts that every
citizen has a finite probability of acquiring
almost any disability, or having a friend or
close family members acquire a disability which
will impact on them financially or socially.
(See Appendix and Recommendation 2, p
10).
SECTION 4
MUTUAL
OBLIGATION
a. The Corporate
Sector
The obligation of builders
and transport operators, employers and
able-bodied employees, educators and service
providers, retailers and tourist operators is
virtually ignored by the Discussion
Paper.
While some people see the
payment of taxes as a sufficient expression of
the obligation of the rest of the community, the
fact of social exclusion of people with
disabilities from community life implies that
the mutual obligation needs to go beyond taxes
alone. However if taxation in itself is to be
considered a sufficient expression of the mutual
obligation principle, then the current tax
levels are not high enough to provide for the
public investments needed to ensure the social
inclusion of people with
disabilities.
The Discussion Paper
offers peripheral recognition of a broader
mutual obligation principle in the assertion of
the need for social cohesion and partnerships
between DSP recipients and the private, public
and non-profit sectors of the community. These
are fine sentiments. As set out in the
Discussion Paper, however, they ignore the
reality that:
- company law obligates
a Company’s directors to be concerned
only with the objectives of its shareholders
(i.e. the share price and dividend of the
firm - subject to the legal constraints
imposed by government) and that the adoption
of other principles theoretically puts
company directors at risk
- the public sector and
non-profit sector have been facing funding
cutbacks during the period of economic
rationalism, making increased obligations
towards people with disabilities by these
sectors increasingly difficult
- the infrastructure and
attitudes of the community in general do not
seriously recognise the voice of people with
disabilities.
Social coalition-building
can only be undertaken by a strengthened central
government sector which imposes regulatory
constraints (e.g. buildings and transport must
be accessible, employers must not discriminate),
provides incentives (workplace modifications,
subsidies to offset costs), and funds
community-based needs.
See Recommendation 7,
page 14
The current ideological
fashion to deregulate and decrease the size of
government weakens social coalition-building. In
reality, this return to a form of Victorian age
social welfare abandons any commitment by
government to mutual obligation in favour of
ideas of voluntarism and individual moral and
ethical behaviour, which seemed out-dated to
many even during the Victorian era in which they
originated. The problem we see with the strategy
proposed in the Discussion Paper is that the
same social forces, which have led to a decrease
in the role of governments have also increased
social isolation, insecurity and selfishness.
The result has been to create less inclination
on the part of the community to involve itself
in moral and ethical undertakings that
strengthen social solidarity and promote
cohesion without undermining enterprise and
individuality.
b.
Voluntarism
The call for “greater
emphasis on voluntary, community …
work” is echoed throughout the Discussion
Paper – with respect to young people, older
unemployed people, and people with
disabilities.
Generally, PDCN agrees
that voluntarism is commendable and many
volunteers provide valuable additional resources
to community groups, service organisations and
individuals. Developing a volunteers dimension
to an organisation’s activities is not a
cost-free exercise, however.
Volunteers need to be
trained, co-ordinated and matched to an
organisation’s needs. Without additional
resources to the employing organisation,
volunteers can take up on inordinate amount a
professional staff’s time and
energy.
Furthermore, a volunteer
worker with a disability needs the same amount
of fixed capital cost accommodation and/or
recurrent support costs in the workplace as s/he
would if s/he were employed in the private
sector. PDCN is itself actively committed to
developing and benefiting from the input of
volunteers. We are no less certain, however,
that for as long as community organisations and
service providers are short of resources, the
Commonwealth Government has an unrealistic
expectation of voluntarism as a panacea which
will serve both community organisations and
unemployed people.
The emphasis on
voluntarism may also further isolate people with
disabilities who will not be accepted as
volunteers unless community groups and service
organisations already have the infrastructure
and supports necessary to enable a person with a
disability to volunteer meaningfully.
While voluntarism appears
superficially to be an efficient cost-free means
of overcoming the dual problem of community
organisations’ inadequate labour-power and
the excess potential labour supply of unemployed
people, PDCN believes that voluntarism is not
the cost-free panacea implied in the Discussion
Paper.
Recommendation
14
That the Reference
Group on Welfare Reform should not place
undue emphasis on voluntarism unless there is
a commitment by government to increase
funding to the nonprofit and community
sectors to enable the absorption of
volunteers with disabilities.
c. Potential People with
Disabilities: The Insurance
Principle
To the extent that every
Australian can acquire a disability, have a
child born with a disability, or have a close
friend or relative acquire a disability,
expenditure on disability support should be seen
as insurance by taxpayers for when they
themselves may require disability
support.
Instead of it being viewed
as a “handout”, it should therefore be
seen as consideration for a financial service
– the service being the security felt for
knowing that if they or someone close should
require disability support, the “loss”
due to disability will be minimised with
dignity. The expenditure is akin to the premium
paid for insuring against the loss associated
with one’s home burning down, or to having
one’s car crash.
PDCN believes that people
are willing to pay for comprehensive insurance
against the contingency of the loss associated
with acquiring a disability, having a friend or
relative acquire a disability, or having a child
born with a disability. The private sector
cannot for technical reasons finance the
provision of such insurance. This unfulfilled
demand can only be met by government
regulations, incentives and direct investment.
We furthermore believe that the amount people
would be willing to pay for comprehensive
no-fault disability insurance equals the
probability of loss times the dollar amount of
loss. (see Appendix, p 33).
To the extent that people
without disabilities are not paying a premium
for their potential future needs, the mutuality
principle is not being applied.
Recommendation
15
That the Reference
Group on Welfare Reform should view the part
played by the increased expenditures on
addressing the needs of people with
disabilities as an intertemporal
redistribution of income instead of as an
interpersonal redistribution of income i.e.
as insurance by people without disabilities
against potential circumstances, shared by
all, that in the future any individual,
family member of friend may acquire a
disability.
SECTION 5
CONCLUSIONS
a. Research
Major structural change of
the sort being contemplated requires rational
informed comment in order to ensure that
recommendations are efficient, equitable and
stable. Change without research leads to
piecemeal, ‘ad hoc’ solutions which
are wasteful, inequitable and unstable. The type
of welfare reform proposed by the Discussion
Paper requires research on:
- the reasons for the
increase in the number of DSP recipients
– whether due to substitution of DSP for
unemployment benefits, technological factors,
financial factors etc.
- the nature of work and
income support and the relationship of these
to workforce participation across
disabilities – contrasting the different
needs and relationship of people with
intellectual disabilities and physical
disabilities, on the different needs and
relationships of people with mild and
moderate activity restrictions as compared to
those of people with severe and profound
activity restrictions
- the effect of
infrastructure and attendant support needs on
workforce participation.
We believe the Reference
Group on Welfare Reform should recommend the
commissioning of research into the labour market
behaviour of people with disabilities. We
believe such research would show
that:
- people with
disabilities are more than willing to work
and are in fact desperate to be able to
fulfil their community obligations as fully
participating members of the
community
- people with
disabilities are too often prevented from
participating in community life because of
inadequate public investments in
infrastructure and supports
- the most important
reasons for the acceleration in the number of
DSP recipients relates to the growing
|
