Australia — The
Federal Government plans to slow growth in payments to
disability pensioners by tightening controls on the way
Centrelink gives people access to the benefit.
The policy is being constructed by
Workforce Participation Minister Peter Dutton. It will
build on legislation expected to come back to parliament
this year that is designed to restrict eligibility by
cutting back the maximum time a disability support
pension recipient can work from 30 hours to 15
hours.
"We have got to make sure that
those people going onto a disability support pension are
legitimate," Mr Dutton said.
"I would support tightening the
controls on it . . . and that's something we are looking
at at the moment."
Mr Dutton, who is the first
occupant of the three-month-old Workforce Participation
portfolio, said re-engaging willing disability support
pensioners in the workforce and lowering the number of
people gaining access to the pension was his first
priority for 2005.
"We have 300 people a day going
onto the DSP and we need to make sure the disability
support pension is preserved for those that most deserve
it, and not for people who are going to try and park
themselves onto it until they are age 65 and claim the
age pension," Mr Dutton said.
The government spent $7.4 billion
on disability support pensioners in 2003-04. More than
half of those leaving it move onto the age pension at 65,
never to work again.
Federal government expenditure on
the DSP was 60 per cent more than the less-generous
Newstart allowance last financial year.
The DSP imposes no mutual
obligation activities. The Newstart allowance demands
that job seekers sign up with the Job Network and
actively look for work or take part in training or a
work-for-the-dole project.
The popularity of the DSP the
number of recipients more than doubled from 334,000 to
nearly 697,000 over the past 13 years sparked concern in
the government several years ago and follows long-term
concerns from both sides of politics about how to
determine who is and who is not incapacitated for
work.
Mr Dutton has already tried to
encourage DSP recipients who can work to get a job by
opening up the services of the Job Network to
them.
