Australia —
FIGURES being used by the Howard Government to justify a
crackdown on disability pensions are false and
misleading, according to a leading welfare
organisation.
The Australian
Council of Social Service
will today release research about the Disability Support
Pension to counter the Government's claims that too many
people are on it.
The Government is looking to
reintroduce legislation designed to restrict eligibility
by cutting back the maximum time a disability support
pension recipient can work, from 30 hours to 15 hours.
The legislation has been blocked by Labor and the minor
parties in the Senate for two years.
"Many arguments used to justify a
crackdown on disability pensions are false or misleading.
It's not true that it's easy to get the DSP or that
governments put people on DSP to hide unemployment,"
ACOSS president Andrew McCallum said.
The paper says: "The physical
reality for a person with a back injury that would
qualify them for DSP is different. They would typically
have very restricted movement, be unable to sit or stand
for any length of time (often both), and are likely to be
suffering severe and often chronic pain with a history of
failed efforts to deal with it."
While conceding the number of DSP
recipients has doubled over the past 15 years, ACOSS puts
this down to improved identification of disabilities. The
closure of alternative payments such as Wife Pension,
Mature Age Allowance, and Age Pension for
women aged 60-65 was also responsible for the growing DSP
numbers.
"People with disabilities who
previously would have received these payments now claim
DSP," it says.
Another common misconception
highlighted in the report is that the DSP has become a de
facto early retirement payment for mature-age men. The
fastest growing categories of DSP recipients are
mature-age women and young men.
