Australia — State
and territory governments should be doing more to help
people get off workers' compensation and back into the
workforce, Workplace Relations Minister Kevin
Andrews has said.
Many disability support pension
recipients had received little or no rehabilitation or
help in getting back to work, Mr Andrews told a
disability services industry gathering in
Melbourne.
"There is certainly a greater role
for the states and territories and their respective
workers' compensation schemes to be more actively
involved in ensuring that people are receiving the
rehabilitation that they deserve and are entitled to," Mr
Andrews said.
"It is perhaps all too easy for the
states and territories to simply shift people who are
their responsibility onto the commonwealth social
security system."
Mr Andrews said a survey last year
found 44 per cent of new disability support pension
recipients said their disability was caused or worsened
by an injury, accident or traumatic event.
However, only 12 per cent of the
1,000 surveyed participants had received vocational
rehabilitation. After the success of a pilot program that
helped pensioners find employment or undertake further
education, the government indicated it wanted to
introduce a mixture of coercion and incentives to
encourage recipients to work.
Earlier this week the
Australian
Council of Social Service
(ACOSS) said even though only a fraction of disability
support pensioners worked, many more wanted to find
full-time or part-time employment.
President Andrew McCallum said
official evaluations of training programs for people on
disability pensions found less than one in five would get
an ongoing full-time job within 12 months.
