'Fix disability support pension to get people back to work'
Oct 8, 2013 11:05:54 GMT 7
Denis-NFA likes this
Post by aussieinusa on Oct 8, 2013 11:05:54 GMT 7
Oct 8, 2013 9:36:01 GMT 7 @frugle said:
Yes l'm over 35 so l wasn't called up for mutual obligation thankgod. What exactly is it, do you have to go to 4 interviews a year and sign some sort of returning to work plan things with like training or jobsearch which is voluntary. SO Can you just say in the interviews 'stuff it' l don't want to do anything in the plan and they leave you alone or do they force you to the stuff that's in the plan? Do you think they will now extend it to everyone under 65 soon.If you're rated as disabled enough you don't have to 'participate' at all, although I don't know exactly what that means; whether you have to be rated severely disabled, or able to work less than 8 hours a week, or both, or something else.
If you do have to participate, then you have to go to one of their disability service providers. There are a couple of different types, from memory; Disability Management places and another kind. Basically, in my experience it was the typical job network BS: "Here we have a NEWS PAPER. There are JOB ADS in it. Here are the JOB ADS. You read them and if you think you can do the job, you APPLY FOR IT." Plus they'll help you put together a resume and call employers on your behalf, and offer them bribes (sorry, helpful government funding) to employ your sorry disabled self. So if you can read and write and have held any kind of job in your life, ever, you'll probably find it insulting.
I've spent a lot of time trying to get help in getting myself back to work, and going to their providers is an entirely futile experience. This is a list of what they CAN'T help you with:
* Training courses to get you qualified in a new field
* Accurate info about university or TAFE courses you could do
* Physiotherapy to build your capacity to work
* Transportation to get you to a job
* Names of any employers who offer flexible working conditions
* Tips on disclosing disability to a potential employer
* Tips on negotiating flexible work conditions with employers
* Support starting a business if there are no ready-made jobs you could do
...but if you can't read, write or type, they'll help you create a resume. And read the job ads out loud to you. Very helpful.
Basically, they offer you all the help a new graduate who'll work for a nice low social work salary can provide; charge the government a nice big markup on it; and Therese Rein and her buddies get a new Bentley at the end of the year. Great, right?
If I were in charge of this stuff, I would take all the oldies who've worked for ten different employers and twenty different bosses across three or four different industries, but are now out of work due to age discrimination, and employ them instead. At least they'd have something meaningful to say when you ask them about strategies to convince a boss to take you on despite health limitations. Whereas people whose first job is helping other people get jobs don't have much to say at all; they literally just gave me the two-page internal flier that they were meant to memorise and parrot back when people ask for help.
In case it doesn't come across in my ranty tone, I get really mad about the amount of money the government has supposedly spent to 'help' people like me, when the basic services I actually need (like a swimming pool to do my physiotherapy) aren't available or I can't afford them, and I get no say in what kind of 'help' I need and get. I look at what all those consultants in all those offices cost, and know how little I need to actually have a chance at getting back to work, and I get really cranky.
Hopefully you'll be exempted from the mutual obligations circus, @frugle... or you get really lucky and get one of the few job consultant people who can actually help. Good luck!
