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Post by Banjo on May 1, 2014 9:01:45 GMT 7
The Liberals have a history of grandfathering people covered by earlier legislation, something that the previous government never bothered with when they change portability.
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Post by Banjo on May 1, 2014 16:07:28 GMT 7
I looked up the old Jetset Pensioners article.
Can't believe it's been 4 years, time flies when your having fun.
Welfare loophole allows disability pensioners to go on permanent vacation
A LOOPHOLE in welfare laws has been allowing hundreds of disability support pensioners to use their pensions to travel overseas most of the year and keep second homes in popular South-East Asian holiday destinations.
The jet-setting lives of 776 disability support pensioners were discovered by a joint Centrelink and Department of Immigration investigation, which found many were taking up to nine overseas trips a year.
The study uncovered 154 gold-class frequent flyers who spent all but eight weeks a year overseas. Of these, 71 spent less than a month in Australia and there were eight described as fly-in, fly-out pensioners who spent only a week a year in Australia.
The loophole allows disability support pensioners to keep claiming the pension, which is now more than $700 a fortnight, if they return to Australia once every 13 weeks.
Thailand and the Philippines were the top two locations for welfare recipients living in second homes overseas.
BARELY more than 2 per cent of all disability support pensioners last year got off the benefit, despite a range of incentives to entice them back to work.
In both countries, $700 a fortnight is considered a small fortune, much more than the earnings of many working full-time, who would consider themselves relatively well off.
Community Services Minister Jenny Macklin said the Federal Government would close the loophole, which allowed the 154 worst offenders to spend most of their time overseas, costing taxpayers $3 million a year.
Even though only Australian residents can lodge a claim for the disability support pension, and those on the DSP can only be absent from Australia for up to 13 weeks, there are cases of DSP recipients living permanently overseas and flying back to Australia every 13 weeks to continue receiving the pension, Ms Macklin said.
It is not known if those who claimed pensions while living overseas were working while overseas.
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Post by Banjo on May 1, 2014 16:08:12 GMT 7
What a load of badly researched crap that was.
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Post by immiadvice on May 2, 2014 13:46:06 GMT 7
I believe it was that article that got us all together Banjo. Shit! A lot has happened in that 4 years...
Never would have predicted I'd be where I am at now. At least I got UP and may have helped in getting that made into law.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
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Post by jamie on May 2, 2014 16:23:45 GMT 7
If you googled Dspoverseas that misinformed article from the SunHerald comes in 3rd place.
That misleading photo, probably pasted from Tripadvisor, looks so serene, so relaxing.
4 inviting deckchairs, 4 fluffy bath towels, 2 protective umbrellas and a calm pool ready to receive.
Where are the DSPers?
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Post by Denis-NFA on May 5, 2014 4:49:00 GMT 7
If you googled Dspoverseas that misinformed article from the SunHerald comes in 3rd place. That misleading photo, probably pasted from Tripadvisor, looks so serene, so relaxing. 4 inviting deckchairs, 4 fluffy bath towels, 2 protective umbrellas and a calm pool ready to receive. Where are the DSPers? I think commercial "puff" websites like www.yourlifechoices.com.au/ contribute to the wrong impression of all pensioners, whether Aged or Disabled. |
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Post by Deleted on May 12, 2014 6:14:37 GMT 7
I have read all these articles, including another suggesting we go os and live like 'kings' at taxpayer expense and suggesting cost of living in Asia is 10% of Australian COL. What utter rubbish. This was even told to me by a Orthopaedic Surgeon at a consultation last week and he actually believed what he read!!!\ Those like me on this forum that travel to Asia or now live there, know full well it is 40-50% on average less and is that a crime - apparently so??? I am in the last stage of appeal to AAT and next telephone conference in July and I believe I have a good chance of success if I am playing on a level playing field. But the recent attacks have also included attacks on AAT by media so I am hoping they do not get gun shy and stick to their fairness rules.  But who know. |
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Post by Banjo on May 12, 2014 7:05:26 GMT 7
The benefits of living overseas are mixed, the most important thing is that you have to like it, and some people don't.
Fitting in to a new culture, new social standards, new rules and a new language is a big step and I would not recommend it to anyone who is not prepared to spend time in their preferred locations on a temporary basis first.
My house was at the epicenter of 6.3 on the Richter scale last week, you're not going to get that in suburban Adelaide or Melbourne.
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Post by Deleted on May 12, 2014 7:58:52 GMT 7
You are absolutely right Banjo, when I first started up the road (even though I am not full time there yet) but have spent a lot of time looking at what is best for me - but have now spent enough time to come to the conclusion that is what I want to do. Just waiting appeal result.
Hope you home did not suffer damage to your home? Must have been a bit of a frightening experience?
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Post by Banjo on May 12, 2014 8:31:39 GMT 7
No, we seemed to miss the worst of it while there was a lot of damage nearby.
My wine collection fell out of the cabinet, two bottle of South African shiraz, a Jacobs Creek I bought in Burma and something strange from Romania from the same source.
Life goes on though.
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Post by Banjo on May 13, 2014 6:42:51 GMT 7
One of our members is a freelance journalist who has been a firm supporter of pensioner travel rights. An entry from his blog.
Australian government to further impinge on the rights of pensioners to travel or live overseasSome time ago I wrote a submission to the Australian Government Inquiry into the Asian century called ‘Parity for Pensioner Pariahs’. Unfortunately the issues I raised were seemingly ignored by those who drafted the subsequent report. Fast forward to May 2014 and I am fuming about proposed changes to the rights of Australian welfare recipients to travel and live overseas. It’s described in an article in The Courier Mail newspaper entitled ‘Travel bans to ground disability pensioners’, from which I have quoted below: “Disability support pensioners will be banned from travelling overseas for more than four weeks at a time as part of Budget crackdown on welfare cheats. [Oh, ok, let’s label pensioners who travel/live overseas as “welfare cheats”, despite them presumably meeting all existing eligibility requirements] The Government will tighten “portability” rules for the Disability Support Pension to crack down on recipients taking holidays at taxpayer expense or living in places like Bali while claiming they are in Australia. <snip> [Loaded statement. They are a taxpayer expense where-ever they are located – unless they can be coerced into relinquishing the right to welfare support accorded to other Australian citizens] Taxpayers spend about $100 million a year on payments to 7,313 disability support pensioners who live overseas. [Irrelevant point – would this amount be any less if they stayed in Australia the whole time?] The Government has already cut trip times for these pensioners from 13 weeks to six weeks to reduce the risk of them basing themselves in cheap destinations like Bali and flying in and out of Australia to meet residency requirements. [Hmm, sounds serious. But in what way does their choice to base themselves there constitute a "risk"?] Mr Andrews said he eventually wanted a consistent approach to travel rules for all who received welfare payments. [Then I guess we can assume that the four week absence rule will soon apply to old age pensioners too, right? They already can’t afford to live in the mainstream Australian community, so perhaps the Government might need to create cost-effective special settlements for them - perhaps somewhere in the outback?] <snip> “The question here is what’s fair from the community point of view given that people are in receipt of benefits and that’s the balance we’ve got to try and achieve”. [No Minister, the question is whether economic logic tempered with some compassion should drive government policy, or whether pandering to ill-informed bias and media-inspired stereotypes should dictate how our government treats its citizens] I am angry about the progressive winding back of peoples’ right to have extended holidays or to relocate to their country of choice. I’m angry because this isn’t fair and it doesn’t make sense from a purely economic perspective. The Government decides who qualifies for citizenship, and who is therefore potentially eligible for welfare payments. The Government also determines the eligibility criteria for particular forms of welfare (other than residence), and how much people are paid. I’m not buying into those broad issues, other than to say that if there is a problem with those determinations then fix that problem and don’t try to balance the books by pushing people overboard on the basis of a bogus “crack-down” on welfare cheats. Minister Andrews, is it not a fact that if everyone receiving benefits abroad simply returned to and/or remained in Australia, then these tightened residence restrictions would have had the effect of actually costing tax-payers substantially more money? The only way the tightened residence restrictions can result in savings is if welfare recipients give up, stayed overseas and conveniently dropped out of the welfare system. I believe that this is in fact the true goaI of the policy. Even if only (say) half of those affected moved back and it became a zero-sum game in a monetary sense, then the government still gains electoral bonus points just by being seen to be strong on welfare rorting. Thus these further restrictions are not about stopping welfare rorts, they are about getting eligible Australian citizens off welfare. This will be achieved by forcing people to choose between living in penury in the suburbs watching TV, or living in penury in warmer and more exotic locales. It really does seem to be all about pandering to the media-created notion that if people can afford to travel overseas then they don’t need and/or deserve welfare payments. Just to recap, welfare recipients who stay away from the country are SAVING the taxpayer money both directly and indirectly. This has been established in research undertaken by the Government. Research that got quietly shelved because it went against what the radio shock-jocks were telling us, and what the man-in-the-street chose to believe. It really is very sad that Australian Government policy formulation has descended to this low level of rigour and vision, and that it has reflects poorly on the potential of the country we are creating for the next generation. www.burning-bison.com/blog/uncategorized/government-to-further-impinge-on-the-rights-of-pensioners-to-travel-or-live-overseas/ |
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Post by keepyourchinup on May 13, 2014 20:09:51 GMT 7
I have been going through the Australian Federal Budget papers, and can't find anything about Disability Support Pension (DSP) changes. Anyone find any changes of any type to DSP?
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Post by Banjo on May 13, 2014 21:11:57 GMT 7
We're only going on media reports, I'll read the full release tomorrow.
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Post by keepyourchinup on May 14, 2014 15:43:26 GMT 7
Banjo, I have posted elsewhere the extraction I did of all the references I could find in all of the 16 Budget Papers to DSP. I hope it helps provide some of the facts we need to help our group.
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But who know.