Young on DSP to face work ability scrutiny

[quantumranger]

Younger people on the disability support pension (DSP) are set to have their ability to work reviewed under a budget plan to rein in the rising cost of social security payments.

That's set to be announced in the budget on Tuesday, targeting some 30,000 DSP recipients aged under 35, media reports say.

This is in line with the report of the National Commission of Audit which said a risk-management approach should be taken in assessing those with the greatest potential for work.

"Examples could include younger people under the age of 35 and recipients who currently earn some employment income," the report said.

Liberal MP Alan Tudge, parliamentary secretary to Prime Minister Tony Abbott, said the DSP was growing rapidly with more than 800,000 current recipients and tens of thousands more assessed as disabled each year.

"What we would like to do is to ensure that those who are able to work are encouraged to do so," he told Sky News.

"At the moment the system tends to put a person on the disability support pension and then.... set and forget and leave them for a very long time, even though there might be a willingness, a desire and a capacity to at least make some contribution."

Labor frontbencher Matt Thistlethwaite said Labor in government had introduced a number of reforms designed to get those on the DSP into work.

He said that aimed to ensure there was support available for those who wanted to work and the necessary home support available through the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

"The Commission of Audit recommendations are to slow down the rollout of the NDIS," he told Sky.

"If that is the approach the Abbott government is going to take, then that's not the way we should be supporting people with disabilities, particularly encouraging them into work."

In its report, the Commission of Audit said the DSP was costing $15.8 billion a year.

However, new disability assessment criteria introduced in 2012 only apply to new entrants, creating inequalities between the newcomers and existing DSP recipients, an anomaly which should be addressed.






I have been on DSP since I was 18. I am now 22.
I have been with a Disability employment agency for 4 years moving from 3 of them.
I still am unemployed!
Maybe we should improve disability employment services.

[Banjo]

A very good point, and we all know how hard you have looked for a job and endeavoured to become a productive member of society.

[quantumranger]

I am feeling so deflated and just so depressed,lying in my bed all day with no sense of purpose.

[newtodsp]

May 10, 2014 12:24:04 GMT 7 quantumranger said:

I am feeling so deflated and just so depressed,lying in my bed all day with no sense of purpose.

Hi quantamranger, I'm sorry to hear you are not feeling very happy. We are all struggling. I have had lots of trouble sleeping with all the speculation in the media lately. One thing that has helped me is going on to the facebook pages of certain greens senators, and other social media sites where I found loads of other people struggling, crying out for help. Some sick and disabled people stuck on newstart, some single parents who had to sell their house and can barely make ends meet on newstart, we are all struggling. I think this made me feel I am not alone, there are many lives that will be crushed.

I think even though we are disabled and not working, there are many avenues to finding purpose. My psychologist told me about Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor who survived by living according to his values despite being in a concentration camp. So just by being kind, compassionate - to ourselves, or to others, or having hope, or whichever values you hold dear, we can find meaning.

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

[struggling]

breaking news

Easy access to welfare is over: Andrews

UP to 20,000 Australians who receive the disability support pension (DSP) will be assessed for the capacity to work, and if deemed able, will be expected to get a job.
In tough talk ahead of the budget, Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews also repeated warnings that the days of young Australians sitting at home on the couch collecting welfare cheques were over.
He said the government believed young people should be either be working or training for work.
"The message out of this is simply this. The days of easy welfare for young people are over. We want a fair system but we don't think it is fair that young people can just sit on the couch at home and pick up a welfare cheque. Those days are over," he told reporters in Melbourne.
Mr Andrews confirmed the budget, to be delivered on Tuesday night, will introduce rules that mean some people collecting the DSP disability support pension will be reviewed for capacity to work.
That will apply to some 10-20,000 people who had gone onto the DSP in the last 5-6 years but not yet assessed under new impairment tables.
"If they are capable of working, whether it is full-time or part-time, then our expectation is that they should be working," he said.
Mr Andrews said measures announced on Tuesday would be just the first instalment of reform.
He said former Mission Australia chief executive Patrick McClure had completed his discussion paper on welfare reforms but would review it in light of budget changes.
The review will be released for public consultation after the budget.
"I will be taking to cabinet further proposals for welfare review. This will go to the structural arrangements," Mr Andrews said.
Mr Andrews said the welfare system now comprised some 50 payments, allowances and supplements assembled ad hoc over the years.
"It is time to have a clear look at making structural change so far as welfare is concerned," he said.
Proposed changes are in line with the report of the National Commission of Audit which said the DSP was costing $15.8 billion a year.
Opposition health spokeswoman Catherine King was critical of the changes to the DSP.
"Why would you be punishing them? Why would you be punishing their income security payments and trying to restrict their access to income support whilst at the same time cutting a whole lot of benefits that support them into work," she told reporters in Melbourne.

[struggling]

www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/young-on-dsp-to-face-work-ability-scrutiny/story-e6frfku9-1226912746397

[quantumranger]

If jobs were made more easily for DSP recipients than we would take them. If someone gave me a bartending position or a retail position, I will take it. But at the moment and for the last 4 years I have not been able to find a job.
I have been with lazy Disability Employment Providers they wasted my time. I am with a new one and I am 90% sure they have wasted my time as well. I keep asking them every week to follow up my job leads and help apply for the jobs I want.
They always keep saying to me go to FairField go to Bossley Park
They are all over 12 km from me. I can only work about 7 km.

[Deleted]

Andrews did state this morning
That if people are that disabled they will have nothing to fear.
But in saying this the tables could be used against people.

Just be prepared to take then on
The 20 000 people who will be affected.

[immiadvice]

What they will do is run the under 35s into a reassessment and jca. If they can get a decent percentage off the DSP they will then reassess everyone else against the new impairment tables.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[anotherdsp]

so 20,000 under 35s reveiwed,say 5,000 moved to newstart an maybe say half appeal to the ssat that is a lot of appeals!

[Banjo]

That should be the plan, although they all should appeal.

[Deleted]

May 11, 2014 8:45:22 GMT 7 anotherdsp said:

so 20,000 under 35s reveiwed,say 5,000 moved to newstart an maybe say half appeal to the ssat that is a lot of appeals!

It's going to cost them more to review people and fight the inevitable appeals than they will save. The whole thing isn't about saving money but simply Liberal ideology against welfare and kicking those who can't fight back....disgusting government.