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Post by Banjo on Nov 17, 2014 14:37:48 GMT 7
People with Disability Australia (PWDA) About PWDAPeople with Disability Australia Incorporated (PWDA) is a national disability rights and advocacy organisation. Our primary membership is made up of people with disability and organisations primarily constituted by people with disability. We also have a large associate membership of other individuals and organisations committed to the disability rights movement. Founded in 1981, the International Year of Disabled Persons, People with Disability Australia seeks to provide people with disability with a voice of our own. We have a cross-disability focus representing the interests of people with all kinds of disability. We are a non-profit, non-government organisation. www.pwd.org.au/about-us/about-pwda.html
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Post by Banjo on Nov 17, 2014 14:39:21 GMT 7
This appears to be free membership with the ability to contribute to Disability discussions.
Some of our more active/contributing members might like to consider joining.
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Post by Denis-NFA on Nov 22, 2014 9:34:40 GMT 7
This appears to be free membership with the ability to contribute to Disability discussions. Some of our more active/contributing members might like to consider joining. Have joined and will at least get their regular email information.
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Post by tanganyika on Feb 8, 2015 15:40:25 GMT 7
During the 2014-2015 budget, the Department of Social Security has introduced several budget measures among them limiting the overseas portability period for disability support pension to 28 days in a 12-month period starting from 1 January 2015 (Budget Measures Number 6). In the midst of heated debate over the 2014 Budget’s welfare reforms some significant measures have escaped the headlines altogether, including this new restrictions on Disability Support Pension (DSP) recipients travelling overseas. This measure was quietly passed through the Parliament on 17 December 2014 with the support of the Australian Labour Party.
Am calling upon allorganisations concerned (including the PWDA) to rally together to lobby and petition the government to rescind the legislation restricting DSP recipients to travel overseas. The only motive behind this according to the then Minister for DSS , Kevin Andrews, seems to be that the government was spending nearly $100million to support social security recipeint to live oversears. However the Minister forgets that there are thousands of Australian who receive overseas pensions here. DSS own records, for instance show that at June 2010 Annual expenditure on Australia’s pension payments paid to 71,360 people living overseas was $571.3 million, while during the same period, pensions from overseas countries being paid to people residing in Australia totaled $1.2 billion.
Also during the 2012-2013 budget, when the when the portability period was reduced from 13 weeks to six weeks it was considered that the new “six-week portability period was designed to allow income support and family assistance recipients who live in Australia sufficient time to deal with personal matters that may arise from time to time overseas”. This view was further stressed by the Minister the same month (May 2014) when he introduced the new measure while responding to a petition from the Chair, Standing Committee on Petitions, Dr. Dennis Jensen (MP) when he said “six weeks is considered enough time to enable people to deal with family crises or other personal matters that require them to be overseas”. Surprise surprise only to cut it to four weeks in any 12 months. Can PWDA and other stakeholders do something rather than keep quiet!
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Post by Banjo on Feb 8, 2015 17:30:24 GMT 7
Welcome to the forum tanganyika.
Disability Support, Age Pension and Carers Alliance Forum (incl. DSPoverseas)has done an enormous amount of work towards this including multiple Senate submissions to two governments.
Unfortunately in the early days we had little success interesting other groups in our campaign and I would be interested to see their reaction to your request.
We have members here who have struggled to maintain families overseas going from a barely comfortable existence under the 13 week portability rule to a nightmare struggle under 4 weeks a year.
Many have packed up and brought their families to Australia, we have examples of families of three or four living contentedly overseas on a single pension who now access full family benefits in Australia. Some savings eh?
Disability Support, Age Pension and Carers Alliance Forum (incl. DSPoverseas)fully supports any sort of joint campaign with other groups but the trick is getting them to work with us. This organisation is run on no public money, just the occasional members donation for paperwork etc and the long voluntary hours put into it.
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Post by tanganyika on Feb 17, 2015 16:52:22 GMT 7
What I would suggest is if everyone who has been impacted by this unfair legilation should write to their elected representatives in both houses. Write to all your senator in your state, write to your electorate member of the house of representative. It is only if we can maintain pressure on these representatives we can manage to change their unfair policies. See how many policies has the Abbott government reviewed in most recent times. If you go to the Table of social security Act, it is only the DSP portability has been reduced from 6 weeks to 4 weeks. All other forms of payments have been left untouched. And surprising, the current Minister for Social Services likens people on DSP payments with most Australian employees who are entitled to 4 weeks of annual leave. But the Minister forgets that employees'annual leave can rollover to next year, and therefore can take longer leave days of more than the 4 weeks when they do take leave. Pensioners cannot roll over their 4 weeks in a year to the following year. Employees can cash their annual leave , pensioners cannot. I cannot stres enough, lets keep writing those petitions, please.
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