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Post by Banker on Jul 30, 2011 7:13:45 GMT 7
It's been revealed that sweeping reforms to the Disability Support Pension will make it harder for applicants to be eligible. News Ltd says it's the biggest ever crackdown on the disability pension, with the government on Saturday publishing proposed new impairment tables, used to judge who is eligible to claim the benefit, worth $729.30 a fortnight for singles. News Ltd says the new rules will take effect from January 1 next year and apply only to new applicants. It says under the changes people with a hearing impairment will be assessed, taking their hearing aid into consideration to decide their capacity for work. And obesity or chronic pain will no longer be considered grounds in themselves for eligibility. Instead, News Ltd says, the government will consider how they affect a person's capacity to function and work. This includes bad backs, which will no longer be assessed by how much movement and mobility has been lost, but rather on what the back condition prevents the person from doing, including sitting for a long period of time, or bending over to pick up objects. There will also be new guidelines on mental health, the fastest-growing category of new Disability Support Pension recipients, with people who suffer from episodic mental health conditions to be treated with a focus on rehabilitation. There are currently 815,000 DSP recipients, up by almost 100,000 from just two years ago. au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/latest/9942552/disability-pension-revamp-to-cut-benefits/
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Post by Banker on Jul 30, 2011 7:14:51 GMT 7
I said last year that the Government were going to try & do away with the DSP, I think this could be the start of it.  |
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Post by Banjo on Jul 30, 2011 8:23:47 GMT 7
I think that all of us would like to see younger people given other options than a life time of welfare dependency.
The trouble is that Centrelink and their minions too often treat each individual case as some sort of a scam until proven otherwise.
We need to help people who don't know what to do and encourage them not to give up.
All too often those people who fall through the cracks in the system are those who trust their government and believe what they are told.
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Post by latindancer on Jul 30, 2011 8:48:46 GMT 7
Here is a different link to a differently worded Yahoo7 news article about the same thing. au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/latest/9943108/government-to-overhaul-disability-pension/It is rather ambiguous, so difficult to tell if this article is saying that new applicants will not be able to claim for the same reasons they previously would have been able to......or if they are saying that some people receiving DSP already will be reassessed and booted off. Presumably the former, but I don't trust bureaucrats. |
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Post by Banjo on Jul 30, 2011 9:06:26 GMT 7
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Post by Banker on Jul 30, 2011 9:27:26 GMT 7
I think that all of us would like to see younger people given other options than a life time of welfare dependency. The trouble is that Centrelink and their minions too often treat each individual case as some sort of a scam until proven otherwise. We need to help people who don't know what to do and encourage them not to give up. All too often those people who fall through the cracks in the system are those who trust their government and believe what they are told. So very true. |
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Post by spaceyone on Jul 30, 2011 9:50:08 GMT 7
chronic pain will no longer be considered grounds in themselves for eligibility
That's just plain stupid. What, are they going to say? That we can just take some pain killers and go out and work in a factory? How do you drive there when on medication? How do you work effectively while doped up on pain killers.
Masking the pain, while doing physical labour will only increase the illness of the person, until they have done themselves a more serious damage or had a heart attack.
I recall that during one of my most painful episodes of my lower back locking up (I could not walk erect for three days), I was taking muscle relaxants and heavy duty pain killers for almost a month. During that time I could barely run my household. The kids had to do things for themselves that I would have normally done for them, I could not plan a meal or a budget because my head was so foggy. Most of the time, I didn't even know what time of day it was.
I never want to have to work myself back into a situation like that, nor experience that much pain every again. That was when it was suggested to me that I sign up with a disability employment service, 'because they have easy jobs for disabled to do'.
The psychologist at my disability employment service seemed to only approach businesses advertising for cleaners to get them on their books. You might not need a lot of intelligence to do that work, but you do need to be fit and strong. But then again, when cleaning motels rooms and cabins in caravan parks, we did have a big long list of chores in each room to remember.
They should give all the jobs in the public service to us, so we can sit down all day and not have to work too hard. And the previous public servants can go and clean toilets and work the factories. I might have to send that idea to Jooliar.
I saw Jooliar on tv the other night, for the first time since she was hardly able to disguise the fact that she had been crying over our rejection of the carbon tax. Seems she has stopped using that 'new' condescending voice, and gone back to her old one. She stuttered and had trouble being able to speak freely like she used to, lol. I guess that is the only change for the better our country can celebrate at the moment.
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Post by Banker on Jul 30, 2011 10:26:58 GMT 7
This link is not working Banjo |
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Post by Banjo on Jul 30, 2011 10:37:53 GMT 7
Works ok for me, try copying and pasting it.
It's the Multiple Sclerosis Social Network.
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Post by spaceyone on Jul 30, 2011 10:44:27 GMT 7
I think the government has become very confused about what constitutes a disability and what is illness.
Last year I researched the roots of my disability employment provider. Seems it sprang from my old home town. I recall in my youth the bus which used to come down our street to pick up a mentally disabled girl. It would take her to 'their' special school.
A group of parents with disabled kids had gotten together and formed themselves into a group. They rented the building and made the school for their kids. It gave the kids something to do each day, and social interaction. It gave the parents respite.
Their school then started taking in laundry, and using the income from that work to fund the school. They then taught the kids woodworking skills, and they began to sell the things they made.
This is how the severely disabled originally came into the work force. Our government has looked at that, and realised that 'these people' can contribute to their own upkeep afterall, the parents relied less on welfare support and it was all good.
Now in this day and age where our government has squandered the country's wealth, and denied it income by privatising everything that is not nailed down, they are looking for more tax payers. They see these disabled kids making a few dollars each week. They decided that if they encouraged them to work more, the government would in turn get more money. When that was not enough, they decided to bring in laws to force them to work longer and harder.
What began as a noble and innovative plan by a few parents, has been taken and bastardised into something very negative and degrading for the disabled.
My step father has a deformed left arm, resulting from being hit by a car when he was a boy. He not only worked all of his life, but played every possible sport as well. He retired a mere five years early, when his right arm had become very painful after so many years of doing all the work.
This is an example of someone overcoming their disability and contributing to society, by their own choice. He was a business manager, so his health was not badly impacted by his choice to work.
My parents were self funded retirees, until the stock market crashed, then they had to go onto a pension. They ended up on welfare, not by their own choice.
I on the other hand, am not really disabled - yet. I am experiencing an illness. I would prefer to work, than try to live on welfare. However, I am not able to unless I can find an easy job, where I will be allowed to call in sick whenever I need to, without being fired for same. I can have a week of days of feeling good, or I can have a week of feeling half dead. I cannot predict what each following day will be like, in terms of pain.
We need to keep the two issues separate. Those who's quality of life is affected by their long term disability should have the right to decide if doing some work would lift their feelings of self worth, or if they would rather find other ways of doing that.
Those who are experiencing illness, need to be nursed through that, so that they can come back to the workforce at full strength. Once I had been fired from a job, for calling in sick or my back locking up, Centrelink should have gone easy on me about looking for a new job, until I was well again. Instead, they would harrass me into looking for work, threatening to cut off my dole, when I was barely able to walk or drive around. Once I was well, I was the one prowling the job sites on the net, desperately looking for income. I received no help in that area at all.
People like Banker and Banjo who worked for 30 years or so, before becoming to ill with arthritis to be able to keep on working, should be left out to pasture. Preferably in a country of their own choosing.
The government is trying to lump us all into the same basket. The ill, the permanently disabled and those who ended up disabled after a long career. That basket is labelled 'potential tax dollars'. That is all we are to them.
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Post by latindancer on Jul 30, 2011 11:00:55 GMT 7
It's pretty well been decided that the new rules won't apply to long term DSP recipients. I think you're right. I guess I'm a bit edgy about being just about to marry here overseas and possibly losing about $160 per fortnight in payment. ...though I may be able to fight them on this. Or plead for mercy, or whatever. |
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Post by spaceyone on Jul 30, 2011 11:05:44 GMT 7
Lol, mercy seems to be a word that Centrelink is not familiar with. Nor the word compassion, respect or fairness. I have also began to wonder about honesty and integrity. I could go on, but it would take up too much space on the board.  |
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Post by Banjo on Jul 30, 2011 11:17:18 GMT 7
It's pretty well been decided that the new rules won't apply to long term DSP recipients. I think you're right. I guess I'm a bit edgy about being just about to marry here overseas and possibly losing about $160 per fortnight in payment. ...though I may be able to fight them on this. Or plead for mercy, or whatever. I think that you should take your case to your Federal MP if you decide to go ahead with your marriage plans. If you get a sympathetic reaction he may plead your case with the minister. Personally I think that your drop in benefits will be the least of your problems as Centrelink could watch your movements through immigration and attack your residency status. You may want to consider bringing your future wife to Australia. |
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Post by zorro1 on Jul 30, 2011 12:19:07 GMT 7
"News Ltd says the new rules will take effect from January 1 next year and apply only to new applicants".
does this mean those assessed today are under the old rules?
Also in regard to the changes in chronic pain.. THIS is ridiculous! If it wasn't for chronic Pain I would gladly not be applying for DSP. Chronic pain severely limits my ability to function and particularly to walk, some days I can only lay down due to over whelming pain.
Not all chronic pain can be controlled, in fact most chronic pain overrides even the most powerful of medicines such as morphine as the body adjusts to each dose and is then maxed out with little or no effect. How does one focus on anything when your out of your mind on powerful drug cocktails and still in pain!
Its ironic that the most devastating of conditions is being discounted. Did they even consult chronic pain specialists??
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Post by spaceyone on Jul 30, 2011 13:08:26 GMT 7
Good question Zorro. That statement implies that you will be assessed under the old tables. However, we have found that Centrelink starts operating out of laws as soon as they are proprosed, rather than passed. So it could go either way for you. It might be what is causing the delay with your assessment, that their staff are now just as confused about it all as we are becoming.
I guess Centrelink also feels that anyone who claims to be in chronic pain is a faker. And chronic pain specialists to be protector's of fakers. I would love to let one of them spend a day in my body, on a high pain day, and ask them if they could manage to go to work.
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