Senator Andrew Bartlett
Friday, February 18, 2005
 
Working for the Clampdown
Michelle Grattan's column in The Age today started with the following two sentences:

The Federal Government is determined to get more disability pensioners into the workforce.

With its eyes firmly on its coming Senate majority, the Howard cabinet is about to consider toughening eligibility for the disability support pension, which goes to more than 700,000 Australians.

Read quickly, they sound like they are part of the one action. But the fact is they are two totally different things. NOBODY, least of all disabled people themselves, objects to more disabled pensioners being able to get into the workforce. Many would jump at the chance.

This has nothing to do with making it harder for people to get on (or stay on) the disability support pension. Whilst it is unreasonable to suggest there should never be any changes to eligibility criteria, the Government’s agenda is simply to save money by keeping people off the pension. Unemployment payments now pay significantly less than pension payments and the gap between the two will continue to grow. The income test is also much tighter, meaning people lose much more money if they do get some part-time work.

I find it hard not to get angry about this, especially when:

a) blatant attempts to knock disabled people off the pension is disguised as an altruistic effort to ‘get them back into the workforce’;

b) punishing disabled pensioners is re-badged as ‘welfare reform’, when in reality it is a total bastardisation of the McClure Report, which is usually cited as laying out the welfare reform framework which this Government said it would follow. IF all of the other measures contained in this report had been implemented, (especially the need to reduce the gap between payments for pensioners and the unemployed) there might be a case for a more restrictive approach for a Disability Pension. However, as most of those involve the Government helping people in need before the better off, they have never been adopted.

c) it coincides with a push amongst Liberal backbenchers and some business leaders for more tax ‘reform’, which so far is little more than a barely disguised code for big tax cuts for higher income earners. Nothing shows this Government’s real character like cutting assistance for the disabled at the same time as talking up big tax cuts for the top earners;

d) it quite deliberately and calculatedly infers that some of the people currently on the disability pension are ‘bludgers’ who shouldn’t really be entitled to it. It can be difficult enough as it is surviving on a disability pension. It is far worse when you are made to feel guilty about receiving it.

Public debate over the last few weeks should have made clear how much of a stigma mental illness carries and how damaging this can be to sufferers. Try adding a good dollop of public antagonism, tacitly endorsed by the nation’s leaders, and see what that does for your mental health.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Friday, February 18, 2005 Permalink
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