Australia - Disability payment to be restricted in McClure welfare shake-up

[RustyJ]

• Claimants would have to show they can’t work more than eight hours a week
• Incapacity would be expected to last at least five years
• Young people not eligible for support until the age of 22
• No one would be worse off under the new system, report recommends

http://www.theguardian.com/australi...o-be-means-tested-in-mcclure-welfare-shake-up

 

[Sean]

No one would be worse off under the new system, report recommends

Riiiight.

 

[alex3619]

This is the same problem with the UK ... how does one prove one cannot work with ME when the tests needed are not available?

 

[heapsreal]

the first thing that comes to my mind his who is going to employ you for 8hrs a week, secondly if one gets a job, when they find you have a disability that makes you unreliable, who will want to give you a job. Better yet in charge of pays and putting an extra few zeroes on the end of peoples wagers?????

 

[alex3619]

the first thing that comes to my mind his who is going to employ you for 8hrs a week, secondly if one gets a job, when they find you have a disability that makes you unreliable, who will want to give you a job. Better yet in charge of pays and putting an extra few zeroes on the end of peoples wagers?????

Actually we should demand the government hires us.

 

[Aurator]

Australia are taking a leaf out of Mansel Aylward's book, a man who long ago took it upon himself to wage a crusade against the sick and disabled in the UK.

This is from his palmares:

"He played a key role in development and evaluation of the UK’s medical assessment for incapacity (the All Work Test), and was heavily involved in developing the Personal Capability Assessment (PCA). He led the Corporate Medical Group on the UK Government's Welfare Reform initiatives and made a major contribution in establishing the new postgraduate diploma for doctors in Disability Assessment Medicine. He was closely involved in developing the UK’s successful “Pathways to Work” initiatives and a framework for Vocational Rehabilitation."

Not content to restrict his menaces to the UK, he's also "a visiting Professor at several universities in Europe and North America and a consultant to the United States Social Security Administration and Department of Labour."

All of our efforts at advocacy and fundraising, and even the efforts of those well-meaning physicians who worked recently for the IOM, for example, are really just pea-shooters against the impregnable gun emplacements effortlessly erected by people like Aylward. The whole social and political infrastructure as it stands militates against us. It needs a bigger hand than the one we've got to sweep it all away and let scientific progress and justice take their course.

 

[biophile]

Welfare to work is big business, and apparently plagued with rorting by employees/companies:

Investigation exposes fraud within taxpayer funded Jobs Services Australia

AN INVESTIGATION has uncovered a massive taxpayer rip-off perpetrated not by 'dole bludgers' sponging off the unemployment system — but instead by the agencies tasked with finding people jobs.

http://www.news.com.au/finance/work...rvices-australia/story-fnkgbb3b-1227237512956

 

[taniaaust1]

• Claimants would have to show they can’t work more than eight hours a week

umm and how would a person who is only capable of say working 9 hrs per week live off that money?

• Incapacity would be expected to last at least five years

That's going to make it very hard for ME/CFS to get onto disability as most doctors probably wont be willing to state the person will be still sick in 5 years time (unless they've already been sick for a very long time).

 

[CantThink]

umm and how would a person who is only capable of say working 9 hrs per week live off that money?

That's exactly what I thought. It's bizarre and makes no sense. Does a person get top up benefits if they can work say 10 hours a week to make up for the 25 to 30 hours income they need to live on?

 

[Aurator]

It's bizarre and makes no sense.

It makes perfect sense. The system is a win-win situation for its devisers. It gives people a choice: work or starve. If you're too ill to work, that's fine; you'll die off all the sooner and decrease the surplus population.

 

[CantThink]

It makes perfect sense. The system is a win-win situation for its devisers. It gives people a choice: work or starve. If you're too ill to work, that's fine; you'll die off all the sooner and decrease the surplus population.

Okay...

I meant from the perspective of the sufferer.

 

[worldbackwards]

There appears to be different levels of benefit...

The report, set to be released on Wednesday, recommends the current complicated system of government payments be collapsed into five types of assistance.

These would be the disability payment, now to be called a “supported living pension”; a means tested payment for parents of children under 22; the aged pension; a special means-tested payment for carers; and a “working age payment” that is “tiered” depending on a person’s work capacity.

The “upper tier” working age payment would be for people with limited capacity due to disability, the middle tier for people with disabilities with a capacity to work between 15 and 29 hours a week and for parents with dependent children, and the “foundation tier” for those with a full capacity to work.

For a system that is supposed to be less complex, it looks strikingly…complicated.

However shit the UK benefits system is, it is at least pretty simple. There's only two things you need to know about the DWP - they don't like you and they're out to get you

 

[RustyJ]

Morrison has said he wants to use a system of “carrots and sticks” to get three specific groups in particular back into the workforce – women with children, young men and older workers.

Elderly are being targeted as well, so no ceiling at 40 or 45, I'm guessing.

Alan Jones was driving his "Mr Whippy" van on channel 7 this morning in support of the changes.

There are no tests. So we will be at the mercy of individual Centrelink staff. How soon before quotas are brought in for Centrelink staff?

My only suggestion is that patients get psychological tests to show incapacity (not sure of name), in lieu of exercise test. Not sure a 2-day bike test if available would be accepted anyway.

 

[taniaaust1]

Elderly are being targeted as well, so no ceiling at 40 or 45, I'm guessing.

Alan Jones was driving his "Mr Whippy" van on channel 7 this morning in support of the changes.

There are no tests. So we will be at the mercy of individual Centrelink staff. How soon before quotas are brought in for Centrelink staff?

My only suggestion is that patients get psychological tests to show incapacity (not sure of name), in lieu of exercise test. Not sure a 2-day bike test if available would be accepted anyway.

Yes all those who have ME/CFS and are disabled will be at the mercy of individual Centrelink staff and I know from my own experiences how biased those can be. (I had one of those one time tell me "I'll make you never get onto a disability pension" ..he didnt believe ME/CFS existed . He then without me knowing removed out of my file stuff which backed my cases so I got declined. It was right before the 3 appeal when I did a freedom of info request in which I finally found out half my supplied stuff was missing.

At least seeing I cant look after myself and hence do use support workers, I guess this is no threat to me but I still think its truely terrible. Old disabled people wont even get any retrieve from this as they are also targeting the older people, they dont care if you are about to be at elderly pension age by the sounds of it.

Its neuropsych testing I think you are thinking of. Issue is I found my severe ME/CFS brain problems only showed up on certain neuropsych tests.. first day I went for neuropsych testing all tests seemed fine, the second day thou, with diffferent neuropsych testing, my tests were very bad.

Most people wont go throu 4hrs over 2 days of neuropsych testing like I did (it was for a ME/CFS study) and most who do these kind of tests wont know which ones of them show up our issues the best.

and I dont know of any place in my state of Australia which would even be willing to do a 2 day exercise test of any kind with ME/CFS people. Most wont be able to prove how disabled they are and will be put into the need to get work group and send to job centres.

 

[Sean]

Not as simple as it sounds: The [McClure] Welfare Review in pictures

http://vcoss.org.au/blog/not-as-simple-as-it-sounds-the-welfare-review-in-pictures/