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Australian government extending age for "crackdown" on DSP recipients

Sean

Senior Member
Messages
7,378
I didn't believe for a second that they were going to leave the older recipients alone. It was always just spin to get the door open for a comprehensive assault on the whole system.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...in-dsp-crackdown/story-fn59niix-1227102958094

TOUGH rules that target people under 35 on the Disability Support Pension will be extended to older people on the payment in the first tranche of reforms to the welfare system to be rolled out in next year’s May budget.

Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews told The Australian he would receive the McClure welfare review’s final report by Christmas, and then embark on a “phased” reform process, with an extension of the crackdown on the DSP to older people on the payment the most immediate priority.

[snip]

Mr Andrews has revealed he believed this measure should go a lot further.

[snip]

“Under the existing legislation we are able to seek to activate people that are under 35, but hypothetically that could go to 40 or 45,…"
 

Sean

Senior Member
Messages
7,378
"activate people" .
What on Earth does that mean?

They are trying to cultivate the view that the only (or main) thing that keeps people on welfare is being on welfare in the first place. Phrases like 'condemned to a lifetime of welfare' are being bandied about, as if no government ever before them has made any attempt to 'encourage' people back to work.

Doesn't matter that we already have one the tightest and most effectively targeted social support systems in the world. This is a fact-free, ideology soaked government.

Reminds me of a Groucho Marx line: These are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others.
 

SilverbladeTE

Senior Member
Messages
3,043
Location
Somewhere near Glasgow, Scotland
For years folk thought I was nuts telling them the evils of 70 years ago were coming back...as so often, I was right :/

And Alex, it may not start or end as the Third Reich, but it will go down into bestial evil unless stopped, it is totally inevitable when you dehumanize folk like this.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/24/iain-duncan-smith-disabled-ms-parkinsons-dwp

Iain Duncan Smith thinks he can cure disabled people as if by magic
Thousands of people with degenerative conditions such as MS and Parkinson’s are being deemed ‘able to work soon’ by DWP assessments that are as cruel as they are incompetent
Disabled-People-Against-C-011.jpg

Members and supporters of Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) march in London this month. Photograph: Guy Corbishley/Demotix/Corbis
Iain Duncan Smith is Jesus Christ. For anyone who missed the Second Coming, it happened at around mid-morning on Thursday when it became apparent that the secretary of state for work and pensions has started to cure the disabled and chronically sick.

I mean, he hasn’t actually cured anyone yet. But I assume it’s only a matter of time, because thousands of severely ill and disabled people have had their benefits cut since the DWP deemed that they would “recover” from their degenerative conditions in order to go to work. Recover, that is, from a condition that by its very definition is bound to get worse.

It has emerged that more than a third of people with disabilities such as Parkinson’s and MS are being denied the full version of employment support allowance and pushed into “work-related activity” – the group expected to be well enough to work, that gets less money, and is routinely sanctioned.

Forget the surgeon who enabled a paralysed man to walk again, IDS is the real disability hero of the week. He hasn’t even had medical training, but you don’t see that stopping him. If the DWP decides someone with Parkinson’s will get better in order to find a job, why would medical science disagree? And if they say they are in pain or their limbs are trembling, cutting their benefits should incentivise them to deal with it.

Let’s not be shy about the scale of this. Almost 8,000 people diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, muscular atrophy, Parkinson’s disease, cystic fibrosis and rheumatoid arthritis have been put on this lesser “will be able to work soon” benefit, according to an investigation by the conditions’ respective charities. Of these, 5,000 people were put into the category despite assessors actually writing the phrase “unlikely [to be fit for work] in the longer term” on their reports.

It is unclear exactly how IDS is achieving this modern-day miracle. In my mind, I imagine I’d have to rub his scalp for an hour until a ball of light-filled energy shivered through his shiny head to each strand of my genetic makeup. But these are just details. Nonsensical, borderline disturbing details that I just made up. Which, funnily enough, is exactly how disability benefit policy seems to be constructed under this government.

This level of incompetence means that seven out of 10 new claimants with a progressive condition have been reassessed two or more times on the same claim. Because it’s good to check that a person’s cystic fibrosis didn’t scrub off in the last month after a few really nice baths. Health experts claim that repeatedly harassing people who are too ill to get out of bed and threatening to remove the money they need to eat is causing stress and anxiety.

Is no one grateful for attention, any more? IDS hates ingratitude. As he told Channel 4 news this week when Krishnan Guru-Murthy suggested disabled people felt “hard done by” under this government’s policies: “We probably spend more on disabled and sick people in Britain … than almost any other country in the developed world.” He doesn’t let the fact that this is a lie stop him. He inserts the word “probably” and then says whatever fits with his policies.

I believe IDS is “probably” incompetent and is reducing thousands of people, scared, in pain, and humiliated, to poverty. This latest farce is emblematic of a government-wide culture of dehumanising, dangerous benefit cuts that have rotted every part of the social-security system and are causing people to die.

For this government, work for disabled people doesn’t simply mean paying them less. It means forcing them into the job in the first place. The terrifying thing is that this isn’t a joke. Iain Duncan Smith has been given the power to play with people’s lives.
 

taniaaust1

Senior Member
Messages
13,054
Location
Sth Australia
This is what I was telling people would happen but so any older ones didnt believe it. The government never would target all disabled in a big hit as there would be too many outraged, so they are picking them off group by group.. starting from the most vulnerable group, the youngest disabled.

Those of us who just get this on the grounds of ME/CFS are already often faced with stigmatism.. its going to be a real nightmare. We are going to end up being like the England situation if this keeps going on.

**sighs** at least I okay I guess with this for I cant even leave my house without a support worker **sighs** thou if they are really bad they could try to say we can work from home. They also could decide that all of us who have ME/CFS just need some GET and CBT (which is a possibility.. I got knocked back on that ground when I first applied for a disability pension!)
 

taniaaust1

Senior Member
Messages
13,054
Location
Sth Australia
“Under the existing legislation we are able to seek to activate people that are under 35, but hypothetically that could go to 40 or 45,…"

"activate people" .
What on Earth does that mean?

By activate.. they mean they believe that most of us on disability can work. Just like what happened in England. I think they tried saying that 2/3 people on disability pension should be working.

Here in Australia a disability pension is VERY HARD to get in the first place for most things so most are quite sick. Thou there are some who dont do the right thing but one will get that amongst ANY group. (Over the years, Ive known well 3 on disability who from what I see of their lives could work). I doubt that even a fourth of those on disability could be working (let alone work enough hours to live off of).
 

MeSci

ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
Messages
8,231
Location
Cornwall, UK
They are trying to cultivate the view that the only (or main) thing that keeps people on welfare is being on welfare in the first place. Phrases like 'condemned to a lifetime of welfare' are being bandied about, as if no government ever before them has made any attempt to 'encourage' people back to work.

.

I find it really insulting to hear phrases like this. I heard yet again on the radio this week about disabled people being 'written off' as though we do not have minds of our own but all accept the fate that governments and other authorities bestow upon us.

When you read the stories of people's battles to get the money they need to feed themselves, keep a roof over their heads and heat their homes, it is blindingly obvious that they know what they need and go all-out to try to get it. If they are able to work - or more accurately - if there are employers willing to employ them - they strive to get work.

So the governments are trying to tell people who may have spent years studying hard and getting good qualifications that they did so in order to live in poverty, out of work, scorned by society, rather than get fulfilling, well-paid work in their area of interest?

How DARE they?

There is no angry emoticon up to the task of portraying the volcano that could represent my outrage.

Have to try not to think about it.
 

Snow Leopard

Hibernating
Messages
5,902
Location
South Australia
Here is a funny one:
http://graemeinnes.com/2014/10/22/hey-tony-i-want-to-play-for-team-australia/

But 45 % of Australians with disabilities live in poverty. We are employed at a rate 30 % less than the general population. And in reality the statistics probably paint a more positive picture, because many of us have withdrawn from the labour market. In the game of employment, far too many of us are benched from Team Australia.

This is despite the fact that we stay in employment longer and are more committed employees, we take less sick leave and make fewer workers compensation claims, we have a better safety record, and we are excellent problem solvers – we would have to be to get through our lives.

So it’s time we – the members of Team Australia – did something about it. Yes, I mean each one of us reading this blog. It’s time we shirt fronted our local politician. Which I understand in polispeak means having a very robust conversation. And here’s what we should say.

I propose that politicians take the lead on employment of people with disabilities. I suggest a government-established scheme which allows an extra member of staff for each politician who employs a person with a disability. If you don’t think it works, just ask Minister Duncan Gay in the NSW coalition government, or Jan Barham in the NSW Upper House representing the Greens...

:rofl:

It is actually a good suggestion, because it means all their policy will have input from at least one-pwd-per-politician, which they will have to personally justify.
 

heapsreal

iherb 10% discount code OPA989,
Messages
10,089
Location
australia (brisbane)
Way I see it is if we move in the direction of a grrens/labor model than we will have a very socialist health system like the UK and cfsme people will be forced into psych treatments etc by all the do gooders or just left alone as cfsme isn't a recognized condition, just a bunch of mental health nuts.

I guess at the moment we have the choice of seeing which ever gp we want so we can get some type of help, if u find the right doctor.

I know a lot of aussies are anti a USA style health system but at least there are doctors there trying to move the illness forward and unlike the aussie gvt trying to control and restrict treatments and testing.

I feel a capitalist health system can move treatments forward and are motivated tohelp. A socialist style system will just breed more wessely ttypes.

We need something in between where everyone gets care but a private sector motivated to find answers. hopefully that filter down into the health system.

A socialist style health system wouldn't allow the sort of research going on a Griffith, which was started at bond uni, a private uni with private donations and some govt backing.

Our choices are limited, but I can't see how the previous gvt would be better. It's a yin and yang system, one govt spends money like a drunken soldier and the other is as tight as a fishes arse. Either situation want last long.

legitimacy of cfsme I think is our biggest obstacle.
 
Messages
1,446
.
UK’s Professor Mansel Aylward exporting UNUM insurance company ideology ‘work for health’ to Australia in 2010.


REALISING THE HEALTH BENEFITS OF WORK
www.racp.edu.au/index.cfm?objectid=58C41516-C2D1-1FF1...


REALISING THE HEALTH BENEFITS OF WORK

A POSITION STATEMENT

Professor Sir Mansel Aylward CB
Director: Centre for Psychosocial and Disability Research,
Cardiff University and Chair: Public Health Wales



Making the distinction: definitions and usage

Disease: objective, medically diagnosed, Pathology

Impairment: significant, demonstrable, deviation or loss of structure or function

Illness: subjective feeling of being unwell (internal)

Sickness: social status accorded to the ill person by society (external)



Fundamental Precepts:
• Main determinants of health and illness depend more upon lifestyle, socio-cultural environment and psychological (personal) factors than they do on biological status and conventional healthcare.1

• Work: most effective means to improve well-being of individuals, their families and their communities.2

• Objective: rigorously tackling an individual’s obstacles to a life in work.

1. Marmot M. Status Syndrome, Bloomsbury, London: 2004
2. Waddell G, Burton K. Is work good for your health and well-being? TSO, London: 2006

.
 

Bob

Senior Member
Messages
16,455
Location
England (south coast)
In the UK, government ministers refer to the reduction of welfare benefits payments as "having to make difficult decisions."
I find this very irritating... Difficult for whom, I wonder?
Ministers earn upwards of £100,000, so their "difficult decisions" don't really affect them.
So, yes, it's "difficult" for the welfare recipients to have their payments reduced, but I can't see how it's difficult for the decision makers!
 
Last edited:

JAM

Jill
Messages
421
We need something in between where everyone gets care but a private sector motivated to find answers. hopefully that filter down into the health system.

A socialist style health system wouldn't allow the sort of research going on a Griffith, which was started at bond uni, a private uni with private donations and some govt backing.

Our choices are limited, but I can't see how the previous gvt would be better. It's a yin and yang system, one govt spends money like a drunken soldier and the other is as tight as a fishes arse. Either situation want last long.

legitimacy of cfsme I think is our biggest obstacle.
I think if a socialist system was funded properly the researchers would be plenty motivated. The researchers aren't the ones motivated by $$, the investors are, because they are the ones who get the $$. The researchers are motivated by the puzzle, a functioning lab, and helping people. They should make an upper middle class income, but I don't know a researcher who cares much about money beyond that.
 

Snow Leopard

Hibernating
Messages
5,902
Location
South Australia
I feel a capitalist health system can move treatments forward and are motivated tohelp. A socialist style system will just breed more wessely ttypes.

We lose in both cases, but government run systems are more susceptible to reform when it comes to social inclusion etc.

Unfortunately Australians as a whole seem to lack leadership and be allergic to change that may benefit people other than themselves.
 

Sean

Senior Member
Messages
7,378
Our choices are limited, but I can't see how the previous gvt would be better. It's a yin and yang system, one govt spends money like a drunken soldier and the other is as tight as a fishes arse.

I feel a capitalist health system can move treatments forward and are motivated tohelp. A socialist style system will just breed more wessely ttypes.

With respect, that is a naive, simplistic, and anachronistic understanding of these matters.

You think the sick and disabled will get a better deal from our current radical right government than the previous centrist one?

Care to point out which of this current government's policies work in our favour?