| Case Study
“Disability support recipients live lives of fear and desperation. Sooner or later every disability support recipient I know has confessed to the concern they feel over the ‘what if’ factor—what if government stops paying social security/disability support?”588
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Women with disability disproportionately receive a parenting allowance which is at a lower rate than the Disability Support Pension (DSP). In October 2011, the single rate for parenting allowance was $641.50 compared with the Disability Support Pension of $689.00.
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The current Federal Government has said that continuing to introduce measures to shift people with disability onto lower payments are aimed at providing incentives to work,589 however data shows that rates of labour force participation for people with disability have not changed significantly between 1993 and 2009.590 The shift of people with disability to NewStart began in 2005 under a previous Federal Government; this information suggests that lower payments do not increase employment among people with disability.
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Access to services, devices and aids is based on rigid eligibility criteria rather than need. (See Article 20)
Case Study
“I am almost totally deaf. I have had significant problems dealing with Centrelink. They do not understand my disability and how it affects my ability to work. They suggested employment options that would be ridiculous for someone with a hearing impairment: eg Accounts Payable which is almost all telephone work, Child-minding (how dangerous would that be for the children if I can’t hear what they are saying). They refused my application for DSP and only granted it once I paid for an Independent OT report which was used by the Job Capacity Assessor to write a new assessment. I was finally granted my DSP after going through the Social Security Appeals Tribunal and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.”591
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