Interview by Peter Godfrey on 5AA on the 30th of June 2014
30/06/2014
Kelly Vincent, Dignity for Disability MLC Federal Government’s proposed changes to Australia’s welfare system including disability support pension – 5AA radio.
Presenter Peter Godfrey: The big topic of discussion through today so far has been the discussion paper that was released yesterday that looks at a radical overhaul of Australia’s welfare system. The report was put together by the former head of Mission Australia Patrick McClure it includes, amongst its suggestions, a reduction of payment categories to just four from 70-odd that it is at the moment, also raises the idea of the disability support pension only being available to people with a permanent disability as well as income management for some welfare recipients there’s a six week consultation process. Kelly Vincent what was your first reaction to the report after it was released yesterday?
Kelly Vincent: Firstly, I think the fact that this report, or discussion paper was released during a weekend is very disappointing because often people tend to be less engaged with the media over the weekend it’s maybe trying to get a bit under the radar, but there are a number of other things that are very concerning about the report and that is that it’s suggested the DSP be refined to only people with permanent disability, which might sound okay until you consider the fact that what constitutes a permanent disability isn’t actually mentioned in the report we have concerns for people with more episodic disabilities such as mental illness, lupus or even multiple sclerosis who might be fine to work on some days but not others. It’s also confined to people with, quote, no capacity to work this is of course worrying for people whose disabilities might mean that they’re able to work a few days a week or part time as are able to get financial and social support because of that, but aren’t able to work full time. What does that mean for them if they’re only able to work a couple of days a week? The big one for us is that you can’t just take away someone’s sole source of income and expect them to get on with life if you don’t first address the major societal and physical barriers that people with disabilities can face when it comes to seeking employment – things like preconceptions about disability of their employers, often employers think it will be more expensive to employ someone with a disability, whether or not that ends up being true, there’s also a lot of misconceptions about the capacity of people with disabilities both physically and intellectually. There’s also the physical accessibility of the workforce – things like a lack of accessible bathrooms, a lack of supportive equipment to use in the office environment or the workplace environment those are things that need to be addressed before we consider who should be made eligible or ineligible for the (disability) pension
Peter Godfrey: But those things would be more issues to be dealt with at community level than at Government level, for employers to be aware of what they would need to employ someone that does have some type of disability, those are things beyond Government though aren’t they?
Kelly Vincent: This is a responsibility that falls on both the shoulders of the Federal Government and the community sector. The Federal Government has done a number of successful campaigns similar to this area. Consider for example Aboriginal unemployment we all know that there tend to be higher levels of unemployment in that sector for various reasons, and I’m certainly not saying that the disability sector is more deserving of attention than the Aboriginal sector but there’s an example to be used, things like the Close the Gap campaign that addressed a lot of the misconceptions about Aboriginality and what that can mean in terms of employment there is a role for the community sector to play as well but particularly if this is a measure that the Federal Government is considering and it’s down to the Federal Government, it needs to fully consider the ramifications of those measures and how it can help address those.
Peter Godfrey: You mentioned concern about whether any changes would lead to people having reduced payments made to them, do you fear that that is the sole focus, that it’s about just simply reducing payments.
Kelly Vincent:There is absolutely no doubt that there are people with disabilities who want to work. My office is regularly contacted by them … we can certainly consider there’s no doubt around that but again, if we don’t address the societal barriers, the physical barriers, all we’re really going to do … is increase reliance or the likelihood is that it will increase reliance on other services such as homeless services and so on … we can’t just take away one pool of money as a savings measure if it again results in another pool of money needing to be injected into to deal with the ramifications of that.
Peter Godfrey: Do you welcome the discussion that has started so that a lot of these concerns you’ve got and concerns that others have can be brought into the broader community to be discussed?
Kelly Vincent: It’s certainly a worthwhile discussion and one that’s been going on for quite some time but I certainly hope that this time around the Federal Government will listen to people with disabilities and their advocates as to what the true ramifications of a measure like this will be and how to carry it out successfully so that people with disabilities don’t once again carry the burden of people’s low expectations of them, and they are able to get into the workforce, but a lot more needs to be done to achieve that than cutting out the sole source of income for many people.
Peter Godfrey: Will you be actively involved with the discussion process, making a submission?
Kelly Vincent: Dignity for Disability will certainly be making a submission in the coming days and weeks and we’ll certainly be looking for feedback from my constituency as well.
