The Government has released the findings of a FaHCSIA departmental review into the impairment tables used to assess eligibility for disability support benefits. Eligibility criteria have been largely unchanged since 1993, and the review found a number of shortcomings, including:

• Inconsistent consideration of assistive technology in assessing disability – for example, an applicant with a hearing impairment would have their hearing assessed without taking into consideration whether they regularly used a hearing aid;
• The use of outdated terminology in some of the impairment tables, which did not reflect recent advances in medical practice; and
• Confusion around the assessment of some conditions where the diagnostic criteria and impacts are subject to medical debate, like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

From the beginning of next year, the Government is set to adopt a streamlined set of impairment tables recommended by FaHSCIA, which take current medical practice into account. FaHSCIA estimates that about 40 percent of current disability benefit recipients would not be eligible under changes, although Community Services Minister Jenny Macklin has indicated that current recipients will not be subject to the new impairment tables.

Government rhetoric and action

It is worth placing the changes to the disability support pension in the broader context of the Government’s rhetoric on workforce participation. In a major policy speech delivered to the Sydney Institute earlier this year, titled ‘The Dignity of Work’, Prime Minister Gillard argued that the current skills shortage and strong Australian economy created a pressing need for moving people from long-term welfare dependency into gainful employment.

The tenor of Prime Minister Gillard’s speech seems targeted at promoting the reform credentials of the Government while at the same time playing to negative community perceptions of long-term welfare recipients. Ms. Gillard stated the Government’s commitment to “help individuals, families and communities whose worklessness has seen them excluded from society and the economy through decades of economic growth." In another breath, she invokes the language of the “fair go”, declaring her belief that “every Australian should pull his or her own weight."

As alluded to in Gillard’s speech, welfare reform has been high on the agenda during this term of Government. There is bipartisan support for the introduction of compulsory income management of welfare recipients with dependent children, and the Opposition has expressed tentative support for reform of the disability pension’s eligibility requirements and a national disability insurance scheme to be introduced in 2015.

In the case of the latest reforms, the FaHSCIA review’s advisory committee was mainly comprised of Federal bureaucrats and only two people on the 29-member advisory committee were members of disability advocacy organisations. The potential impact on the lifestyle of disabled welfare recipients was not considered in the terms of reference of the review. Advocacy groups for specific impairments were invited to participate in FaHSCIA consultations, but this primarily concerned with the business of modernising the impairment tables in line with current medical practice.

At present, there is an incentive for long-term unemployed welfare recipients to attempt a move from Newstart unemployment payments to the disability support pension, which pays $128 more per week and does not have Newstart’s burdensome reporting requirements. The Australian Council of Social Service, who were not invited to participate in consultations for the FaHSCIA review, has cautiously welcomed the revisions to disability support pension eligibility, but as ACOSS CEO Cassandra Goldie warned the Sydney Morning Herald: "Unless there is a dramatic improvement in the job prospects of people with disabilities, all tightening of access to benefit will achieve is to leave people with disabilities $128 per week poorer."

Will the reforms lead to improved return to work prospects for the disabled?

In announcing the outcome of the review, Ms. Macklin noted that the measure was expected to save the Government $35 million per year from its implementation in 2012. Ms. Macklin stressed that in the most recent budget, the Government had significantly expanded vocational training and employment service provisions for the disabled.

Last year the Government consolidated its vocational support for disability benefit recipients under the umbrella of Disability Employment Services. The DES has a number of important improvements from its predecessors, primarily the removal of a cap in places which previously forced the disabled to wait months for a place in a job training course. However, after little more than a year of operation, it is difficult to get a picture of the scheme’s success.

What is lacking from the Government’s approach is an official effort to encourage employers to recruit more disabled workers. As Cassandra Goldie has noted, for the Government’s reforms to have the effect of increasing workplace participation, “then it's absolutely critical that both government as a major employer – and their track record is not great – and business more generally really steps up and makes a commitment to offer the kinds of jobs people with a disability would love to have the opportunity to take.”

RTW Matters is a proponent of the link between employment and physical and mental wellbeing. At this stage it is too early to tell whether the Government’s reform of the disability pension will increase the amount of disabled persons in the workforce, let alone in positions that will allow them to harness the well-documented benefits of work. However, without an effort to encourage employers to accommodate more disabled workers, the Government may struggle to counter the belief that the eligibility changes are a revenue measure dressed up as a hymn to the benefits of returning to the workforce.