Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That subsections 8(3) to 8(8) of the Social Security (Tables for the Assessment of Work-related Impairment for Disability Support Pension) Determination 2023, made under the Social Security Act 1991, be disallowed [F2023L00188].

Yesterday we were debating strengthening the so-called safety net legislation, which was not strengthening a safety net but was leaving people in poverty. As I said yesterday, poverty is a political choice. Today we are debating to disallow parts of this determination. If this disallowance is supported, it would have a significant impact and improve the lives of people with a disability.

Creating a fair society for people with disabilities is also a political choice. We are seeking to disallow parts of this regulation before us today because those parts are continuing to create barriers to people with disabilities being able to access the disability support pension. Today I am fully expecting, sadly, that the government will want to proceed with continuing these barriers that mean people are limited in their access to the disability support pension. Yesterday, instead of raising the rate of income support, and today supporting people to access the disability support pension, Labor are making their priorities clear. It is very disappointing that it doesn't seem that Labor will be supporting this disallowance—we might be surprised; maybe they will and maybe they'll have a change of heart—because by making the changes and disallowing parts of this regulation today, they could make a real difference to the lives of thousands and thousands of disabled people in Australia.

The regulation that we are attempting to disallow parts of today sets up the rules as to who can access the disability support pension. They're the rules by which you are assessed on whether or not you are sufficiently disabled, so they are core in determining who does and doesn't get access to the DSP. This is so critical to people who have disabilities in Australia today because if people with disabilities are rejected from access to the disability support pension, then they are left languishing on JobSeeker, which—as we know and as we heard yesterday—provides a completely inadequate income, has punitive mutual obligations and carries with it the presumption that people are capable of undertaking full-time, or close to full-time, work. This results in a constant cycle of people having to prove that they're not well enough to undertake full-time or part-time work and people constantly having to be exempted from their mutual obligations. It is an absolute continuation of hoops and barriers being put in people's way.

If you have significant disabilities and you're rejected from being able to access the disability support pension, then life is a huge struggle. So many of us, I know certainly all of my Greens colleagues, hear from people day after day who are saying: 'Here are the disabilities I have, and yet I'm not able to access the DSP. I am struggling to survive on JobSeeker, struggling to survive on the poverty payments. I can't pay for my medications, which would maybe help me keep my health issues under control.' They are living in totally inadequate, appalling housing, which in many cases is exacerbating their disabilities. They are living in overcrowded housing, housing with mould and housing that is too cold in winter and too hot in summer. If they are accepted onto the DSP, that provides a higher level of income support. It is still not generous, and I know there are many people on the DSP who are also really, really struggling. But if you are a person on the DSP, if you have affordable housing—obviously, a critical criteria—if you are not in rental stress, if you are not paying more than 25 per cent of your income in housing then on the DSP you can generally get by living a pretty frugal life, mostly able to access and afford the necessary medications, mostly able to afford to eat. Of course, if you are on the DSP and you're paying through the nose for private rental, if your medications and health treatments cost more than average and are not covered by Medicare, and there are far too many that aren't, your situation is more dire.

But if you're not even on the DSP, well, then you are will be in a much worse situation. You will be on the much lower payments of JobSeeker. Your situation will much more desperate. These are the people that this debate is about today. It is for these people that we are seeking to disallow parts of these regulations. These people, who were given just a measly $4 a day increase to JobSeeker yesterday, who have considerable disabilities, who cannot access the DSP, have been rejected from the disability support pension because they are not considered disabled enough. It is how the impairment tables, which we are debating today, are applied that determine whether or not their application to access the DSP passes or fails, whether they are disabled enough to get the slightly more generous income of the DSP.

We are seeking to disallow parts of these regulations today, not because this would create a perfect system but because it is an improvement that would make a difference. Fundamentally, we believe there needs to be a complete overhaul and a complete reassessment of the criteria through which people should be able to get the DSP. Fundamentally, we think everybody in Australia should be guaranteed a liveable income so that everybody has the income they need, whether there are disabled or not and so there isn't this cliff determining whether they get onto the higher rate of the DSP or whether they fall off a cliff and only get JobSeeker. But at least if we could get a fair system so that people who have disabilities, who need that extra support, who are not able to undertake significant amounts of paid work, could access the DSP, there would be a significant improvement in their lives.

In 2021, my former colleague Senator Rachel Siewert, who was then the chair of the Community Affairs References Committee, established an inquiry into the adequacy of the DSP. I took over chairing the Community Affairs References Committee in September '21 and I chaired most of the hearings of that inquiry. Labor and Liberal senators sat in that room. Labor and liberal senators are going to be here today. I hope that they reflect upon the recommendations that we made in that committee report, that everybody agreed to, and I hope that they will vote in support of those recommendations they agreed to in that inquiry.

I specifically want to talk to the top three recommendations of that inquiry because they are relevant to what we are debating today. The review of the impairment tables began while our inquiry was taking place. We received considerable evidence about the impairment tables and the limitations that they put in place to accessing the DSP. But our first recommendation related to the overarching assessment as to who is eligible for the DSP. We recommended that the Australian government investigates how the requirement for the treatment be fully diagnosed, treated and stabilised is preventing people with conditions that are complex, fluctuating or deteriorating over time from the disability support pension. The tables could be modified to ensure that people get the support they need. The committee specifically found in its report that the requirement that the condition be fully diagnosed, treated and stabilised is a significant barrier to be accessing the DSP. If a person's condition has been determined to be fully diagnosed, treated and stabilised, it is accepted as being permanent. However, if their condition is not considered permanent then it cannot be assessed under the impairment tables and they will not receive DSP.

Then we continued with regards to the impairment tables, which are core to what we are attempting to amend today. We said:

The committee is concerned that the DSP's impairment tables create unsurmountable barriers for many applicants—particularly the requirement for 20 points in a single table to demonstrate a severe impairment.

The committee agrees that the current application of the tables fails to recognise the cumulative impact that multiple disabilities and comorbidities may have, and strongly disagrees with the assumption that individuals with impairments across multiple areas of function have more capacity to work compared to individuals with impairments in a single area of function.

Based on evidence provided, the committee is concerned that the current review of the impairment tables being undertaken by DSS is too limited in scope and will fail to address the key issues raised during this inquiry.

A more holistic approach is needed to assess an individual's overall level of capacity. Hence, the committee is supportive of suggestions that people with disability should be able to access the DSP through an accessible mechanism that recognises the full extent of disability.

Our second recommendation was:

… that the Australian Government considers reforming the approach taken to determine whether a claimant has a 'severe impairment', so as to allow the accumulation of 20 points across any number of impairment tables to meet the definition of a severe impairment.

Our third recommendation was:

… that the Australian Government undertake an in-depth, clinical review of the impairment tables in totality, that recognises comorbidity and draws on the lived experience of people with disability; with a view to working towards a social model of disability.

The government has not acted on these recommendations. These holistic reassessments, considering how we assess people in a social model of disability, have not occurred. In fact, the government hasn't even responded to the recommendations, to the report of the Community Affairs References Committee. I know that it can take a bit of time for governments—and we've had a change of government in that time—but we haven't had a response to the really detailed considered work that we did, yet now we are proceeding with some very minor changes to the whole issue of how somebody gets assessed with a disability.

It's just not good enough. It is leaving too many people, as I said, who are not able to access the DSP languishing in poverty without the ability to afford what they need to be able to live a satisfying and dignified life with their disabilities. People with Disability Australia have been scathing in their assessment of the government's approach. In their submission on the exposure draft of the impairment tables, which are almost identical to the tables that we're attempting to amend today, they said:

The Disability Support Pension (DSP) impairment tables create a system of deserving and undeserving people with disability.

They quoted someone as saying:

"I didn't get enough points to qualify and I'm too scared of Centrelink to try again."

They said:

The DSP must be a truly supportive safety net for people with disability that alleviates poverty, and an important step towards achieving this is to abolish the impairment tables.

However, as the Department of Social Services (DSS) has highlighted in its issues paper, the Government and the Department are largely content with how the impairment tables are operating and do not wish to see dramatic changes.

DSS has emphasised the opportunity to influence the impairment tables to improve them is highly limited in scope, and that the impairment tables will continue to be used regardless of the outcomes of these consultations.

This review has created a sense of trepidation within the disability community. We fear the Government will introduce yet another round of harmful changes that fail to reflect the outcomes of this consultation, as has happened so often in the past.

And then they note:

The introduction of impairment tables had seen the rate of successful DSP applications drop from 60% to 30% by 2018—

which was the period in which the impairment tables were introduced.

We note in the government's approach that there has been a change in the overarching criteria. People now don't need to be 'fully diagnosed'; they just need to be 'diagnosed, reasonably treated and stabilised'. However, this still leaves so many people not able to access the DSP, and they've still got the barrier of needing to be diagnosed and stabilised. Despite the disabilities that they are presenting with, unless they are actually diagnosed and unless their condition is actually determined to be stabilised, they will not be able to access the DSP.

Our approach today is to try and overcome some of these barriers by removing the parts of the regulation which require a condition to be diagnosed, reasonably treated and stabilised before people are able to be assessed. It's an action we are taking which is addressing the ongoing inadequacy of the whole system. By disallowing these parts of these recommendations, we'll be improving access. We still won't be creating a perfect system that responds to the scale of the issues with the DSP; there is so much work that needs to be done, and, currently, the government is shirking doing that work. Currently the government is content to leave people in poverty. The people who got a measly $4 increase yesterday, who have disabilities, are going to continue to suffer. They are going to continue to not be able to live their best and dignified lives. It's a choice the government is making, and it's one the Greens reject. We will keep on fighting to make the changes we can to improve their lives.