Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

It's very disappointing to hear that brief contribution from the opposition, which follows on from a disappointing contribution from the government in what's been a challenging week already for people who are seeking assistance from their government to support them to live a decent and dignified life. We've heard the horror stories, and I will share some of those in the brief time that I have to speak to this matter today.

The reason the Greens are seeking to disallow part of this instrument is that currently, in the updated impairment tables that apply and are relevant when you're seeking to establish your eligibility for the disability support pension, there's a requirement that the individual's impairment must be diagnosed, treated and stabilised before they can apply for the disability support pension. That makes it very difficult to apply for some people who, in our view, deserve to be able to apply for and receive disability support payment.

This difficulty has been felt in the community for such a long time that back in 2021 our glorious former senator and party whip Rachel Siewert initiated an inquiry into the eligibility and the lack of ease of access to the disability support pension. My wonderful colleague Senator Rice took over on that inquiry. The inquiry really was about people having difficulty demonstrating that their disability or their chronic illness is permanent and sufficiently severe and they have a continuing inability to work. For those unable to demonstrate that their level of impairment is severe, the 'program of support' requirement can also be an insurmountable hurdle. That committee heard that the key barriers to accessing the DSP resulted from the claims process and included challenges experienced by people trying to gather the medical evidence required to support their claim. In particular, the requirement we're seeking to disallow—that the condition be fully diagnosed, treated and stabilised—simply acts as a significant barrier to people accessing the DSP. If a person's condition has been determined to be fully diagnosed, treated and stabilised, it's accepted as being permanent. However, if their condition is not considered permanent, then it can't be assessed under the impairment tables, and they're not able to receive the disability support pension.

In the course of the inquiry, the committee took evidence from a number of people on whose lives this was having a real and serious impact. We also took evidence from the department, and the department said that the DSP is potentially a lifelong pension payment and that the requirement that a condition be fully diagnosed, treated and stabilised is a longstanding policy. But it doesn't mean it's the right policy or that it's a policy that people actually need. The committee took evidence that the word 'fully' in the 'fully diagnosed, treated and stabilised' requirement creates an unreasonable and unnecessary barrier to accessing the DSP. Many of the witnesses who gave evidence to that inquiry also noted that applicants experience episodic conditions and illnesses. They might experience a rapid onset of a disease. It might be an injury from an accident. Those witnesses argued that the requirement that a condition be fully diagnosed, treated and stabilised simply fails to cater for those circumstances. Anglicare Australia, an organisation that does a lot of good work in this space, says:

It is reasonable to expect that there should be a diagnosis, and that a person might be undertaking reasonable treatments, however the use of the qualifier 'fully', and the implicit assumption that some conditions can ever be stabilised, fails to recognise the lived experience of people who cannot work because of an illness or disability, or that their conditions may not be static.

One of the individuals who spoke to the committee said:

Most of us who are on the DSP or applying for it have multiple conditions. We are vulnerable people dealing with a number of stressors as it is, which do compound things. When I first lodged a disability support pension application it was initially declined. It took them just two weeks. I got the decision saying it was declined. I was advised that my injuries hadn't stabilised, that I hadn't exhausted treatment options and that the conditions had not been properly diagnosed. This is despite the fact that over the years there was a lot of evidence, including MRIs, CTs, ultrasounds, x-rays, nerve conduction studies, concentric muscle examinations, and treatments had included physiotherapy, Pilates, hydrotherapy and nerve-root injections.

Again, the lived experience of people is that this is an unnecessary and unfair barrier to them receiving support, which, in my view, is the first job of government—to provide support to the community and protect nature.

The committee heard from Dr Roslyn Russell from Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand. She told the committee that, due to the DSP’s eligibility barriers, one in five women her organisation sees are not receiving the payment when they should be. Here we go again. We have not only discrimination on the basis of disability but rampant sexism. She contended this indicated Australia was 'failing to uphold the human rights of people with disability'. At this point, I might acknowledge that Senator Steele-John, who is our Greens disability spokesperson, has worked so long and hard on this issue as well. He is not able to be with us in parliament this week, unfortunately, but he has fought and fought and drawn attention to the fact that multiple systems of government, including the eligibility rules for the DSP, are not upholding the human rights of people with a disability. We can't say we did not know. That is precisely why the Greens are seeking to partially disallow this instrument today—we are doing so to honour the lived expense of people with a disability right around the country.

Mental Health Australia outlined how people with a psychosocial disability who may experience episodic mental illness are particularly disadvantaged. The enquiry also noted that people who were experiencing episodic mental illness can struggle to provide sufficient evidence that their condition has stabilised, and that, for some individuals, stabilising an illness can take an extended period of time. It takes the right combination of medication and living conditions. According to one claimant who was unsuccessful in their claim for DSP due to the fluctuating and episodic nature of their condition:

I did try to get on the DSP, however, it requires your condition to be diagnosed, treated and stabilised. But mental health is never stabilised—it's always up and down, which means ultimately if you have any sort of episodic condition you're out of luck.

I thought this was meant to be the lucky country. I don't think anyone should be out of luck in this country due to the penny pinching of their government.

That brings me back to the fact that this government is actively making a decision here to continue to exclude people from eligibility for the disability support pension. This is an active choice that this new government is making. I thought they weren't meant to leave anyone behind. Clearly it's one rule for some and another rule for the rest of us. We saw yesterday they voted against lifting JobSeeker to above the poverty line, and today they have indicated they will vote against the changes that would make the disability support pension more accessible to people who need it. Yet, they are spending $313 billion on tax cuts for the very wealthy, it is $370 billion for the nuclear submarines and we just saw that there was a $20 billion surplus. Oh, no, we can't use any of that money to actually help people who are on JobSeeker or help people who are seeking to be on—and should be eligible to be on—the disability support pension.

I stand alongside my colleagues Senator Rice, former senator Siewert and Senator Steele-John in calling on the government to reconsider its position on this. These are people's lives, and this matters. When you have the ability to fix this, please look at the evidence, listen to those stories and do what's right.

Debate interrupted.