Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to 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.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make some comments about the disability support pension impairment tables disallowance motion. The government opposes Senator Rice's motion to disallow subsections 8(3) to 8(8) of the Social Security (Tables for the Assessment of Work-related Impairment for Disability Support Pension) Determination 2023. The disability support pension, the DSP, is an income support payment designed to provide financial assistance to people who are assessed as being unable to work for 15 hours or more per week due to a physical, intellectual or psychiatric impairment. It is potentially a lifelong pension paid at the highest rate of payment within the social security system.

The government has a responsibility to ensure that Australia's social security system provides support to those people in the community who are most in need, that this support is appropriately targeted and that our taxpayer funded system remains sustainable. It is entirely appropriate, therefore, that the process to grant the DSP requires claimants to meet a standard of diagnosis treatment, stabilisation and prognosis before they are granted the payment. The subsections of the impairment tables relevant to the disallowance motion are those which cover the requirements that, for the purposes of assessing eligibility for the DSP, a rating can only be assigned if a person's condition has been diagnosed, reasonably treated and stabilised, and if a condition is more likely than not, in light of the available evidence, to persist for more than two years, with subsection 8(8) providing guidance on assessing the functional impacts of pain.

If the motion to remove the subsections is successful, it would remove the ability to target payments of the DSP to individuals with disability who are most in need of support. It would expand access to this potentially lifelong pension to include those who have not yet undertaken reasonable treatment for their condition. It would expand access to this potentially lifelong pension, paid at the highest rates in the social security system, to individuals who have a short-term condition which is not likely to last more than two years and has not been treated or stabilised. Based on a previous claim rejected due to an individual's condition not being fully treated, diagnosed and stabilised, if successful this motion could result in more than 30,000 additional DSP recipients every year. It would come at a significant cost to the budget.

To comply with the Social Security Act, a person's impairment must attract at least 20 points under the DSP impairment tables instrument. This instrument sets out the rules to be used when assessing a person's work related impairment for the DSP. Before being assessed under the impairment tables, a person's condition must be considered, diagnosed, reasonably treated and stabilised, and likely to persist for the next two years in light of available evidence. Diagnosis, treatment, stabilisation and prognosis requirements have been longstanding policy for the assessment of medical eligibility for DSP.

The new DSP impairment table instruments, which came into effect on 1 April 2023, are a result of a comprehensive review of the legislative instrument. This included extensive stakeholder consultation with the disability peak body and advocacy group, medical professionals and people with lived experience of the DSP process. The Minister for Social Services, the Hon. Amanda Rishworth, personally consulted with disability peak bodies and advocacy organisations to hear their views and drew on their experience and expertise in developing the new impairment tables. In addition to multiple rounds of consultation, the review played close attention to submissions, hearings and recommendations from the Senate community affairs references committee inquiry into the purpose, intent and adequacy of DSP, which took place from 2021 and tabled its report in February 2022.

Of note, the provisions this disallowance motion seeks to reappeal directly relate to recommendation 1 of the Senate inquiry report, which states:

… the Australian Government investigates how the requirement that a condition be 'fully diagnosed, treated and stabilised' is preventing people with conditions that are complex, fluctuating, or deteriorate over time, from accessing the Disability Support Pension, and could be modified to ensure people get the support they need.

'Fully diagnosed, treated and stabilised' was replaced with 'diagnosed, reasonably treated and stabilised' in the new instrument. References to permanent conditions were removed and instead clarity was provided around the requirement for a person's condition to be likely to persist for the next two years. These changes were tested with stakeholders and the public through an exposure draft of the instrument in 2022. Feedback relating to these changes was largely positive, including support from disability peak bodies and advocacy groups.

Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of my colleague's disallowance motion before the chamber this morning. Many of my colleagues have spoken, in particular this week, about poverty actually being a political choice. Unfortunately, what we see is that this government and successive governments that have been elected have kept people in this country in poverty. I think it's shameful that we continue to place the blame on individuals, many of whom cannot work for various reasons. I said in my speech on Monday on the strengthening the safety net bill that we can't forget that these are not just numbers; these are not just statistics. There are real people at the core of this issue. These are people who are isolated, people who have been crushed by the poverty that they experience and by the actions this government subjects them to, people who this government has chosen to keep in poverty. It's disgraceful. Labor have actually made that choice based on the right-wing media continuing to trumped this up, the media machine that makes the disability support pension in this country inaccessible to the people who need the support.

Before the election, there were Labor senators in this place who signed a committee report that recommended there be very clear changes to make DSP much more accessible. As we have seen, when in opposition, Labor members also called for the rates of JobSeeker and other income supports to be increased. Members said they couldn't possibly live on these payments. So there's a lot of rhetoric when people are in opposition. When they get into power, they change and they don't stick to those conversations and commitments or sign up to those reports. They have the opportunity and the power to make those changes within the system when they get into government. What do we hear now? We hear crickets—absolute crickets—when it comes to standing by the commitment of that committee report to make those changes.

Yesterday, in this place, the government had the opportunity to increase income support above the poverty line, but they again voted against it. Today, they have the opportunity to ensure that the support for DSP offered can be accessed by those who need it the most. The true colours and the true priorities of this Labor government are becoming clear. That tagline, 'No-one left behind,' is a joke. It's an absolute joke. We have billions of dollars being spent on tax cuts and new submarines and a $20 billion estimated surplus, but no money is going to be found for some of the most vulnerable people in our community, and I think that's a disgrace.

Senator Rice already talked about the 2021 inquiry into the adequacy of DSP established by my predecessor, former senator Rachel Siewert. The members of the major parties sat in those hearings and heard the absolutely devastating evidence of the impacts of insufficient payments and accessibility and the impact that that's having on the lives of Australians. Some of those same senators are in this place today voting against the recommendations of the report.

What I have seen in my time is there are many, many barriers to accessing DSP, and getting a full diagnosis is a requirement before anyone can access DSP. This alone can be a huge undertaking. I'm going to give you an example of that. In 2002, I left my then job and went and worked in the machinery of Centrelink. I worked under the Australians Working Together framework that was developed. I was one of 400 personal advisers that were put in place within Centrelink to talk to some of the most vulnerable target groups in Australia around being work ready or being job ready, as they called it, because their push was to get everyone back to work.

There were two categories that were covered under my mandate as a personal adviser. One was the recipients of Newstart allowance who were temporarily incapacitated. These are the people who were long-term unemployed, who had to go and get a medical certificate every 12 to 16 weeks to say that they couldn't look for work. Then there were the people newly claiming Newstart, who either were Indigenous Australians, were recently released from prison or had certain exemptions to the activity test. Those people, again, were in a very vulnerable target group and were people who regularly had to have contact with Centrelink about disability support and trying to get access to the DSP.

In my experience as a personal adviser, my job was to identify what those barriers were, and nearly every single one of those people that sat in front of me talked about their experience of being able to access and of being able to tell people what that looked like on a day-to-day basis for them. These processes were time intensive and costly. They exposed people to lots of trauma. Their concerns about this were particularly in relation to psychosocial issues and even the medical trauma that they were experiencing if they had to have surgery, and people just didn't get it. They didn't get it. On the conveyor belt of assessing DSP, they didn't understand the lived experience of some of these people. It was actually quite devastating. My job was trying to articulate that to the people who were in the claims area looking at these claims.

If a condition is not considered permanent and stabilised, as Senator Rice already said, it is not considered for DSP. And that is an issue. It doesn't take into account the episodes or rapid onset of disease and injury from accidents, and it does not allow for people to tell their stories. People with psychosocial disabilities in particular were a large cohort of clients that I saw. I was in the Gosnells office in Western Australia. It has a majority of very low-socioeconomic households, and people with mental health illnesses were particularly disadvantaged because of this. It was hard for them to articulate their stories and be listened to by people who had those skills.

This week I've spoken in particular about how difficult it is proving your status or your identity or your issues, and I've used the example of the native title determinations. We've had lots of debates around cultural heritage this week, and people continue to not understand the intangible cultural heritage attached to that. This is about stuff that's not written down. There's no physical evidence of that so people think it's not real. This is a very different circumstance and consideration, but it's the core principle of that which I am trying to articulate is important for people seeking to access DSP. We're asking them to prove something that they know is fact and that is important to them using evidence from people who don't share their lived experience or don't fully understand that in order to acknowledge the government's programs or legislations.

We know that this system, both through that report that Senator Rice was talking about and through the intensive committee work that she's done—she's carrying on from the work of Rachel Siewert—that this is a real issue, particularly for people who have DSP. These processes cause an amount of trauma that I can't even go into. People are terrified of what the system brings. In fact, they would rather avoid going into these offices. They would rather avoid picking up the phone and sitting there for hours before speaking to someone in Tasmania or at another call centre who, frankly, doesn't give them the time of day. This is the experience that they're having.

I want to share one example of that. This is a constituent from New South Wales who said: 'My struggles with health meant I had to leave tertiary education, especially while trying to rent on JobSeeker. I couldn't keep up with the full course load. It was nearly impossible. It makes my mental health worse. By the time I moved away from my studies I was actively suicidal and my chronic health conditions were even worse. Trying to find work feels like lying as my ability to do what's needed fluctuates every day. I am told I have a chance for DSP with my reports from specialists. Now imagine telling your employment service provider that all you can say is you're on a waitlist, over and over again, and hearing nothing. I was able to afford to see another specialist because I had the coronavirus supplement. I'm truly hopeful that my reports will be seen as enough, because the judgemental stares from the DES people are just as wearing on my mental health as trying to figure out how to afford mobility aids or medication.'

This is a very clear example of someone whose experience articulates all of those struggles for people. What the Greens are asking is for the government to take this into consideration when we're talking about accessibility for DSP and to understand that these have been articulated in these reports. We know it's not the first time that government has ignored the experiences of communities and inquiries, and it definitely won't be the last time, but time and time again we continue to see the two major parties in this place make big promises whilst they're in opposition and then cower away from them and ignore them when they're in government. And yesterday, with the increase to JobSeeker and to welfare payments, they had the opportunity to do that and again failed. We're seeing that again today, to the detriment of people with disabilities.

Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The motion moved by Senator Rice would greatly expand the access of the disability support pension to individuals who do not have a condition that has been fully diagnosed, treated and stabilised and that is likely to persist for two years. If the motion were successful, the DSP, paid at one of the highest rates in the social security system, would become available for those with short-term conditions. The DSP is intended for individuals with permanent physical, intellectual and/or psychiatric impairments that prevent them from working. Prior to receiving a lifelong pension, an individual must be fully diagnosed, treated and stabilised. This ensures that the granting of payment reflects their circumstances and a long-term inability to work. As this motion significantly changes the eligibility criteria that underpin the foundations of the DSP, the coalition will not be supporting this motion.

Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to 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.