Disability rights paramount
Blog Post | Blog of Rachel Siewert
Thursday 11th October 2007, 2:26pm
by RachelSiewert in
The government's recent changes to the Disability Support Pension, introduced as part of Welfare to Work, have made life a lot tougher for people with disabilities and their carers.
People are being shifted from disability pensions to Newstart Allowance, reducing their income but are not receiving adequate training or support necessary to get a job. Now these very same people are realising that they could have the power to turn the tables on the government and affect the outcome of this crucial federal election.
All Australians have a right to independence, self-determination and choice in their lives. People who experience disability and their families and carers should have the opportunity to actively participate in policy and service planning and delivery.
I have been working in the Senate and with community groups for the last two years in trying to bring attention to vital issues relating to Disability Services and Carers. As Co-Convener of the Parliamentary Friends of People with a Disability I have been involved in numerous discussions concerning issues of importance to people with disabilities and their carers. I was also an active participant in the Senate Committee review of the CSTDA.
With the government holding control of both houses it has been hard to get attention on important disability issues but we have managed to make a few gains such as consensus support on the recommendations of the CSTDA inquiry. Key recommendations in the review included:
• Substantially increased funding to address unmet need,
• CSTDA should involve a ‘whole of life' and whole of government approach, which enables easy transference between jurisdictions,
• Clear indicators of unmet need to be developed as well as substantial additional funding committed to address unmet need, particularly for accommodation and support,
• Individualised funding, in house care, early intervention and a range of flexible options are important.
With the federal election before us, we have a chance to highlight these important issues, and to perhaps see a change in majority control of both houses.
Disability rights campaigners Campaign Enable, an action plan being coordinated in marginal electorates by the Australia Fair lobby group, have identified a list of key marginal seats where the number of people receiving the disability support pension is much greater than the number of votes needed to swing the seat.
Hopefully this will force both the Howard Government and the ALP to address the growing number of problems within the disability sector, and come up with effective strategies accordingly.
PDF version
Bookmark, email and share
Comments
I am disabled and my husband
I am disabled and my husband gave up a successful career in the Military to stay at home and become my full time carer. I cannot even begin to express how hard it is to get by - every month another bill goes up, but do we ever get a decent rise in our pensions - NO! I am struggling so hard to maintain private health insurance because I have 2 incurable conditions and sleep in a CPAP mask and have other related health issues. After 52 operations, I'm now 39 years old and have been ill since I was 15, but disabled since about age 29.
I truly sometimes feel like giving up. I do not really believe many realise just how hard it is when you are disabled, to say nothing of the emotional strain on my husband having to see me so ill. I am responsible and have all the insurances you need (home, contents, car, health, life) and so on but finding the money each month to pay these is becoming impossible.
Thank God I am a Greens member and this gives me hope. And Thank God for Bob Brown who has been so kind to me personally and has inspired me to do all I can to get up and walk, and stand and try to get active as I have been mostly bed bound and house bound for so long.
Via YouTube and the media releases, Bob's podcasts etc, I have been inspired. Seeing the hard work you all do, including Christine who I also find so amazing, I decided I would make one last go at getting up and mobile. My first goal was to attend a protest, walking there with the others and to man a polling booth for the Greens this election. I am so happy and have been in 'training' to do this. No matter if I am walking well that day or not, I will be there to man that booth. That one day may lay me up for weeks but it will be well worth it.
Being disabled is so hard and there is so much pressure financially. My husband is my best friend in the whole world and is there for me to pick me up when I faint, to give me my medications at the right time, to help me in so many ways. I would be lost without him. But he has to see me in great amounts of pain and this is not easy - you are looking at your life partner in terrible agony and there is not much you can do.
The Australian Greens are my voice: you represent me and I owe you so much. I feel a very strong love for you all and for all your hard work and Bob has been so very kind, sending me hand signed books and little notes.
This disabled woman will be manning a Greens Polling Booth this year and it is thanks to Bob, Christine, the other Greens and their inspiring fight, which helps me to keep fighting too.
It strikes me as yet another
It strikes me as yet another example of the pervading ethos in the Coalition that it's worth disrupting and actively degrading the lives of thousands of the genuinely needy if they can succeed in cutting a few handfuls of suspected rorters off the recipient rolls.
Mean spirited in the extreme.
Re and to: Susan Macauley
Re and to: Susan Macauley /above/. Do not know, where You get the courage to carry on. I have just about reached the end. Just passed my 61st birthday. Fourteen years ago whilst looking after my late wife, in the last stages of her cancer, I was diagnosed with an extremly rare, incurable illness. Of course, I kept the thing from her. Did not want to apply for the pension, but had to accept it, when my doctors contacted the government. Over the time, especially during the last four years, I had seen the REAL VALUE of the pension to shrink to the level of the Third World countries. Add to it the ever increasing pharmaceutical "safety net". That alone takes about forty dollars out of each pension payment. Believe me, I do not really want to see the New Year. What is most frustrating is the diference in governmet's treatment of us, as against the Age retirees. You will recall several top-up payments, they have received regardless their wealth and assets. So far, up until today, no major party has addressed our problems. Probably easier for them is to buy votes with VOODOO PETE's BREEDING BRIBE.
To Dr Peter Petran I am so
To Dr Peter Petran
I am so touched by your response and so very sorry I did not see it a little earlier. I truly feel for you in your situation and can absolutely understand your feelings. There have been times when I truly did not see any reason in trying to fight to keep living. Times when I wished my pain to stop, no matter what, no matter how and what a terrible thing for your life partner to have to watch, feeling helpless.
I agree that the pension that we are living on is not adequate. My husband is my full time carer and at home with me and we do not smoke, do not drink, do not buy 'take aways', do not rent Dvd's each week or even pay to get hair cuts. You can do it yourself for nothing and you just may have another $20 for the groceries! So if we are struggling despite very careful budgeting and as mentioned above, we have insurances and all that we should to be responsible etc. What I wonder is, how do others get by? And due to living in such a rural area, it is an hour round drive to see my local GP. And the sad truth is often I am 'too ill' to make the journey to see a doctor. I struggle and have maintained private health insurance and yet, when I went to get some glasses recently, I was told that I could not have the glasses for free as other pensioners could, BECAUSE I had Private health insurance. So why am I struggling to maintain it? It was appalling? That is the insurance that seems to go up the most.
I'd like to contact you, because I was moved by your situation above and so I invite you to contact me, by clicking on my name which will take you to a website of a children's book I have written and you can use a contact form there to say hello to me if you would like to do that.
I sense that like me, you were obviously a hard working man in your life, an intelligent, well educated, part of society, as I was when I could work, but I am now often looked down at, as a 'pensioner' as if I am the dregs of society. Why are we treated this way? Do we need to wear a badge that says "Yes I am a pensioner, I did not choose to become ill, but please treat me with respect, I too went to University and worked like you did once on the other side of the counter or desk" How sad that we are brought down to this level and the lack of money we are payed to live, means that we are labelled as low in society.
Thank you for kind comments Peter, and please do contact me if you would like to.
with love and light
Susan Macauley - Tasmania
Post new comment