… I live on the DSP. It's still a financial struggle every day. I cannot afford physio. I have to ration sessions with a psychologist as that's not within my budget … Living in poverty is a constant struggle. Bills are always juggled. Waste is not an option. Luxuries don't happen. Luxury is having enough milk in the fridge to make a cup of tea. I am grateful to be alive, but surviving instead of thriving is not a dignified life.
5.1
This chapter provides an overview of the rates payable under the Disability Support Pension (DSP) as well as a discussion on other supports available to people living with disability in Australia. It also highlights the additional costs incurred by these individuals, and how they can impact on housing affordability and food security. Before concluding with the committee’s view and recommendations, the chapter also discusses the social model of disability and the recently published disability strategy which will inform Government decision making for the next decade.
Rate of the Disability Support Pension
5.2
The DSP provides several rates of payment depending on a person’s individual circumstances, such as whether they are single or partnered, dependent or independent, and their age.
5.3
For singles 21 years and older, the fortnightly maximum payment rate for the DSP, including the Pension Supplement and the Energy Supplement, is $967.50. For couples, the fortnightly maximum payment rate for the DSP, including the two supplementary payments, is $729.30 per individual. These payments are shown in Table 5.1, below.
Table 5.1: Disability Support Pension rates
|
|
|
|
|
Maximum basic rate
|
$882.20
|
$665.00
|
|
Maximum Pension Supplement
|
$71.20
|
$53.70
|
|
Energy Supplement
|
$14.10
|
$10.60
|
|
Total
|
$967.50
|
$729.30
|
Source: Services Australia, Payment rates (accessed 6 January 2022).
5.4
For those individuals aged under 21 without dependent children in their care, the rate of payment depends on whether they are assessed as dependent or independent. Higher rates are paid to those people living away from home to recognise the additional costs they face. Table 5.2, below, shows the rates of payment.
Table 5.2: Youth Disability Support Pension rates
|
|
|
|
Single, younger than 18, dependent
|
$450.30
|
|
Single, younger than 18, independent
|
$666.90
|
|
Single, 18 to 20, dependent
|
$503.50
|
|
Single, 18 to 20, independent
|
$666.90
|
|
A couple, younger than 21
|
$666.90
|
Source: Services Australia, Payment rates (accessed 6 January 2022).
Indexation arrangements
5.5
The adult DSP is indexed by the higher of the growth in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the Pensioner and Beneficiary Living Cost Index (PBLCI), and then benchmarked by the Male Total Average Weekly Earnings (MTAWE), whereas the youth DSP is indexed by changes in CPI alone.
5.6
The Department of Social Services (DSS) submitted that pension rates have grown in real terms since 2000, with the single adult rate growing by 46 per cent; the partnered adult rate growing by 33 percent; and the youth DSP rate, for recipients aged 18–20 living at home, growing by 20 per cent.
Comments on the adequacy of the Disability Support Pension
5.7
Overwhelmingly, inquiry participants were very critical of the level of financial support provided by the DSP. Although noting that the rate is higher than the JobSeeker Payment, many witnesses noted the difficulty in making ends meet on the payment while also funding the additional costs associated with their disablement. The discussion below provides a survey of the comments and evidence received by the committee during the inquiry on the adequacy, or inadequacy, of the DSP.
5.8
The Policy and Advocacy Team Leader at Blind Citizens Australia, Ms Jane Britt, submitted that people with disability relying solely on the DSP are living below the poverty line. Ricki Spencer spoke about their lived experience, highlighting for the committee how difficult it is to make ends meet while on the DSP:
I have a pituitary tumour as well as lower back injuries as well as mental health. I am trying my best. I do a lot of volunteer work, and I hope that helps pay back to the community. But it's just the added costs of medicine with creams. I have a lot of skin conditions that are not covered by the disability pension, like the PBS or the NDIS, so I try and scrape. As long as I have enough for my rent, my priority, and my medication, then it comes to my bills. Then if I'm lucky enough to have some money left over—normally about $20—I'll buy myself some food.
5.9
Similarly, Mr Peter Sutton argued that the amount of the DSP is ‘very, very difficult to live on’, and that with cost-of-living pressures it is a ‘struggle’. Ms Kath Sutherland, a DSP recipient, noted that ‘[n]ot taking care of my health because I can’t afford to is going to cost the health system a lot more in the long term’.
5.10
The Council of Single Mothers and their Children stated that single-mother families are the most likely family structure to be living in poverty in Australia. It contended that women raising children on the DSP have insufficient income to fully cover their costs of living, including the purchase of healthy food; secure housing; and the basic essentials for their children. Ms Suzanne Baker provided her personal story on what it is like to live on the DSP as a single mother:
I'm a single mother with one child. We're wholly reliant on the disability pension and family tax. I have no savings and no superannuation, and we didn't get any coronavirus supplement. I'm constantly stressed financially because these payments are too low—lower than the basic cost of living. We live in a one-bedroom cottage. I sleep in the living room. I have to be extremely frugal with electricity, gas and food bills, and anything else we buy is second-hand. There's no money for socialising. We don't have a car. We can't pay school costs out of what we get from the government. I've also had to get the NBN, so that my daughter could do school at home for the last two years. There's no money for anything else.
The only way that we survive and that we're not homeless is by getting financial help from charities, family and friends. We just have to live day by day, week by week. We can't plan for the future. This stress has an adverse effect on my health and on my daughter's. She's started to become, in the last few years, quite stressed and anxious all the time.
5.11
Ms Fiona Cox submitted that she can no longer afford the specialist appointments she requires to treat her illness, and that she will not be able to sustain herself into the future:
It's going to be very dire for me. I do have a significant illness and, like I said, I pray for an early death, because I will not be able to sustain myself—certainly not after a five-year limit, if that. If it was 10 years, there's no hope. I'd be homeless; I'd be living in poverty. There would be nothing for me; there would be nothing left, because I can't earn my way out of this.
5.12
The National Ethnic Disability Alliance argued that the majority of people on the DSP are living below the Henderson poverty line. Reflecting on the impacts of this, the organisation’s Chief Executive, Mr Dwayne Cranfield, said the following:
… there are two cohorts of people who generally don't have much say in where they live, and that's people who live on the disability support pension and people who are incarcerated. It's a very sad state of affairs when the only reason people have no say in where they live is their financial status and the fact that they have a disability.
5.13
Noting evidence showing that the current DSP rate does not cover the costs that people with disability face, the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) called for a ‘disability and illness supplement’ of at least $50 per week.
Rejection rates and cost shifting
5.14
In evidence to the committee, the DSS noted that the grant rate for the DSP declined from 48.5 per cent in 2011–12 to 40.6 per cent in 2020–21. In that final year, only 39 000 claims out of 96 000 were approved, with 57 000 claims being rejected.
5.15
The data also shows that the grant rate fell every year from 2011–12 to 2015–16, when only 25.5 per cent of claimants were granted the DSP, before increasing again.
5.16
When queried about these high rejection rates and whether there is a target rate of approval, a representative of the DSS, Mr Troy Sloan, said the following:
Our position is that those people who are eligible should get on, and those who are not eligible should be rejected. I don’t think we have a target rate.
… at the end of the day, we have a legislative framework, which Services Australia administers, and people who apply and are being rejected under that framework aren’t meeting the requirements.
5.17
Although subsequently being approved for the DSP, Ricki Spencer highlighted for the committee the severe impact that the initial rejection had on their life:
… I just broke down. I remember that I attempted suicide because I thought, 'There's no way out. How am I going to pay for my home? How am I going to feed my animals? How am I going to live?' I was so angry.
5.18
Darwin Community Legal Services argued that the Government was containing costs through the DSP by, amongst other things, warehousing people with permanent disabilities on lower paid social security payments; forcing other services, sectors, and programs to fill the gap; and cost shifting to individuals, families, and communities.
5.19
The committee heard many stories of how a person’s inability to get onto the DSP resulted in a shift of costs onto others. For example, Aaron’s story was provided to the inquiry:
Aaron lives in the NT and has worked all his life in low paying work. He is unable to work due to chronic health conditions. He is receiving JobSeeker with participation requirements suspended due to his health. He is gathering medical evidence to apply for DSP. Advocates estimate the DSP claim process will take between 6 to 12 months. If he is unsuccessful the first time, he would expect to remain on JobSeeker with mutual obligation requirements still suspended while his health deteriorates, and a further application is made for DSP. Aaron has received assistance from emergency relief programs and family members who have given him food and some funds. His partner is applying for Carer Payment, which she is likely to receive even though Aaron is receiving JobSeeker rather than DSP at this stage.
5.20
The National Manager for Advocacy and Research at the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations (AFDO), Mr Patrick McGee, spoke about the increasing number of people who have ‘been taken off’ the DSP and placed onto JobSeeker due to their partial capacity to work. He submitted that 347 000 people were in this category and noted the ‘illogical nature’ of the approach, stating that:
People are placed onto the DSP because they have a partial capacity to work related to [their] impairment, and now they are taking people off the DSP because of a partial capacity to work.
Comparing the Disability Support Pension and JobSeeker
5.21
During 2020–21, just over 1 million people received the JobSeeker Payment at a cost of $27.4 billion. This compared to approximately 753 000 individuals receiving the DSP during the same period at a cost of $18.4 billion.
5.22
Whereas the DSP is intended to support working age people with a permanent physical, intellectual, or psychiatric impairment that prevents them from working, the JobSeeker Payment is aimed to assist unemployed people and those who cannot work or study due to a temporary sickness or injury.
5.23
The rate of payment, eligibility and compliance criteria differs between the DSP and the JobSeeker Payment. The DSP has a higher payment rate and more generous taper rates, income and asset tests, and no job search requirements for people aged over 35 years.
5.24
These differences reflect the underlying policy view that people with a permanent impairment require more financial support and experience greater barriers to employment than those with a full capacity to work who experience unemployment for shorter periods.
5.25
The Whitlam Institute submitted that the structure of the DSP actually undermines the economic aspirations and goals of recipients—forcing them to emphasise their incapacities and inabilities—in order to gain access and benefit from the higher rate of the DSP:
It is important to recognise that along with the barriers to employment … recognising capacity does not necessarily translate into employment outcomes. It is also important to recognise how the DSP application and rejection process - and the rates of pay- can result in people not aspiring or envisioning economic participation.
5.26
According to the General Manager for Policy and Advocacy at the Salvation Army Australia, Ms Jennifer Kirkaldy:
… people are faced with a very stark choice: either they catastrophise their situation and try and get onto the DSP, which has a whole number of barriers to actually getting into employment; or they soldier through on the JobSeeker payment, which in our experience, does lead to that deterioration of health and wellbeing.
5.27
ACOSS argued that, although the DSP is not enough to fully account for the cost of disability, it is ‘much better’ than the JobSeeker Payment of $44 per day. A representative of the council also noted:
Sadly, more and more people with disability end up on JobSeeker. Receipt of DSP has declined dramatically in the past 10 years in both absolute and relative terms, reflecting the tightening of eligibility criteria. Conversely, we've seen a sharp increase in the number of people with stability or illness receiving JobSeeker, which is $161 per week less than the pension. Right now, 36 per cent of people currently receiving JobSeeker, many of whom are locked down, cannot work for more than 30 hours per week, because of illness or disability. This figure was closer to 50 per cent before the pandemic. In 2020, just four in every 10 claims for DSP were granted.
We must change the system so that people who have a disability or chronic health condition that stops them from securing or attaining sufficient employment can get the DSP. People with disability should not be thrown onto JobSeeker payment and into deep poverty.
5.28
The Chief Executive Officer of Children and Young People with Disability Australia, Ms Mary Sayers, argued that the DSP has become ‘increasingly rigid’ in its access requirements over the last decade. She contended that this has resulted in a divide between young people with disability who are considered ‘deserving’ of the DSP and those who are not, causing many young people with a partial capacity to work to be placed on the lower paid payments of JobSeeker or Youth Allowance. She articulated the scale of this problem and its associated impacts for the committee:
[T]he number of youth allowance participants under 19 years old with partial capacity to work has increased by 174.9 per cent from 2009 to 2020, while the number of DSP recipients under 19 years old has decreased by 20 per cent in the same period. This has flow-on impacts on young people's lives, with many telling us DSP eligibility is often used as an access criterion for other supports, including community programs, supports in tertiary education and disability housing support. Like gatekeeping, lack of access to the DSP leads to age gating of payments. This continues to leave people with disability between the ages of 16 and 21 dependent on informal supports and entrenches further poverty. This links strongly to the ability for young people to transition to independence in things like the property market.
A discussion on other support payments and schemes
The National Disability Insurance Scheme
5.29
The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) was legislated in 2013 with the aim of supporting Australians with permanent and significant disability to participate in the social and economic life of their communities. Amongst other things, under the NDIS participants are funded for various supports to assist with daily living, such as self-care and community access; capacity building, such as therapeutic supports and physiotherapy; and access to assistance technologies, such as mobility equipment and home modifications.
5.30
As at May 2021, the NDIS supported approximately 450 000 people living with disability at an annual cost expected to exceed $23 billion. Of these participants, 73 per cent were also in receipt of the DSP.
5.31
A number of inquiry participants criticised the lack of coordination across Commonwealth programs and payments, such as the NDIS and the DSP, as well as various state and territory concessions available for people with disability. St Vincent de Paul Society argued that this results in people ‘continuing to fall through the gaps’ and called for improved cross‑jurisdictional coordination to achieve better outcomes for people living with disability.
5.32
In their evidence to the inquiry, Blind Citizens Australia highlighted that the NDIS only partly alleviates living costs and many people with disability do not access it:
In terms of living cost, the NDIS has only partly alleviated living costs, with many other costs either not covered by the NDIS or people with disabilities not getting budget funding to cover these costs. There are 4.4 million Australians with disabilities, yet approximately only 340,000 people have an NDIS plan. We are already talking about a substantial amount of people with disability without access to the scheme.
Difference between the NDIS and the DSP
5.33
There are significant differences in the eligibility requirements, as well as the claims and assessment processes, for the NDIS and the DSP. The Government submitted that this was due to each having a different purpose, with the DSP providing income support for those who cannot work due to their disability; and the NDIS providing individualised support, or life planning, to help people with disability achieve their goals.
5.34
Given these differences, it was highlighted that being an NDIS participant does not automatically make a person eligible for the DSP, and vice versa. Separate claims and assessments are necessary, resulting in a duplication of information having to be provided to government entities.
5.35
Spinal Cord Injuries Australia argued that Services Australia, DSS, and the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) needed to ‘better enhance’ people’s understanding of the various schemes and payments that provide support for people with disability and that they needed to raise awareness about the differences in their eligibility criteria. In addition, it said:
Definitions of disability and medical understandings of permanence of condition and disability need to be more consistent across different programs and legislative frameworks reviewed in order to ensure that policy is evidence based and in line with the World Health Organisation’s International Classification for Functioning, Disability and Health and the social model of disability underpinning the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability (UN CRPD) …
Commonwealth Rent Assistance
5.36
Commonwealth Rent Assistance (CRA) is an income supplement, payable with income support, for eligible Australian individuals and families renting in the private rental market or community housing. In 2021–22 it is expected this payment will assist 1.6 million individuals and families. As at April 2021, 268 335 CRA recipient households received DSP as their primary payment.
5.37
Although recognising the crucial assistance that CRA provides tenants in the private rental market, numerous inquiry participants called for the payment to be raised. For example, People with Disability Australia (PWDA) called for an ‘immediate increase’ to assist people in housing stress and the Australian Psychological Society (APS) highlighted that the DSP has failed to increase at a comparable rate to housing costs.
5.38
Another submission argued that many income support recipients are currently experiencing ‘extreme housing stress’, and that in the middle of 2019, 80 000 people on the DSP paid over 30 per cent of their income on rent and over 16 000 paid over half their income on rent.
5.39
One inquiry participant said that the original purpose of CRA was to ‘smooth out’ the difference between public and low‑end private rentals and, thereby, provide support for low-income people to rent in the private sector. Notwithstanding this original intention, the submitter contended that the amount today is ‘almost insignificant and it does not fulfil this purpose’, and that this has a number of destructive impacts:
Rents have skyrocketed over the past decades, leaving people on welfare entrenched in poverty. This is destructive, for it affects their physical and mental health, and thus over time it is more expensive than if adequate support was given to them. Low payments rates destroy relationships, marriages, and damage the next generation.
Carer Payment
5.40
The Carer Payment aims to assist people who provide constant care for a person with a disability or severe medical condition and, due to the care they provide, are unable to support themselves through paid employment. The payment is means tested through income and asset tests, and as at 30 April 2021, there were approximately 252 000 adult carer recipients of the payment. Of these recipients, over 120 000, or approximately 48 per cent, were also receiving the DSP.
5.41
Inclusion Australia noted that recipients of the Carer Payment and DSP did not receive the Coronavirus Supplement in 2020, and that this led to further social and financial disadvantage for this vulnerable group of people. It argued that these individuals experienced the same cost pressures as others and lost the few hours of casual employment that were essential to keep their ‘heads above water’. Given this, the organisation called for governments to promptly address the ongoing challenge of social and financial disadvantage for people with disability before even more people are marginalised.
Financial security and living with disability
The additional costs of living with disability
5.42
People with disability incur higher living expenses compared to people without disability. These additional costs commonly come in the form of healthcare, medication, equipment, specialised transport, and housing. It was submitted during the inquiry that research showed that a single person living with a disability required an additional $50 per week to achieve the same standard of living as someone without a disability receiving a pension. This research suggested that by lifting the DSP by this amount, poverty amongst its recipients would be halved.
5.43
The Chief Executive Officer of the Physical Disability Council of NSW, Ms Serena Ovens, also commented on the monetary cost of disability. She submitted that, on average, a person with a mild or moderate disability incurs costs $87 per week higher than they otherwise would, and that this increases to $173 per week for someone with a profound or severe disability. She concluded:
This means a person with disability already starts with a deficit that brings them close to or, if not, under the OECD poverty line of 60 per cent of median household income measure.
People on the DSP can't afford meals, pay for medications or buy clothes. They struggle to pay their rent or their utilities; therefore, they can't heat or cool their homes.
Access to affordable housing
5.44
As noted above, submitters stated that income support recipients are experiencing significant housing stress, with many paying over 30 per cent—and in some cases 50 per cent—of their income on rent.
5.45
Anglicare Australia’s 2021 Rental Affordability Survey found that only 1.2 per cent of private rentals were affordable for a single person living on the minimum wage, and that this figure dropped to 0.3 per cent for a single person living on the DSP. It was also noted that research indicated that, even amongst those receiving CRA, 31 per cent of households with at least one resident receiving the DSP were living in ‘financial stress’.
5.46
The National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO) highlighted the significant housing challenges faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with end-stage kidney disease who need to relocate to Darwin or Alice Springs to receive treatment. The organisation noted that Anglicare Australia found there were no private rental properties in these areas that were affordable for DSP recipients, and that this required them to rely on hostel accommodation. NACCHO reported that this resulted in these individuals feeling they were left with ‘limited control over their lives’.
Access to nutritional food
5.47
It was contended during the inquiry that the DSP’s current rate was ‘manifestly inadequate’ to ensure people could meet their nutritional requirements and to live a life with dignity. The APS submitted that this reinforced the cycle of poverty and limited the ability to afford healthy foods; hence, restricting choices to cheaper foods which were commonly higher in fats, sugars, and carbohydrates.
5.48
An inquiry witness, Ricki Spencer, vividly highlighted for the committee the challenges they face on a day-to-day basis and how they manage to feed themselves:
A lot of markets have mark-downs, so you go to the mark-down section. I am lucky now that I can use my sticks to walk to places. But when I was immobile, when everything seized up, that is when I really struggled. When COVID happened and you could only get food online, that was a nightmare. Many places, like Woolies, don't deliver under a certain amount. If you wanted delivery of under a certain amount, you had to pay $80. Who can afford to pay $80 ahead of time? So you either go without, or you have to have a network of friends who can help you buy that sort of food, processed food, or food that has been really marked down. You go to the vegetable places where maybe the vegetable is half good and half not so good; you cut out the bits that aren't damaged and just eat them. You try to make do.
Alternative approaches and future reforms
Social model of disability
5.49
There was criticism throughout the inquiry regarding the medical-based approach taken by the DSP. For example, the Chief Executive Officer of First Peoples Disability Network Australia, Mr Damian Griffis, said the following:
We seem to have gone a long way away from the principles within that convention [UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities], and I'd argue that this increasingly medicalised approach, requiring medical certificates and all these other medicalised approaches, is not consistent with the tenets of the UN CRPD and a social model of disability.
5.50
The social model of disability emerged in the 1970s and is the model adopted within UN conventions outlining the rights of people with disability. It aims to change the focus from a person’s impairment to the physical, social, and economic environments that create barriers. It is argued that this approach allows for a better examination of the changes required socially, politically, and physically to ‘enable equity’ for people with disability.
5.51
To align its approach with Australia’s obligations under United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD), the adoption of the social model of disability by DSS and Services Australia was a key recommendation of a 2021 research paper published by the Brotherhood of St Laurence.
5.52
Recognising the importance of the social model of disability, the Government recently released a 10-year disability strategy based upon it. This strategy is further discussed below.
Australia’s Disability Strategy 2021–2031
5.53
On 3 December 2021, the Government launched Australia’s Disability Strategy 2021–31 (Strategy). The Government submitted that the Strategy will ‘drive change over the next decade to uphold the rights, inclusion and participation of people with disability in all areas of Australian life’.
5.54
The Strategy aims to build upon, and expand, the original National Disability Strategy 2010–2020 by adding new features to ‘drive more action and accountability’. Importantly, the Strategy is based on the social model of disability and states that it recognises that attitudes, practices, and structures can be disabling, and that they can act as barriers preventing people from fulfilling their potential and exercising their rights as equal members of the community.
5.55
The Strategy also states that it aligns with the UN CRPD and will help protect, promote, and realise the human rights of people with disability.
5.56
The Strategy’s vision is for ‘an inclusive Australian society that ensure people with disability can fulfil their potential, as equal members of the community’. In order to achieve this vision, the Government has developed seven key outcome areas which represent those matters which people with disability said needed improvement:
employment and financial security;
inclusive homes and communities;
safety, right, and justice;
personal and community support;
health and wellbeing; and
5.57
With specific relevance to this inquiry, in relation to strengthening the financial independence of people with disability, the Strategy notes that the:
… income support system provides an important safety net for people with disability who are unable to work or cannot find employment. Ensuring income support, tax and the industrial relations systems work together to avoid creating barriers and disincentives is critical to supporting people with disability to gain employment and increase the number of hours they work.
Committee view and recommendations
Adequacy of financial supports
5.58
The committee is concerned with the overwhelming evidence that the DSP is inadequate and that people relying solely on this payment are too often living in poverty. Witnesses spoke about their inability to cover basic living costs, such as the purchase of healthy food; secure housing; and essentials for their children. Further, some individuals noted that they were unable to attend medical appointments due to a lack of financial resources. As one witness articulated, failing to attend to a person's ill-health will result in greater costs to the health system in the long-term.
5.59
The committee also recognises that people with disability incur higher living costs in the form of healthcare, medication, and specialised equipment, transport and housing. The committee notes research showing that a single person living with disability requires an additional $50 per week to achieve the same standard of living as someone without disability.
5.60
The committee is also concerned that CRA is completely inadequate and that it does not reflect contemporary housing costs in Australia. Evidence indicated that only 0.3 per cent of private rentals were affordable for a single person living on the DSP and that, even those households in receipt of CRA, almost one in three with at least one resident on the DSP were living in financial stress. The committee considers this to be an unacceptable situation that needs to be promptly rectified.
5.61
The committee recommends that the Australian Government investigates ways to better support people on the Disability Support Pension who are at risk of poverty—particularly those in the private rental market—and ensures people can participate in their communities and cover their living costs.
Coordination and integration of Australia’s support system
5.62
The committee notes the numerous programs, schemes, and payments available to people with disability across Australia and the evidence indicating that there is a lack of coordination across these supports, at both the federal level and across governments. The committee considers that a more integrated approach is necessary to support people living with disability in Australia, and that such an approach would result in streamlined processes and less duplication for claimants, consistent definitions across supports, and better outcomes for individuals.
5.63
The committee recommends that the Australian Government, in consultation with state and territory governments, improves the coordination and integration of support payments, programs, and schemes for people with disability across all levels of government.
Social model of disability and the Government’s disability strategy
5.64
The committee recognises the benefits of the social model of disability and its aim to change the focus away from a person’s impairment to the physical, social, and economic environments that can create barriers. The committee notes that the Government’s recently published 2021–31 Disability Strategy is based on the social model of disability and is supportive of the strategy’s objectives of upholding the rights of people with disability across Australia and improving their inclusion and participation.
5.65
With specific relevance to this inquiry, the committee is especially supportive of the strategy’s aim of strengthening the financial independence of people with disability and ensuring that the income support, tax, and industrial relations systems do not create barriers and disincentives to employment.
5.66
The committee recommends that the Australian Government undertakes consultation and evaluation of the Disability Support Pension to align it more closely with the social model of disability.
5.67
The committee recommends that the Australian Government establishes principles in the administration of social security, including:
proactively assisting people to access support for which they are eligible;
treating people with respect; and
making adjustments to service delivery on an individual basis to meet people’s needs and ensure equal access to social security for all.