Tuesday, 26 March 2024
    24
    Sep
    Disability

    Newstart a struggle

    The 200,000 Australians with a disability living on Newstart payments – after being kicked off the higher level of welfare payment through the Coalition government’s reforms – are struggling to make ends meet, a new report says, according to The Age.

    Australian households with an adult member who has a disability spend an average $107 a week more on basics such as transport and healthcare, the report by the University of Canberrra’s National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling said.

    To close the gap in household income to provide the same standard of living as households without disability, families receiving the disability support pension would need $183 more per week on average, the researchers found.

    Halving this gap would cost the government an extra $3.1 billion a year, it found.

    For the 200,000 people with a disability receiving Newstart, the report – to be released on Tuesday – said an additional $343 per week was needed to close the standard of living gap.

    The Australian Federation of Disability Organisations will call on Tuesday for an “urgent review into the adequacy of the disability support pension” and changes to ensure the eligibility process is “fair, reasonable, accessible, equitable and not unduly burdensome”.

    “A higher proportion of household budgets is typically spent on medical and health care by households with members with disability,” the report said.

    It listed medications, first aid supplies, GP and specialist medical visits and therapeutic equipment as among the additional costs.

    Chair Ronald Sackville said the three-year inquiry would methodically examine how Australia is living up to UN conventions safeguarding the human rights of people living with a disability, and look at why past inquiries had not brought about the improvements advocates had long demanded.

    FULL STORY

    200,000 Australians with a disability struggling to get by on Newstart: report (The Age)

    Record number of people with a disability being forced onto Newstart (ABC News)

    PHOTO

    Pxhere / CC0