Opinion & Commentary
Ability, not disability, should determine access to support
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has called the state of disability care and support in this country a ''cruel lottery'', and she is right. Disability support can depend on numerous factors, including the nature of the disability, how the disability was acquired, and in which state it was acquired. The proposed national disability insurance scheme is the government's attempt to end this particular problem. But another lottery exists for people with disability applying for income support payments, and it is time for this lottery to end, too.
There are about 2.2 million age pensioners, 830,000 disability support pensioners, and another 200,000 people receiving the carer payment. Most of the people who receive these pensions are subject to an income and assets test that ensures that those who receive a pension are those most in need of financial support. A single person on the full pension can earn up to $150 a fortnight before a taper rate of 50c in the dollar kicks in, while someone on the full pension who owns a home can have up to $186,750 in assets before the part rate of the pension comes into force. Pensioners who don't own their own home are given larger allowances under the assets test.
These rules apply to more than 3.2 million age, disability and carer pensioners, with the anomalous exception of a small group of 12,000 individuals on the disability pension who have been exempt from both these tests since 1954. What makes this group particularly special? Well, they have been assessed as permanently blind. No other disability, including quadriplegia, cerebral palsy, autism, hearing impairment, or any other severe and profound disability, receives such particular and generous treatment from the government.
Most people with disabilities also have to show that they have a continuing inability to work at least 15 hours a week before they are eligible to receive the disability pension. The blind are granted an exemption from this test, too.
In a nutshell, there are 12,000 people on the disability pension who have never had their capacity to work tested, who are exempt from income and assets tests, and will be eligible for the payments until they die or move onto the age pension (where the exemption from income and asset tests continue).
Why are the permanently blind given special treatment? Former federal Labor minister Neal Blewett said: ''Since 1954, successive governments have taken the view that payments to the blind on the current basis should continue because of the special significance attached by the community to the condition of blindness.''
It is easy to understand why Australians placed a ''special significance'' on the condition of blindness. It is relatively simple for those without disability to simulate the condition of blindness. Just by closing their eyes and going about their normal business, it is easy to grasp the daily challenges the blind face for simple tasks such as commuting or grocery shopping, leave alone trying to get an education or do a job. It is less easy to understand what it is like to live with cerebral palsy, mental illness, an acquired brain injury, or autism. Whether the community should continue to place a special significance on the condition of blindness into the 21st century is another question. This special treatment for the blind may have been justified in the past when the economy was more dependent on manual labour and manufacturing - but much has changed over the last 50 years. Text-to-voice and screen-reading software, electronic Braille readers, and talking global positioning systems devices have made it substantially easier for the visually impaired to engage in the workforce and take part in the community. With rapid improvement in technology, blind people are much more able to make a substantial contribution to the community.
Given the relatively small number of people on the disability pension, the financial gains from ending this anomaly to new applicants would be tiny compared with the $15 billion spent on disability pension every year. But ending the anomaly is not about money. It is about equity for all people with a disability.
This very lack of fairness is the main reason the Productivity Commission has called for all new disability pension applicants, including the permanently blind, to face the same eligibility tests. The commission described the eligibility criteria for people who are blind ''as locking in dated and discriminatory expectations about their capability''. It also noted it would be ''hard politically to eliminate this concession''. This is understandable as no politician wants to be seen beating up on people who are blind to save a very modest amount of taxpayer money.
Ironically, our system of income support is not blind towards the blind. It provides unfair exemptions from the pension income and assets test because they have a particular disability. Access to income support should be based on someone's ability, not their disability, and it is time for this anomaly to end.
Andrew Baker is a policy analyst at The Centre for Independent Studies.
