Letter to Shadow Minister Mrs Macklin

25th February 2015

To Mrs Macklin,
I’m sending you a copy of 2 letters I have sent. One to Mr Abbott and the other to Mr Morrison. Abbott’s office gave me the brush off and I believe Morrison’s will too.
I currently survive on DSP. I can tell you I live in fear of the reforms the Liberal Party want to implement. I am utterly terrified that not only myself but many others with episodic illnesses that currently receive DSP will be reassessed as having some capacity to work, without their actual illness/disability being truly taken into account.
No one wants to be on DSP. It is degrading, you are considered by many as rorting the system, it doesn’t fully support people but is far better than being on unemployment with no prospect of ever gaining a job. No employer in their right mind would employ someone with episodic illness. There is no guaranty that they would turn up every day for work. The reality is that these people as employees would take a lot of time off work due to the nature of their illness. I wouldn’t hire me. Too risky for little gain in any business.
Please give me a voice and those like me that don’t have one. Stop the Liberal Parties Social Services Reforms before the body count begins. Please help us.
Thank you for your time,

Here is the reply.

Jenny Macklin Mp
Federal Member for Jogojogci

Dear (name withheld)
Thank you for writing to me with your concerns regarding the McClure Welfare Report.
I recently met with Mr Patrick McClure and I’ve expressed my deep concerns to him over
many of the Report’s recommendations, particularly in relation to people with disability.
As you know the report recommends a new disability payment that would be restricted to
people unable to work more than eight hours a week because of an incapacity that is
expected to last for at least five years.
This would shift a cohort of people currently eligible for the Disability Support Pension (DSP)
onto a lower payment, what the report refers to as a tier of the Working Age Payment.
Labor does not support this recommendation.
Labor is concerned that the Liberal Government will use the McClure Report to justify the
next round of cuts to people with disability.
We know that last year the Liberal Government announced cuts to the indexation of
pensions that will see disability support pensioners up to $80 a week worse over the
next decade.
indexing the pension to CPI only threatens to drive disability support pensioners into a life
of poverty and hardship.
Analysis from Prof Peter Whiteford at the Australian National University (ANU) shows that if Tony Abbott gets his way pensions will drop from 28 per cent of average weekly earnings today to just 16 per cent by 2055.
Labor strongly opposes this budget measure.
I know most people on the DSP would love to work if they were able to. But the reality is
that the majority of people with disability are simply unable to find work.

As Bill Shorten explained the day the report was released:
“I can assure you that I’ve never met a person with a disability who wouldn’t rather not have the disability instead of just having the disability pension. So I think that when we have adebate about the future of welfare, it’s important we don’t get into blame the victim…”
We also need to recognise that people with disability face discrimination both in finding work and in the workplace.
The McClure Report unfortunately says nothing about addressing this problem.
As you may know one of the key recommendations of the Mcclure Report is a simplification of welfare payments. However simplification may not be as simple as it sounds. In the UK, where the Conservative Government has moved to a single payment, the reforms have been marred by cost blowouts and delays, and may now be scrapped.
Let me be clear, Labor will not support any recommendations that leave vulnerable Australians worse off.
Thank you again for taking the time to Contact me on this matter and for your advocacy on behalf of people with disability.
Yours sincerely
Jenny Macklin MP Federal Member for Jagajaga

Shadow Minister for Families and Payments Shadow Minister for Disability Reform
l April 2015