ABBOTT GOVERNMENT TO CUT SUPPORT FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITY

Media Release

Jenny Macklin MP.

Shadow Minister for Families and Payments

Shadow Minister for Disability Reform

Sunday, 20 April 2014

The Abbott Government is preparing to slash support for thousands of people with disability, which could leave some of our most vulnerable Australians at risk of poverty. 

Disability Discrimination Commissioner, Graeme Innes, told Fairfax today that these changes would punish “some of our most vulnerable people in society”.

The Abbott Government’s claims of a welfare spending ‘crisis’ are complete rubbish – and represent the same old, tired Coalition tactic: manufacture a false sense of crisis, victimise vulnerable people, then cut their support.

Unlike the Coalition’s failed policies in government, Labor actually made the right decisions to get people off the DSP and into work.

Following Labor’s 2011 reforms to the Disability Support Pension, between 2012 and 2013 the number of people on the DSP fell for the first time in 30 years.

Under Labor, the rate at which people were granted the DSP fell by 22 percentage points – the grant rate went up under the previous Coalition Government.

Australia is one of the lowest spenders on welfare in the OECD.

The Abbott Government can’t tell the Australian people what their plan to get people into work is, because they don’t have one – they just have a plan for cuts.

The upcoming Budget is about priorities. Cuts to vulnerable Australians so Tony Abbott can pay $75,000 to millionaires to have a baby will reveal just how twisted Tony Abbott’s priorities are.