The Federal Government is considering a system of coercion and incentive to get disability pensioners off welfare and into the workforce.

According to Peter Dutton, the Minister for Workforce Participation:

"The disability support pension shouldn’t be seen as a way of life, of a way to opt out of work requirements, and I think the Australian taxpayer would also ask that the Government look very closely at this."

"[…] the majority of people there is a willingness to participate to look for work. For those people that we think aren’t there legitimately, then we need to try and adopt some coercion, and that’s unfortunate in that minority of cases."

"We want to make sure that those people who are most deserving of government assistance, that those who are most disabled enjoy every support from the government, and we want to make sure that we can work with the sector to see that we can quarantine and provide every assistance to those people, and we don’t want the Labor Party going forward with a scare campaign from here."

Does it make you wonder who will be deserving and legitimate and who will be undeserving and illegitimate? What criteria will be used to determine who is who?

Does a wheel chair, a caliper, a walking frame (with unsteadiness) get you classed ‘deserving’.

‘Undeserving’, will that be the people with the Central Nervous System disorders such as

1. Multiple Sclerosis
2. Epilepsy
3. Parkinson’s disease
4. Anxiety disorder
5. Bipolar disorder
6. Depression
7. Schizophrenia
8. Rheumatoid arthritis
9. Huntington’s chorea
10. Alzheimer’s disease
11. Chronic fatigue syndrome
12. Guillain-Barré syndrome

Face it Dutton, the general public does not like to be exposed to people with disabilities. It makes most of us uncomfortable.
Do we look away?
Do we offer to help?
Do they see our pity?

The very next time my workplace recruits a new staff member,
in the spirit of this Peter Pan world that Peter Dutton envisages,
I am going to have as Selection criteria #1

"Must possess a disability. Our preference is Chronic fatigue syndrome. To that end we run a peer-to-peer support group every second Wednesday in the Parent’s room. Please bring medical evidence confirming your condition so that we can claim our subsidy."

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 25th, 2004 at 7:58 pm and is filed under Social justice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Click to leave a comment.