People with disability recently spoke to the ABC’s 7.30 Report about the difficulty of obtaining the Disability Support Pension (DSP) and the struggle of life on Newstart Allowance with a disability. You can find the video and transcript, ABC 7.30 Report, 26 June 2015 Tighter Disability Support Pension rules are hurting, says welfare groups.
The tightening of DSP qualification criteria by successive governments has meant that there are more people with significant disability living on Newstart Allowance – around one in four people on Newstart Allowance have a disability. There is broad agreement about the inadequacy of Newstart Allowance.