Why Extended Time on Newstart is Unsuitable for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians Living with a Disability

ABSTRACT

Many Australians living with a disability find themselves recipients of Newstart Allowance when applying for the Disability Support Pension (DSP). Newstart Allowance is designed as a short-term payment for people looking for work, with a lower fortnightly payment and limited medical and transport subsidies compared to the DSP. This paper describes the financial challenges of living with a disability while on Newstart Allowance. With a focus on the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous) Australians from two regional towns, qualitative semistructured interviews and focus groups documented experiences of 39 community members and 21 medical and nonmedical service providers supporting clients living with a disability on Newstart Allowance. Four themes were identified: (i) living with severe financial hardship, (ii) challenges complying with the DSP application, (iii) being financially penalised for not complying with Newstart Allowance conditions, and (iv) supporting community members to manage severe financial stress. Although people living with a disability on Newstart were experiencing severe hardship and poverty, there was limited participation of Centrelink-employed social workers within their described experiences with Centrelink. We argue that social workers can work to humanise human service settings and potentially help to mitigate these financial challenges.

IMPLICATIONS

• Indigenous Australians living with a disability experience severe disadvantage and poverty while living on Newstart Allowance.

• Social workers must be easily accessible at Centrelink customer service centres and to Newstart Allowance recipients to help coordinate service engagement.

• Newstart Allowance should be increased to ensure recipients can respond to cost of living pressures.

许多与残疾人一起生活的澳大利亚人如果申请残疾人援助金，就会收到“新开始补贴”。新开始补贴本是为找工作的人设计的短期支付，隔周一次，与DSP相比数额不高，为有限的医疗交通费用。本文描述了靠这补贴与残疾人共同生活者的财务窘境。作者聚焦两个地区城市的原住民及托利岛土著人的经历，对39名社区成员以及21名为新开始补贴领取者提供援助的医务及非医务服务人员，进行了半固定的定性访谈并组织了焦点小组。本研究确定了四个主题：1）财务窘迫；2）申请DSP难于符合条件；3）因不符合新开始补贴的要求而受处罚；4）帮助社区成员财务解困。尽管家有残疾靠新开始补贴的人经历着困厄贫穷，他们与 “中心连连”打交道时那里的社会工作者却很少介入。而社会工作者是可以使人道服务人性化的，是可能缓解这类财务困难的。

KEYWORDS:

• Disability Policy Reform
• Disability Support Pension
• Indigenous Australians
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians
• Newstart
• Income Support

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge and thank the ongoing support we have received from a diverse range of community members, legal and social support services, and persons living with a disability and their networks and families who participated in focus groups and interviews. Without the ongoing support, generosity, and commitment, this study would not have been possible. This research has been funded by an ARC DECRA Fellowship (DE160100478), Disability Income Reform and Regional Australia: The Indigenous Experience. The views reflected in this report are those of the authors only and do not reflect the funder, the Australian Research Council.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Australian Research Council [grant number DE160100478].