Category Archives: NEWSPAPER ARTICLES

Disability pension for under-35s comes under Coalition scrutiny

The Guardian

20 April 2014

Minister for social services, Kevin Andrews, may renege on promise not to make retrospective changes to DSP.

People younger than 35 who are on the disability support pension (DSP) may be reassessed by an independent doctor, under a reform being considered by the Coalition government, and contrary to previous promises.

The minister for social services, Kevin Andrews, is considering an interim report on the welfare system, written by a welfare consultant, Patrick McClure, and says the government’s focus is to keep more people in work.
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Pension age on fast path to 70

The Australian

April 19, 2014

THE pension age will be pushed out to 70 in next month’s budget and may come into effect as early as 2029 under a razor-gang proposal to accelerate Labor’s plan to raise the pension age from 65 to 67.

There are no plans to cut the existing pension but consideration is being given to changing the rate of indexation for age-pension payments.
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Youth unemployed need tough love, says Tony Abbott

The Australian

April 17, 2014

TONY Abbott told an audience of leading employers that old-fashioned tough love could help solve the youth-unemployment crisis.

Recalling working in a pub and earning cash for manual labour jobs, the Prime Minister told the Generation Success forum in Sydney: “You have to be prepared to have a go, work hard and don’t believe any job is beneath you. We all have to start somewhere.”

The forum was organised by Woolworths with support from News Corp Australia, publisher of The Australian, as youth unemployment is above 12 per cent, twice the national average.
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Welfare quarantining to be expanded

24 March 2014 | Dean Maloney

Red Flag newspaper

Welfare quarantining (or income management), which locks up to 70 percent of a welfare recipient’s income on a government-controlled BasicsCard, will soon affect many more people across Australia.

On 15 March, social services minister Kevin Andrews told The Australian that he was “considering the next steps for income management” and “keen to explore opportunities to expand it to other areas”.
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Long-term youth unemployment triples since financial crisis

The AustralianApril 14, 2014

THE number of long-term unemployed young people has trebled since the global financial crisis and has grown fastest over the past year, new analysis from a national welfare charity has found.

Data compiled by the Brotherhood of St Laurence shows that one of the key indicators — length of time spent without work — is heading for the “worst-case scenario”. The unemployment rate for people aged 15 to 24 is more than double the national average at 12.5 per cent — and the proportion of those who had spent a year or more out of work now accounts for almost one-fifth of all the unemployed youth.
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