Tag Archives: welfare

Tougher era ahead for welfare recipients

The Australian

January 01, 2015 12:00AM

National Affairs Editor
Canberra

Reporter
Canberra
New rules.

New rules.  Source: TheAustralian

A WIDENING of the deeming regime for retirees and tougher reporting restrictions for dole and disability support benefits recipients begins today with the start of 2015.

Some of the biggest budget savings will not start as scheduled today, with the GP co-payment bogged in the Senate and the ­Coalition’s earn-or-learn crackdown for the young unemployed also blocked by the upper house.

On January 15, cars and a range of electrical goods could become cheaper as tariffs are cut on imports of Japanese products as the Australia-Japan FTA comes into effect. The entry into force of the FTA should also provide a boon to exporters.

From today, retirees who buy allocated pensions and account-based pensions will find themselves facing the same deeming treatment as those on the Age Pension. However, arrangements that are already in place will not be affected under grandfathering provisions.

Under the new rules, the money held in the allocated pension will be subject to deeming and the amount deemed to have been earned will be used to assess income when calculating the ­pension.

Untaxed superannuation will also be included in the assessment of income for the federal seniors health card. From today, a means test will be applied to the Schoolkids Bonus, with only families on $100,000 or less receiving it.

The passage of the government’s social services bill in November also means that from today DSP recipients will generally be paid for up to only four weeks in a year if they are absent from ­Australia.

There will be limited reasons why students on welfare can ­travel overseas without losing payments.

DSP applicants will be required to be assessed by a government-approved doctor.

From today, the government will end indexation of the clean energy supplement for welfare recipients because of the abolition of the carbon tax.

Under tougher provisions, applicants for Newstart, sickness, widow or youth allowances, or parenting payments will have to wait a week before receiving payments.

Newstart recipients who have their payments suspended because they missed an appointment with an employment service provider will be required to attend a rescheduled appointment before the benefits are paid again.

The fee for Partner Visas in the permanent family migration scheme jumps 50 per cent from about $3000 to more than $4600.

New initiatives that start from today include free flu vaccin­ations for indigenous children aged between six months and five years.

From today, a $476 million industry skills fund will begin to support training needs of small and medium-sized businesses

The government has also ­announced 150 bursaries for young carers to help them ­continue studies by relieving pressure to take up part-time work.

The opposition’s acting families spokeswoman Jan McLucas said Labor had stopped the government punishing young jobseekers by kicking them off Newstart for six months.

Labor would continue to fight Tony Abbott, who wanted to shift young people under 24 from Newstart on to the lower Youth Allowance, which would leave them $48 a week worse off.

WA plan to hit fine defaulter welfare ‘unfair’

SONIA KOHLBACHER

The Australian

January 14, 2015 12:00AM

A WEST Australian government plan to raid welfare payments and increase jail time for fine defaulters will unfairly affect people on low incomes, according to a lobby group.

Corrective Services Minister Joe Francis said he would examine the option of compulsorily deducting payments for unpaid fines from welfare recipients and extending jail time to make imprisonment a less appealing option.

WA Council of Social Service chief executive Irina Cattalini said the approach was unfair and would target the poor.

“There are some real inequities and systemic failings that make it difficult for people who are on low incomes to pay that in the first place.”

Ms Cattalini said it was inequitable for the government to use levers in the welfare system to force people to pay off fines.

She questioned whether fines were an appropriate method to curb offending and whether the government offered flexible payment options.

A woman known for cultural reasons as Miss Dhu was never given a custodial sentence by any magistrate, her full court record shows.

The 22-year-old was ultimately incarcerated for not paying a fine that a Geraldton magistrate imposed on her as an alternative to prison.

When she died in a Pilbara lockup on August 4, Miss Dhu was serving out a $1000 fine for a clash with a police officer 4½ years earlier, when she was 18.

Police took her to the Hedland Health Campus three times over the three days she was in the watch-house. The first two times she was deemed by medical staff as fit to return to her cell. On the third occasion they took her, a day before she was due to be released, she arrived with no pulse and was declared dead within an hour.

Labor’s corrective services spokesman Paul Papalia said fines were “cut out” at a rate of $250 for every day spent in prison although it costs taxpayers $345 a day to keep a person in jail.

Mr Papalia said one-third of all women jailed in WA were there for unpaid fines and, of those, two-thirds were Aboriginal.

“It does not get people to pay fines and it does not change their behaviour,” he said.

Deaths in Custody Watch Committee secretary Marc Newhouse said the state government was monetising the issue of unpaid fines and had failed to address the circumstances that led to fines.

“It would be far more to the point to be able to address the ­offending behaviour,” he said.