THE outgoing head of the Families Department has urged the Gillard government to rein in the ballooning disability support pension scheme.

The government was told to consider tightening welfare payments to families.

Jeff Harmer, secretary of the Department of Families, Housing, Community Service and Indigenous Affairs, said yesterday the government must explore policies to encourage disabled people, women and older Australians into work, to lift participation and productivity.

Dr Harmer, who retires in March as the nation's most senior social policy architect, said his successor must also confront the ongoing debate about middle-class welfare.

He said there was a persistent view, despite recent government changes, that family payments were being made to people too far up the income scale and that assistance should be more tightly targeted.


Approximately 80 per cent of families with children younger than 15 receive Family Tax Benefit, with about 72 per cent of those families eligible for both Family Tax Benefit Part A and Family Tax Benefit Part B. Over the course of a year, these benefits help about seven million people (parents and children), or roughly a third of the population.

"I think this debate will continue," Dr Harmer said. "This will be an issue they will need to deal with, but it's by no means clear that too much extra tightening will bring long-term benefits."

Dr Harmer identified the out-of-control Disability Support Pension as the biggest social policy dilemma facing the nation over the next few years.

The latest official figures show there were 792,581 DSP recipients in June. Each year the DSP roll grows by tens of thousands, so it is likely there are more than 800,000 Australians on the benefit now. That is more than the number of people receiving unemployment benefits.

About 5 per cent of all Australians of working age are receiving the DSP, which will cost $13 billion this financial year, making it the fifth most expensive federal program.

Most of the growth in DSP numbers, 31 per cent over the past decade, has been because of older women joining its ranks.

Dr Harmer presided over the review that led to the increase in the base rate of the old-age pension. The report also concluded that low levels of workforce participation in a number of groups of working age, including people with a disability, required "a different approach than that identified for age pensioners".

Dr Harmer said the growth of the DSP was a major concern for policymakers. "Australia in OECD terms has relatively low participation of women and older people (in the workforce) and our growth rate in the disability support pension is, like many other countries, pretty high," he said

"So our big challenge is around driving participation better in these groups."

Dr Harmer favours a tougher approach to those applying for the payment, but also greater incentives for people already on the DSP to move voluntarily into work.

"We need to do better with the carrot end with people who are either on disability support pension or about to go on it," he said.

"We clearly need to make the gateway a little tougher, and that's happening, but the real issue is that once they get on it they are virtually on it for life and they are too afraid to get off it because they see the gateway tightening and they think the benefits might not increase to the same extent (and that) their health benefits might be removed.

"There's a lot of misunderstanding, frankly. But we have to do better at communicating what people will get, even if they go into work, and perhaps think about providing (a bit more) transitional assistance."

Dr Harmer said there was a cultural problem, with experts mistakenly believing people to be better off receiving the DSP than looking for work.

"We've got to change the culture of those doing the assessments," he said.

"There's a feeling that people who get tossed out of work at 55 or 56, or even younger, and those with some disability, are going to be better off on the DSP. That is absolutely not true. They are always much better off looking for work and doing some work.

"I think we can do better also on the aged. There are some other things that can be done that will improve the participation of the old-aged groups as well."

Dr Harmer, lauded by the Prime Minister as "in many senses a model for a successful modern senior public servant", will be succeeded by Finn Pratt, secretary of the Department of Human Services. He is a former chief of Centrelink.

Dr Harmer said his greatest career challenges had been implementing the Northern Territory intervention and delivering the tax and pension reform reviews.

He said the shift in welfare policy to emphasise personal responsibility and accountability was crucial and results showed that the new policy paradigm was working.

The Howard government and the Rudd/Gillard governments have introduced a series of new policies to control the DSP, but none has had strong results.

What kind of a wanker is this guy.

About 10 years ago there was 18 million people here, now its like nearly 21 or something.

So of course those on a DSP will increase.  He has failed to tell us if the percentage of the population on it has increased.

I will admit though there is some people who are on it that shouldnt be.  We have one work for us who doesnt want any more than 15 hours a week otherwise it cuts into her DSP.  When I asked her what was her disability that prevented her from full time work she said it was he knees and back.
Maybe if the fat lazy bitch wasnt 135kgs at 5 foot 6, her back and knees wouldnt be a problem.  This is the same person who needs a break every three hours for 1/2 an hour because she is starving.

Then there are those that need it.  You should never turn true recipents away from a DSP.

It would be bad enough having a disability that stopped once productive workers from working, but to treat them like dirt is just plain wrong.

JC Denton wrote on Dec 23^rd, 2010 at 9:46pm:



Yes because there are an overwhelming number of people with extreme heritable debilitating handicaps. It must be a huge strain on the public purse when they go around breeding like rabbits lol

Ex Dame Pansi wrote on Dec 24^th, 2010 at 6:08am:



Case in point is above. Sterilizing the mother of pansi could have saved us from another generation or two of lunatics and doomsayers, but then who would be the check out chicks?

whatsforme wrote on Dec 27^th, 2010 at 6:24am:



True, and if they could have nutured all. or any one of her 17 fathers, it would have been a huge bonus.