With HIV advocates still anxiously awaiting the federal government's announcement of plans to restructure the Disability Support Pension (DSP), on 4 March the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission announced a national inquiry into employment for people with disabilities.

The government’s plans are not yet known, but they are widely anticipated to include a considerable tightening in the eligibility criteria for the pension. At present, people who are assessed as unable to work more than 30 hours per week are able to access the DSP. The government has previously attempted to reduce this to 15 hours, but the changes failed to attract Senate support.

With the government set to control both houses of Parliament from 1 July, those changes are expected to be reintroduced, along with a package of other measures which could extend the philosophy of ‘mutual obligation’ into disability pensions for the first time.

The changes are widely tipped to include provisions similar to the ‘work for the dole’ scheme whereby DSP recipients who are assessed as capable of working more than the 15-hour threshold may be penalised if they do not take up employment.

“Ultimately, if we get to a stage where somebody basically says, ‘although I am capable of working I don’t want to work,’ well we’ll have to look at what the consequences of that are,” the employment minister, Kevin Andrews, told ABC Radio on 28 February.

NAPWA Care and Support Convenor Rob Lake told PL that HIV-positive DSP recipients are naturally worried about what the changes might mean for them.

“I think people are concerned that if they leave the pension, that they might not be able to stay in a job, and they’ll end up on Newstart,” he said. “That’s limiting people’s ability to make choices, to try that, and it’s limiting our ability to encourage them to give it a go.”

There are suggestions that the new rules may apply only to new applicants for the DSP, and that the current provisions may stay in place for existing recipients, however the government has not confirmed this.

The HREOC inquiry, which will publish its findings in November, will examine the barriers to people with disabilities seeking employment, and issues for employers in recruiting or retaining employees with disabilities.

Lake said the government should implement a more comprehensive consultation process and delay making any final decision on plans to change the DSP until the HREOC inquiry is completed.

Appropriate compensating measures also need to be implemented as part of any reform package if eligibility is tightened: changes to the way earned income is assessed and taxed and entitlement to health care concession cards are two areas Lake said the government should consider.

“The Health Care Card is a really significant and valuable federal concession,” said Lake, who argues that health care concession benefits should be extended to working low-income earners with chronic illnesses such as HIV/AIDS.

NAPWA will be making a submission to the HREOC inquiry and consulting with the government on the proposed changes.

• Adult pension and allowance rates will increase from 20 March. The maximum single rate pension will rise by $5.60 per fortnight, or 1.2 percent, to $476.30 per fortnight, in line with inflation.