A thread about how our 'welfare' system dehumanises, divides and gaslights us so that only the most desperate seek help, and then are punished for doing so. It’s about why the government thinks they can ignore disabled people in the midst of an unprecedented pandemic.
Yesterday I spoke to @lauramoates about the social security horror show, COVID19 and why we need to #RaiseTheDSP. I spoke *a lot* so not everything made the cut. I want to share some of the things that couldn't be included in the story. theguardian.com/australia-news…
Politicians and lots of other people in the community have made the choice for a long time to be happy for people to starve or not be able to pay rent and to be homeless. And now, when all of a sudden a lot more of us are going to be in that situation, the government realises:
They can't scapegoat people who need income support anymore, because there are too many of us.
I'm so happy about the changes this week, and for everyone who benefits. The increase to payments for young people, the unemployed+students is amazing. Finally something to help those living under huge financial strain, give them breathing room, some hope. It'll be life changing.
People have been treated as if they're disposable for a long time and this admission that it's not liveable is evidence of that. But when the announcement came I was confused – the information the government gave was really unclear about how it was going to work, who it was for.
I saw people saying, ‘Oh, did I just miss something? Is it only for job seekers? Or is it for everyone like students, carers, people with disability?’
Then everyone started scrambling to find the information and it didn’t take long for it to become clear that the changes specifically excluded disabled people, carers and students.
I'm really relieved students were successful in their campaign to get their exclusion reversed, but it was really brutal to realise the changes to income support were designed to pit people against each other in that way, to separate different types of people who need support.
Demonisation of people who receive income support isn’t just immoral, it has a real effect on those of us who need it. After high school I was on Youth Allowance. The mutual obligation requirements were stressful and unreasonably burdensome.
Making it hard for people to access income support at one point in their life contributes to their anxiety the next time they need it. It’s a lifelong process of learning to not feel deserving of help. To feel that you deserve poverty.
Because the DSP is so difficult to access, and so many people who should qualify get knocked back, many disabled people end up on Newstart. I'm really relieved that those people will receive a higher rate for the next six months, but that's not a solution, we need to #RaiseTheDSP
The DSP needs to reflect the higher costs disabled people and carers bear and it needs to be accessible to all who qualify, not just those who have circumstances that allow them to persist with the gruelling claim process. #RaiseTheDSP
I am autistic (a cognitive disability) and I have a number of psychological disabilities that make it really hard to manage that. Over the last few years I’ve had less and less capacity to work. My doctor said I needed to apply for the DSP.
It took 10 distressing, demoralising months but finally my DSP claim was successful. But my experience wasn't random, or an outlier. The system is designed to punish people for their disability, to make us lesser than those who operate more easily in the conventional workforce.
Part of the challenge and why it was so difficult for me to engage with the social security system was because a lot of the process triggers various responses that are the product of my disabilities.
The welfare system is so brutal that it requires those of us who’ve experienced trauma to repeatedly disclose information that retraumatises us to people who have no medical qualifications or expertise and aren’t trained to respond appropriately to those disclosures.
If you have to keep describing something that contributes to your trauma over and over you're reliving it. It depletes any resilience you've managed to build up. The whole process, at every step, undermined the little resilience I had – it was pretty paper thin to begin with.
That meant I had to do a whole lot more work with my psychologist to try and manage it. And that costs money. So I was trying to access a system that would give me some kind of financial support and that system was costing me more money than if I wasn't trying to access it.
Many disabled people don’t have the resilience, resources or support to keep calling Centrelink week after week, spending countless hours on hold, just to ask what’s happening with their claim and whether they can do anything to progress it. But without persistence you fail.
Excluding us from the rate increase shows that people don't get it. People don't get what it means to be disabled, and they don't get why the DSP payment was structured that way.
It also shows that people don't understand that even though the DSP was more generous than the job seeker payment, it is still below the poverty line.
Failing to #RaiseTheDSP for recipients and carers doesn't make sense on any level. If people don’t stand with us on this it will prove that the community either doesn't care or doesn't understand the reason DSP was higher – it’s because it costs more to be disabled.
Disabled people have a lot of medical expenses and Medicare doesn't cover everything. You don't actually get fully free healthcare in this country, we have universally subsidised healthcare, not universal healthcare.
And you have medications. My meds aren't on the PBS. Having a pension card doesn't get me a discount. A lot of disabled people need to pay more just to get around, or have specific dietary + other requirements that mean they can't just buy the cheapest brand.
And the NDIS also doesn't cover most of those additional expenses.
Lots of people on the Disability Support Pension work a little bit and I am one of those people. So even if you argue the $550 is just to help those who lost some work that supplements their job seeker payment, that also applies to people on DSP. And it applies to carers as well.
I saw that another person – and I find this unfathomable – for 16 years has been trying to get access to the DSP and just got access. Right before this announcement to increase Newstart.
It’s just perverse to think that that person fought so hard for so long and lived with the strain of being on the job seeker payment for all that time and now feels like they might have to consider going off the DSP because of this.
It’s just perverse to think that that person fought so hard for so long and lived with the strain of being on the job seeker payment for all that time, trying to manage their health + mutual obligations, and now feels like they need to consider going off the DSP because of this.
And that's really scary. Getting on the DSP is so hard. But once you're on it, it's less difficult to stay on it. People are now thinking about switching from DSP to the job seeker payment just to get that little bit more money for six months.
That's how desperate some disabled people are for that little bit of extra breathing room. And that's going to have really awful, longer term ramifications for people who do take that decision.
I'm also really worried about people who are still in the middle of the DSP claim process, being ground down by it and at the point where they might just give up now that job seeker payment will be liveable for a few months.
Disabled people and carers need you with us on this. We've supported you to #RaiseTheRate. We've supported you to get students included in the new $550 supplement. Please stand with us and campaign just as hard for us to be included – to be treated equally – and #RaiseTheDSP.
We need to be united and we need your solidarity.
Final note: I’m on stolen Gadigal land. More than half of First Peoples are disabled. My whiteness unfairly granted me credibility that others don’t receive when dealing w Centrelink. A lot of my story and eventual success with my DSP claim is about privilege.
I was completely ground down by the process but most disabled people are far worse off then me. This is why so many end up on Newstart when they are entitled to additional support.
If you're reading this you persisted w a very long + haphazard thread. Thanks for caring enough to do so. & thanks to @AusUnemployment , who are supporting disabled people on this. And @lukehgomes for your reporting, @Jordonsteele + @SenatorSiewert for your advocacy in parliament
And a special thanks to @lauramoates who helped me think through this stuff with her thoughtful and caring interview.
If you want to know what you action you can take right now to help us #RaiseTheDSP:
1. Share this thread
2. Follow and donate what you can to @AusUnemployment – even a dollar helps.
unemployedworkersunion.com/donate/
1. Share this thread
2. Follow and donate what you can to @AusUnemployment – even a dollar helps.
unemployedworkersunion.com/donate/
@gemcarey not sure if this is useful for your research but a lot of what I wrote about here actually applied w NDIS as well ☹️
