85% of DSP applicants are now rejected

This article was in Crikey at first but it was behind a paywall. However the original authors of it have put it up on their Unemployed Workers Union site and now is available to all.

Just a few years back the success rate of Disability Support Pension applicants was about 30%. Today it's at a mere 15%, a decrease of 50% under this Abbott/Turnbull gov. 

People with severe disabilities are now finding themselves rejected and having to go on the unsurvivable dole. Those unfortunate enough to be younger have had to go through a gov review where they're taken off the DSP pension and put into the unsurvivable dole/Newstart and told they must look for work or even lose that. You can't survive on the dole even if you're fit and healthy. How is someone suffering illness supposed to get by on that? Around $500 a fortnight if you get full rent assistance.

It's criminal what this gov is doing. Targeting the weak, vulnerable and sick, whilst giving $50 billion in tax cuts to big business. They're doing it off the back of us.

Over the past few years, there’s been some remarkable cases where even terminally ill patients have been deemed ineligible for the DSP. Yet, there still appears to be very little public pressure on the government to loosen these strict welfare eligibility requirements that clearly cause much duress.

Pushing people like Huynh and Kim off the DSP and onto the unemployment benefit yields a small saving for government and the taxpayer, but results in a significant loss of income for people who already struggle to get by. Considering that a quarter of disabled Australians already live below the poverty line (the highest rates in the OECD), this seems an astonishingly cruel way for us to cut costs. After all, Australia already ranks near the bottom of OECD nations when it comes to total welfare spending as a proportion of GDP — a stat kept conveniently quiet by pollies and pundits looking to further gut social security.

Rather than investing in policy that actually tackles the conditions that entrenches so many Australians in poverty, we’re more preoccupied with delegitimising vulnerable people’s claims for welfare. No matter how we try to justify or spin such “cost-saving” approaches, we are in effect choosing to punish people for being disabled. Unemployed Workers Union 

Oh, just as I was about to post I checked the link and it appears the story has been taken down. Likely Crikey didn't want their paywall to be undermined? So I've taken clips of the whole bloody story in the public interest. The whole story screen grabs are posted below. Hey, it was there on my screen.... So what? My corner of the internet is small and I doubt they're going to go broke over my little blog.