Controlling what young people can spend their unemployment benefits on, and moving thousands of people off the disability support pension (DSP), have been flagged in the federal government’s review of the welfare system. An interim report, titled A New System for Better Employment and Social Outcomes, has been released in the form of a discussion paper, without recommendations. It suggests streamlining welfare payments into four categories: the age pension; the DSP; a tiered work-age payment and a child payment. There would be more conditions attached to receiving welfare payments, and sanctions that would strip people of income support, for varying lengths of time, if they did not meet the “mutual obligations” requirement. It says young and single unemployed people should receive lower rates of payment than other unemployed people, and that rent assistance should be reformed into a subsidy scheme for both public and private housing, rather than having public housing rent based on a percentage of a person’s income. The report also identifies single parents as needing higher rates of payment as their children get older and it is more expensive to support them. Only people with permanent disabilities should receive the DSP, and people who have partial, or short-term, disabilities should be given unemployment benefits instead, the report suggests. In addition, income management could be expanded into a national scheme so that young, unemployed people could only spend their benefits on certain things, such as food and petrol. gu/p/3qgcj
Posted on: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 05:19:13 +0000
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