Matthew Davis, Perth
In response to the federal Coalition government's unfair changes to the disability support pension, peak body Australian Federation of Disability Organisations (AFDO) has initiated Campaign Enable.
The campaign will target 16 electorates from now until the 2007 federal election, including PM John Howard's seat of Bennelong, and other electorates where the number of people with disabilities exceeds the number of votes required for the seat to change hands.
Campaign Enable has three main goals: To gain a commitment by the federal government to develop a national employment strategy that addresses systematic discrimination; to end the planned unfair disability support work capacity test; and to ensure that the extra costs of people living with a disability are met, along the lines recommended by the August 2000 McClure report.
On June 19, Labor's federal employment spokesperson Penny Wong described the government's "welfare-to-work" package as a "shambles that won't improve work force participation". She said Treasury estimates "revealed that it expected that no current Disability Support Pension recipients would move into work at all. And now the Melbourne Institute is projecting that only 45,000 people will move from welfare to work."
The latest attacks follow extensive cutbacks to disability services by successive Labor and Liberal governments since the late 1980s, when "welfare-to-work" ideology began to justify the gutting of community services. Many state Labor governments have also stripped disability services. Victorian Labor Premier Steve Bracks has implemented massive cutbacks to taxi and other services for the disabled.
In May, the Socialist Alliance released a social justice charter that pointed out the real reasons for the government's thuggery: "Under the guise of 'welfare reform', the government is imposing 'mutual obligation' on older workers, parents and disabled people, putting pressure on all workers' wages by requiring welfare recipients to volunteer or take low-waged jobs."
According to the charter, the alternative would be to "Establish voluntary, well-staffed, quality, public programs for those who wish to enter the work force; provide free education and training; and tackle child care, workplace accessibility, discriminatory employment policies and other barriers to employment." The alliance also called for a "guaranteed independent income for all at a living wage; and 'No' to state-enforced dependency-end assessments based on relationship status or parental income".
[To find out more about Campaign Enable, visit <http://www.afdo.org.au> and download the campaign kit. Donations can be sent to AFDO, Ross House, 247 Flinders Lane, Melbourne, 3000.]
From Green Left Weekly, July 6, 2005.
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