Proof Committee Hansard

Page 6 House of Representatives Wednesday, 30 November 2016
Mr HILL: I think many people would be astounded if they could get an appointment with many medical
specialists in the private system within a week or two.
Mr Browne: It is outside my experience. It is just that they are the issues we hear from clients, that they have
trouble arranging specialist appointments that might be required.
Mr HILL: There is a sense, I think, to quote the VLA, that the new claims process is inimitable to good
administration, and the Welfare Rights Network was concerned that it does not deliver value for money. Could
you expand a little more on whether there are any specific suggestions for improvements or whether you think it
is really six or 12 months in, given the growing concerns, that an independent review would be sufficient?
Mr Butt: I can address that in a couple of respects. I think it is true to say it is early days. There has been a
full financial year since the new process was rolled out but, as the committee will know, there is usually a backlog
of disability support pension claims. We have not actually had a full year of claims under the new process so I
think it is true to say it is still early days. Subject to that and to the need for a full evaluation, there are a couple of
core issues. One is, as we all know from most of our dealings with government, government generally uses
standard forms to ensure consistent information is obtained from people that is relevant to the decisions it needs to
make. That is the process it used to obtain and does not now.
There are a lot of questions to be raised about whether there was a sound reason for abandoning the use of a
standard form. The basic reasons are that primary medical records, generally, will not contain information
relevant to the very unusual and particular assessment that needs to be made of eligibility for the disability
support pension. There were problems with the existing form. I can certainly understand the department's
perspective that doctors would often not answer the questions in a way that was most useful. But I think the
answer to that was to consider reforming the form and modifying those questions. That is the change to the
information process.
The second aspect is the second stage medical review by a government contracted doctor. In our experience so
far, with that, most of those reviews affirm the decision by the Centrelink assessor. That is because Centrelink
assessors are enforcing a tough set of rules and not erring on the side of granting where there is uncertainty. Very
few of the claims that proceed to disability medical assessment are, in our experience so far, being changed. The
departments might be able to enlighten you on the exact statistics.
That, obviously, raises the question of value for money. There are a lot of unnecessary reviews, because every
single favourable assessment goes to a second stage review. And there are a lot of questions about whether that is
an efficient way to proceed.
Ms FLINT: Could each of you give us an idea of how many of these matters you are dealing with, in the
overall scheme of the people you are assisting—what percentage does it make up, in terms of your clients? I
think, Ms Newmarch, you said it was not a huge number of people coming to see you who have specific issues in
this area, but I note your submission, Mr Butt, that this makes up a significant part of your members. I am just
wondering if you can give us a ballpark figure of the percentage of people seeking assistance with these matters
for each of your organisations?
Ms Newmarch: When you say there are not a lot people seeing us about these matters, most of our clients are
on Centrelink of one form or another but we do see people outside that. Many of them are already on disability
support pension, but we do see some of them who are going through the struggle of getting access to it. While
they are a small proportion of all the people who come to us, for some of them it can be considerable. The ones I
have seen have mostly had mental issues, often on top of physical issues, and they really struggle to get
paperwork together and things like that. Anything they have to do is a real struggle for them. They struggle to get
out of bed, so when someone says, 'Please fill out this form,' or 'Please provide this information,' or whatever, it is
a real struggle for the few who are still going through the process. But we do see a lot of people who are living on
disability support pension and living on Newstart allowance.
Mr Butt: Our members are legal services, which are freestanding, so these are not actually our statistics. The
interesting thing about the work that our members do is that it is dealing at both the claims level—so at the
Centrelink level—and at the tribunal, or appeal, level. I would certainly say that the majority of the work they do
at the appeal level and report back to us on is disability support pension appeals. That would be a very large
proportion of it—in my experience, having previously worked in one of those organisations—but I could not give
you the numbers as I stand here.
Mr Jaffit: I am unable to give exact numbers either. Our systems are not designed to distinguish different
matter types easily. I can say a couple of things. Certainly the bulk of our work in relation to Centrelink appeals at
either of the tribunal levels is in relation to disability support pension rejections or cancellations. We have a
PUBLIC ACCOUNTS AND AUDIT COMMITTEE