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Page 4 House of Representatives Wednesday, 30 November 2016 tables, we often get very different outcomes. So I would be loath to comment generally on the targeting, because we only see a very small bit of it, but the bit we see is probably not well targeted on all occasions. Mr HART: Would any of the other witnesses like to comment on that issue? Ms Newmarch: I have not seen a lot of people with reviews, but I do know that even the idea of a review creates significant anxiety even in the population that are not up to current review. They come in and they are going, 'There's these changes to DSP.' I think one of the things that gets left out of the story is the overwhelming nature of people's anxiety related to their income support when they are receiving it and that, even for people who are not targeted, that anxiety passes through to that population. Mr Butt: I think there has been some media about some poorly chosen reviews. In my opinion, that largely reflects legacy issues about Centrelink's records. People who were granted the payment before job capacity assessment processes often have fairly minimally documented reasons for the grant. I think that is the major reason why there have been some cases in the media where the person really was inappropriately selected for review. Generally speaking, Centrelink's processes are robust in terms of the reviews. It is an extremely distressing, stressful process for the people who go through it but I think that the process for selecting is pretty robust. The process for going through the review process is being done quite well in the circumstances. There is a good process for involving social workers in appropriate cases. Mr HILL: You have knowledge that we have not been able to understand. What do you see as the criteria that guides the reviews? Many submissions say they are completely non-transparent and no-one understands why people are being reviewed. Do you have information you could assist us with? Mr Butt: I think the departments will speak to you later and they are best placed to identify the criteria in particular. I understand that a range of criteria are being used that are reasonable in the circumstances. Mr HILL: But you do not know what they are? Mr Butt: Some of them are to do with age, work history, declaration of employment income, nature of disability. I think those are all reasonable criteria to narrow down the group. Mr Browne: We see a lot of the under 35 review, which is obviously a government policy. We also see reviews occur due to clients being overseas for longer than 28 days. That can lead to a review because applicants apply for unlimited portability which then leads to a complete review of their impairment as against the tables. Some of the difficulties we see there is that clients are not aware or are making decisions whilst overseas about whether or not to initiate a review and are not aware that it may lead to a cancellation of their DSP, and we see that happening. We also see clients who travel overseas often identified for review of the basis that a person with a disability may well have trouble travelling overseas frequently. Whether or not that is appropriate is a matter for Centrelink but those are examples where we see reviews occur. Mr HART: There is some commentary in the Victorian legal aid submission with respect to what is described as a new process for assessing claims. There has been a changed process. What used to be an 11-page application has now been consolidated to one page. On the general theme of the reliability of material that guides the decision maker, do you want to make any comments about the new process? I understand that you have some views that the new process may not be of assistance to making accurate decisions. Mr Browne: The ANAO report noted that the job capacity assessments were well supported by evidence. Our concern is that might cease to be the case under the new system. The process that is proposed is one—Ben talked about it in his opening statement—where there is no initiated document that provides detailed evidence about a person's medical condition which is focused on the criteria for disability support pension. I am sure the committee would probably be interested to see how complex the application process for the disability support pension is if you were not already aware of it. None of that medical evidence is there. So I guess we have a strong concern that the process is not focused and geared towards good decision making and that decisions are then made by government contracted doctors. Again we are concerned that any tools for good decision making around applying the law may not be applied as effectively by medical assessors outside the Centrelink system. Mr HART: Thank you. That is of considerable assistance. Ms MADELEINE KING: Thank you for coming in today and thank you for your submissions. First, you might clarify your statement. Was it, 'Delays in assessing entitlements to the DSP increase the risk of eviction and homelessness.' Is that what you meant? Was it that the assessment process increases that risk? Ms Guthrie: I think what we meant was: there was a flow-on effect, because people are living on a much lower level of income, and they are already in financial hardship, so it is exacerbated by that uncertainty. People, I know, have to plan, of course— PUBLIC ACCOUNTS AND AUDIT COMMITTEE
Wednesday, 30 November 2016 JOINT Page 5 Ms Newmarch: I think that, when people go on to Newstart allowance, waiting for the disability pension, they have often come from paying rent and having loans—having a car loan, maybe—et cetera. And suddenly they are forced to live on Newstart allowance with a disability. Sometimes that can be a physical injury but, within a few months, the person can rapidly escalate into depression because all these other things have happened to them: they have lost their car; they have lost their house; they are under threat of eviction; and they are living on Newstart allowance with that disability. So any delay in assessing the disability just adds to their living stresses. Ms MADELEINE KING: Certainly. Ms Newmarch: Some of the people we see have pretty amazing circumstances in terms of how they have, just through an accident or illness, gone from— Ms MADELEINE KING: From having a stable kind of lifestyle, I suppose— Ms Newmarch: Yes: from being stable, earning an income and doing what other people do, to having to live on Newstart allowance while they wait for this assessment. Ms MADELEINE KING: Briefly, to follow up: you put it in terms of being at risk of eviction and homelessness; have you seen it move from risk to actual homelessness and eviction of tenants? Ms Newmarch: Often the people end up in supported accommodation, refuges or things like that while they are waiting for public housing because the public housing waiting lists are so long. They are usually given priority for public housing in these circumstances, but, if they do not have family support, they will usually end up in a refuge or something like that. But they are under stress, too—the lack of availability of that housing. So, yes, they get into pretty dire circumstances very quickly. So the quicker they can get the disability support pension, which is a much higher rate of payment, and access to public housing, the better their lives. Mr HILL: I want to go back to the review side of things. I am reading from the National Welfare Rights Network's submission. It states clearly that, in your view, the criteria for the review should be transparent and publicly available, which does suggest that you do not know what they are. But, anyway, we have dealt with that. In terms of the timeliness of reviews, one of the consistent issues which has come through in the submissions is that people have 21 days, for what is quite a scary kind of process for many people—21 days to provide responses—and that this is causing distress and anxiety. Again, to quote from the National Welfare Rights Network's submission: Many find it very hard to meet short timeframes for providing further evidence, due to the need to make appointments to see doctors and specialists to get up to date medical information. I am just curious as to whether there is any additional commentary around that timeliness side of things, because it does seem to go to the public administration of these reviews, not the targeting or policy criteria, and whether there are particular cohorts of vulnerable people who you feel are affected by this and any alternative processes or changes that you think might be sensible for us to consider? Mr Browne: I see a strong argument for providing more time. If there has been identification of reviews through a process, then arguably you could provide people with six months' notice of a review. Again, we would emphasise the importance of providing impairment tables. There are new impairment tables. That is the reason why the reviews are occurring. Many applicants who were successful under old tables will not have the medical evidence that is required to assess their disability under the new tables. I particularly would consider that people with an intellectual impairment or an acquired brain injury will likely have been assessed under the old tables, without the need for a neuropsychological report, for example. Obtaining those reports for a person with those disabilities in a regional area is hugely difficult. They may have to wait up to a year for specialist reviews in the public health system or obtain private funds to pay for reports that normally are above $1,000. So, obviously, legal aid is able to assist with this. But a system where those people would have six months' notice of what was likely to occur would allow them to make their own arrangements to establish and justify the reason why they are receiving disability support pension. I think that would be the main point in relation to time lines and information. Mr HILL: So people with neuropsychological or mental illness and also people in regional or remote areas have particular difficulties? Mr Browne: That is right. If you have a condition that has not been reviewed—even a knee condition, for example—by a specialist in five or six years, Centrelink will require you to provide—that is my understanding or certainly in the cases that we see—an up-to-date specialist opinion on whether there is now surgery available. If you are in the public health system, in the regional area, my experience with my clients is that they are being told it is a very long wait time for that specialist review. Obviously, they can go into the private system but is that realistic for people on a very low payment? PUBLIC ACCOUNTS AND AUDIT COMMITTEE
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