This article and the CIS report released last week offer the usual rhetoric about "disincentives", presuming that DSP recipients simply do not want to work. If we follow the arguments, a more realistic outcome is:
1. Identify those who can realistically perform some kind of work. Asking people would establish this for many DSP recipients, especially the younger entrants to the payment.
2. Create rules and ensure recipients stick to them. This point implies that DSP recipients have no interest in working, and are not already seeking employment. While acknowledging the lacklustre performance of Disability Employment Services, and low employment rates, the writer still assumes that DSP recipients are not working because they don't stick to the rules. No mention is made of the discrimination faced by people with disability, nor the fact that even the public service employs fewer people with a disability than ever before. The lack of accessibility of workplaces, transport, supports and adaptive technologies contributes to the ongoing difficulty securing employment; current levels of disability discrmination complaints in schools does not suggest improved prospects in the near future.
3. Reduce the rate of DSP for those who can work, but don't. The final step in this proposal places a financial burden on people with a disability who are unable to secure employment, despite the fact that there is demonstrated reluctance from employers, lack of support from governments, and documented inability to access basic equipment and services.
This "reform" will simply ensure more people with a disability live in dire poverty. There is a reason that long term payments pay more - short term welfare funds food, long term welfare funds a fridge to put it in.
Until we as a community are able to clean up our act on disability, get an NDIS in place and functioning, enforce disability discrimination legislation, and improve public service participation rates, there is little likelihood the private sector is going to step up. Only then would it be fair to say that the problem is incentive on the part of DSP recipients.

NaomiMelb has hit the nail on the head. She has said everything that I would have said. It is entirely predictable that a paper from the CIS would perpetuate myths about the DSP and its recipients. Perhaps these authors should think about the possibility that they suffer a disability in the future.

What these calls for tightening up the DSP ignore are the barriers that PWDs, especially those with "hidden" disabilities like autism spectrum conditions face in finding employment.

Many PWDs would gladly work, if someone would offer a position in a workplace with the right supports. In some cases, "reasonable accommodation" is nothing more than sound management providing a workplace safe from social bullying, which would benefit productivity overall. Also, accommodations in the recruiting process is often needed. Recruitment is another area that's overlooked. Suffice to say that for people on the autism spectrum, it's a maze of unknown expectations.

To the Federal Government, please consider ways you can assist PWDs to find meaningful employment at fair rates. I suspect you'll reduce the welfare bill significantly, and it will be a win-win for all.

The problem is if people with genuine disabilities - but with some capacity to work - are driven off of DSP.

Such people can still be significantly impaired in terms of their capacity to work even if still able to work 'in some form'.

Sometimes 'invisible' disabilities can be worse than people realise. (eg: post-traumatic stress, chronic fatigue)

This needs to be factored in; so they remain on DSP if looking for work; and are given subsidies if they do find work for the sake of distributive justice.

This is why the current govt policy is not fair.

the other problems still being ignored are

#1, our DISABLED public health system means that many people with chronic conditions get little or NO treatment, therefore remain too ill to work.

#2, as already mentioned ALL employers discriminate & why shouldn't they try to reduce their costs, by avoiding employing people with health problems, that are going to COST them more than able bodied people.

#3, unpaid voluntary community work is being done by many pensioners, of all kinds, now. if we punish these community workers many important community services that are saving our governments heaps of money will be weakened, if not destroyed.

There are other ways to streamline centrelink or make our welfare system more efficient.

Mention must be made of all those DSP recipients who work in supported workplaces, often for slave wages. These wages are assessed by a process that is often unfair or unethical. Providers are funded to give meaningful employment to people who cannot work in open employment. Wages often do not reflect the true productivity of the worker, but rather the fact that the DSP is the main income. Where else in Australia would we sanction an adult wage of $1.50 per hour? If these workers were paid what they were worth, they may not cease being pensioners but their pensions may be reduced and in some cases, substantially reduced.