good balanced article, issue #1, our health care & educational systems are now so useless, dysfunctional, that many people on DSP with chronic conditions never, ever recieve ANY treatment, let alone inadequate treatment & therefore can never be rehabilitated.

issue #2, our employers have been encouraged to seek ONLY employees with experience & qualifications already, who can go straight to work without ANY training at all. In industries like mining this is just ridiculous, instead of taxing them, why not force them to take on "unskilled workers", train them from scratch.

Would this not be more efficient than imposing more taxes for bureaucrooks to waste on rubbish?

...This article highlights well the sad plight of the disabled. One would expect the disabled to be first in line for assistance with their disability and a helping hand to become involved in the community, both by work and good old fashioned acceptance; but the opposite prevails.

...No mention here was made of those requiring medical treatment and provision of pharmaceuticles. Simplicity such as a trip to the local GP for repeat prescriptions alone are financially crippling; GP's in my area refuse to bulk bill even the disabled, an appalling situation and "glows" of heartless greed.

...Astronomical rises in power bills go unmentioned as further impact to surviveability. My observation tells me the disabled in my area are in starvation mode with many going without heating in winter to succeed in balancing meager budgets. At times when I look around my community I have the feeling I am living through the siege of St Petersburg.

Naomi Anderson says, in the fourth paragraph of her article, :

"But is the DSP actually increasing at all?
Budget Review papers state that “no other
income support program has seen this level
of sustained increase,” but Department of
Families, Housing, Community Services and
Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA) data disproves
this."

There exists an area of overlap between the categories of age pensioners and DSP recipients that I don't see mentioned in the article. This is where a person who has been a DSP recipient becomes qualified for the age pension. Such persons have the option of transferring to the age pension, or of retaining their status as a DSP recipient. It would be interesting to know how many DSP recipients are over the age at which they might otherwise qualify for the age pension. Such information might go some way toward resolving this apparent conundrum.

On the face of it, it seems there is no difference in the rate of pension payable as between DSP and age pension. Yet it is an option offered by government as to in which category an individual wishes to be placed. I can only wonder why. Does government want the number of DSP recipients to be effectively overstated (which would happen if significant numbers opted to retain their DSP status upon reaching pensionable age) for some reason?

Some individuals are going to come down that hard they will make a crater in the ground. What is meant by astronomical rises in power. The cost of power has not yet began to rise.
It's fortunate that pensioners have come from a time when obscene amounts of money paid as wages today were not known. Todays pension is more money than they have ever seen. This is why they cope so well.