Its all those spongers on the DSP…again

Liberal/National governments have been making a big deal about people on the Disability Support Pension yet again recently. This became something of a regular feature of the last liberal government under John Coward. Every time the government did something wrong or looked foolish they started a blame campaign against those who could not defend themselves.

Whats interesting is the Abbott/Hockey government started off with ideas for savings in government spending that placed the blame squarely where it belonged: large corporations avoiding tax and so-called self funded retirees (read millionaires who pay no tax). This has been very quickly abandoned and we’re back to the same old blame game of old as the government runs out of ideas.

It seems that somehow sick people are just too damn sick and the current government feels the need to legislate to make them well again!

Now you’re out of luck if you’re trying to get onto the pension: In their arrogance they have decided that the regular treating doctor of a person is just not honest enough to assess their entitlement to the pension, now contracted government doctors will make these decisions.

This means of course that someone who is unwell has their illness assessed by someone who see’s them once for about 15 minutes and makes a major decision that affects their life. Apparently the GP who has been seeing the same person for years and has seen them through health and sickness is not to be trusted.

One wonders what incentive these contract doctors have for not allowing people onto the Disability Pension. I suspect a Doctor’s contract would somehow not be renewed at the end of the year if they allow too many people onto the DSP.

Picking on disabled pensioners is among the lowest of the low. What is truly stunning is how the press also panders to this blame campaign doing the governments work for it, seemingly happy to demonize those who can not fight back.