Centrelink has backflipped after forcing a Dandenong disability pensioner with “incomplete quadriplegia” onto JobSeeker.
After a two month fight, the relieved 60-year-old woman was restored onto the disability support pension with back-pay.
After struggling on the less-generous JobSeeker payment, she can now pay her pile of unpaid bills as well as the many medical expenses for herself and her grandchildren.
And gone is the anxiety of being possibly forced to apply for jobs despite suffering a litany of health issues and barely able to walk.
“It’s been an emotional rollercoaster,” the pensioner says.
“Luckily I’m strong enough not to let this happen to me.
“I just advise anyone in the same situation not to give up and to fight for their rights.”
Out of the blue in March, Centrelink declared she was no longer eligible for the pension and placed her on JobSeeker.
She had been on the disability support pension for more than a decade.
With little strength in her arms and legs after a spinal operation in 2008, the pensioner uses a walker. She is consulting a neurosurgeon on possible further surgery.
According to doctors, she has “incomplete quadriplegia”, cervical myelopathy, gallstones and chronic shoulder and lumber back pain.
Disability Resources Centre executive officer Kerri Cassidy said the DSP criteria changed in 2012 to make it “considerably harder” to qualify for the pension.
“The intention was to get less people on the payment. It’s the people who are most vulnerable that are most affected.”
The criteria, which is currently under review by the Federal Government, needs to reflect people can have multiple complex impairments, Ms Cassidy said.
JobSeeker “doesn’t come close” to covering the extra average weekly costs of about $129 for disabled people and their families, she said.
After the Star Journal first made inquiries, a caller from Centrelink told the pensioner “you’ve been let down by the system and it shouldn’t have happened”.
Services Australia, which oversees Centrelink, did not comment on its reversed decision.
A spokesperson had previously stated that Centrelink had to abide by “very clear” DSP criteria set in legislation.
All medical evidence was carefully considered against the criteria rules by health professionals.
