Senator WEST —Program 1 would have been pulled back if I had got the answer that I received last night more than three days ago. The reference is CA 177, which was one from Senator Neal that was put on notice on 12 November. It related to the copy of the third edition of Home and resident choice and a copy of the insert when it was available. Presumably, the insert only became available yesterday which means that we are not able to ask questions because it cannot be pulled back. I am a little concerned that answers come in after that cut[hyphen]off time which precludes us from following up with questions. I wanted to raise that as a comment to start with. We are given a cut[hyphen]off time by which we have to notify what we are going to be asking, or the sections, and then we get answers after that cut[hyphen]off time and that is a bit difficult. The questions can go on notice at another occasion but I raise that and bring that to your attention, Minister.

Senator FORSHAW —I also extend my congratulations to Dr Rosalky. I have some questions in respect of the disability support pension. What is the average duration of time that recipients of disability support pensions spend on the pension?

Mr Herscovitch —I cannot give you that off the top of my head. The vast majority of disability support pensioners are on for a very long period and many of them finish their period of DSP by transferring to age pension. I would have to take the precise question on notice.

Senator FORSHAW —I would appreciate if you would do that. Maybe you can comment now but take it on notice if you cannot. Has there been any noticeable change over the last 20 years or so in terms of the period that people are spending on this pension?

Mr Herscovitch —There has been. I cannot tell you about duration figures, but I can tell you that there has been a small increase in the number of disability support pensioners who declare other earnings. So there is some suggestion there that there has been some small success in reintegrating some disability support pensioners into the wider community. But I really would have to take that on notice as well. I probably should add a caution that the figures from, say, 20 years ago are probably somewhat less complete than they would be now. But we will certainly see what we can find for you and get back to you on notice.

Senator FORSHAW —I have similar questions in respect of a number of other payments. I will just identify them. I assume you will take them on notice as well. I would like to know the average duration of time that recipients of the sole parent pension and the newstart allowance spend on benefits and also a comparison, if you like, or an analysis of what has happened over that period of 20 years or so that I mentioned. What proportion of disability support pensioners record earned income?

Mr Herscovitch —The last figure I saw was late last year—7.3 per cent.

Senator FORSHAW —Is that similar to historical figures?

Mr Herscovitch —It has gone up slightly, but that is another question I really would need to take on notice. The figure from I think it was two years before—I would not swear to it—was about six per cent. So as I say, there is some small increase in the numbers declaring earnings. But it is a question I would need to take on notice and give you a considered answer.

Senator FORSHAW —I am happy for you to do that. I have taken some of these questions on notice myself, actually, as you probably guessed. Similarly for the sole parent pensioners and for what is called newstart allowance now. Maybe you could answer the first part of it at this time, and that is the proportion of sole parent pensioners who record earned income.

Mr Herscovitch —No, I cannot, Senator. That is another program.

Senator Newman —Senator, can I suggest that we send you a little booklet that we have prepared on stats on lone parents?

Senator FORSHAW —You can send me whatever you like, Minister.

Senator Newman —It will probably answer all the questions you would never think to ask as well as all the ones you want to ask. We were trying to dispel some of the myths that are around about sole parents—the length of time they are on benefits and what their marital status is, et cetera. I think you would find that the things you are asking are all covered in it.

Senator WEST —Could all members of the committee please have that, Minister?

Senator Newman —You would all like it? Yes.

Senator FORSHAW —Thank you. Also, could you indicate the proportion of newstart allowance recipients who record earned income. Do you have a figure for that now?

Mr Herscovitch —No, I do not. It is not my program, either, Senator.

Senator FORSHAW —That is all I have on the disability support pension.

Senator WEST —The number of people on the disability support pension who are now over pension age, how many have we got on that now? What is happening to that figure?

Mr Herscovitch —I meant to bring those figures with me, Senator.

Senator WEST —You thought I would ask, didn't you?

Mr Herscovitch —I did. What I can tell you is that since the last figures we gave you on notice after the least hearings there has been a small reduction in both the numbers of disability support pensioners and carer pensioners of age pension age. It may have something to do with the fact that the age pension age for women was raised from 60[half ] to 61 last June. But again, we are having a look at the age distribution of that to see if we can make more sense of it. I must confess that having looked at it, I could not really digest any significant trends in there. There has been very little change, though, since the last figures we gave you.

Senator WEST —So people who are on DSPs who hit age pension age and who are renting are given an option to stay on DSP, are they, or are they encouraged to go on to the old age pension?

Mr Herscovitch —They are given an option. They are notified before they reach age pension age that they have that option. The numbers of people who are in that position are quite small, I should add. So it would not have a huge influence on the aggregate figures.

Senator WEST —That is fine. When they are given the option, are they given the clear indication in the letter that, if they are in receipt of rent assistance and on a DSP, if they go on to the age pension they will lose that rent assistance?

Mr Herscovitch —I have not got the text of the letter with me. We will get that for you.

Senator WEST —Could I please have a copy of the text of that letter? That is an issue that I have grave concerns about. We managed to exempt people in receipt of the DSP from the cuts to the rent assistance, but I want to make sure that people are being apprised of that when they are having to make an option.

If I can turn to the reviews that are being done of people on DPSs, how often are these being undertaken, particularly of those who have come across to DSP from the invalid pension?

Mr Herscovitch —The invalid pension reviews have been of a select group of the former invalid pensioner population, and they are nearly all done. They are nearly complete. That was a budget initiative from 1996[hyphen]97. They will then go into a normal review—the people who have been reviewed will go into a normal review cycle, which is two or five years, depending on their condition.

Senator WEST —Have you ever given us a breakdown of how many are on two[hyphen]year review cycles and how many are on five[hyphen]year review cycles?

Mr Herscovitch —Not to my knowledge. I could probably drag out some numbers on that for the whole population. What I could not do at the moment is do it for the former invalid pensioner population.

Senator WEST —I am quite happy for it to be on the DSP population as a whole. In fact, I was not asking for the invalid pension group in particular. I am just interested to know how many you have got on the two[hyphen] and the five[hyphen]year review cycles. Are there any groups who are on no review cycles at all?

Mr Herscovitch —There would be some who would be on no review cycle—that is, no medical review cycle. These would be people who have manifest conditions which—

Senator WEST —Someone with, say, quadriplegia?

Mr Herscovitch —That is right.

Senator WEST —With high[hyphen]level quadriplegia you are not going to, hopefully—

Mr Herscovitch —That is right; there would be some people who are exempt from the medical review process.

Senator Newman —Quite a few.

Mr Herscovitch —Quite a few, yes. But, again, I could not give you numbers on that.

Senator WEST —No; but I would like some idea of how many. If you tell me how many are on two[hyphen]yearly and five[hyphen]yearly reviews, I am going to be able to get some indication of how many are on no review cycle at all. These reviews are carried out—refresh my memory—by whom?

Mr Herscovitch —The reviews are carried out by the department, with the assistance of medical reports, where required, from Health Services Australia doctors. Perhaps I should go back a step. If the condition of the person being reviewed does not fall into what we call the manifest category, we would seek a treating doctor's report. Beyond that, if that did not lead to a definite decisions, we would then seek a report from a Health Services Australia medical practitioner. On the basis of that, Centrelink would then make a decision on the individual.

Senator WEST —There used to be disability panels who looked at some groups, didn't there?

Mr Herscovitch —No; disability panels were looking at the suitability of people for referral to employment assistance services or rehabilitation—that kind of thing. The panels did not make decisions on eligibility for a disability support pension.

Senator WEST —Okay. Do the panels still exist for the group of DSPs who you are deciding maybe could go back into the work force?

Mr Herscovitch —That is now changing. The panel is usually comprised of a staff member from DSS—the old DSS—and from—

Senator WEST —CES?

Mr Herscovitch —Yes, CES.

Senator WEST —CRS?

Mr Herscovitch —And the CRS. They were the panels. That process is changing because of the government's reforms to employment assistance generally and—

Senator WEST —How are they changing?

Mr Herscovitch —Because the CRS is being corporatised and may have to compete in the open market, it is no longer appropriate for them to be sitting in these situations, and of course the CES network and the old DSS network have been combined into a single entity, and the people who used to represent DSS and DEETYA on those panels are essentially one and the same.

Senator WEST —What has taken the place of the panels?

Ms McGregor —As Mr Herscovitch has outlined, there is a series of reforms on the way in May. The Minister for Family Services announced the changes in the health and family services portfolio, and the panel has been replaced at this stage by a Centrelink disability officer, who will apply the instrument that will be introduced for the streaming or selection of people for the providers, in order to determine whether they are to be referred to a health and family services provider or to the DEETYA providers, under the new unemployment systems arrangements there.

Senator WEST —What qualifications does the Centrelink disability officer have?

Ms McGregor —There are no formal qualifications. We know from surveys we have done that we have a fairly skilled group there but we are looking at how we may further develop accredited training to suit them.

Senator WEST —What sort of accredited training?

Ms McGregor —At this point, we are still looking at that. We have been discussing that through consultations that are being undertaken by the Department of Health and Family Services with the community, and we are taking advice on the sorts of skills that the disability industry and the community believe are necessary.

Senator WEST —I can see that you had a drop in qualifications and experience, going from the panels to the officer. The panel, as you said, contained Social Security, CES and CRS, and CSR contained staff who were qualified as rehabilitationists, with either rehab. counselling postgraduate qualifications or occupational therapy or physiotherapy and things like that. You are showing, do you not agree, a drop in the experience and the qualifications of the people who are now undertaking those reviews?

Ms McGregor —It is a difficult one to draw a close analogy with, because the whole entry point into the system has changed and a more objective instrument has been introduced. I hear what you are saying but I think it is difficult to assess at this point, because the changes are so wide ranging.

Senator WEST —I would not have thought that it was difficult to see that there was a drop in the qualifications, when you actually have nobody that is now doing those assessments who
is qualified in rehab. services with postgraduate qualifications, such as rehab. counselling, occupational therapy, physiotherapy or speech therapy—one of those sorts of health professionals who have spent their years actually working with patients who have disabilities. Now we are going to have people who have worked in offices. With all due respect to your officers, they have on the whole, I would suggest, not had the same working experience with patients in actually rehabilitating people.

Ms McGregor —Many of the people that I described, the Centrelink disability officers, do have backgrounds in that, and I can get you a break[hyphen]up of that, if you like. We did a survey—

Senator WEST —I would like a break[hyphen]up of that, please; I think it is vitally important that people with disabilities have their cases assessed by people who have actually trained in the area.

Mr Herscovitch —To add one little thing, when the disability support officers, as they were called, were first established in the early 1990s, those jobs were externally advertised. Of course, a very large number of people who came in through that process are still there.

Senator WEST —I would like a breakdown, please, of the qualifications that the people have to actually undertake that work. When someone is having their first review—particularly those that have been on the invalid pension and are having their first review and you are thinking about taking them off it—you do offer an assessment by the CRS, don't you? I have had a constituent going through Centrelink who was offered an interview for assessment by the CRS, because this person had had rheumatic fever as a child and then had a zoonotic disease when he worked in an abattoir and had contracted further cardiac problems from that. Now, nearly 30 years down the track, he is being reviewed. People are offered an assessment by the CRS: is that correct?

Mr Herscovitch —Not automatically, to my knowledge. But many of these people—in fact, the majority of them—would go on to the newstart allowance, and so they would enter the mainstream employment services stream, and that does make some provision for people with disabilities.

Senator WEST —What assistance are you giving for those people who fit that story of my constituent who has been 25 years out of the work force, has only ever worked when he was working as a manual labourer, has cardiac problems that are associated with his rheumatic fever as a child and then, later, the disease that was contracted at work—I think it was Q fever, or one of the zoonotic diseases? He has now been told that he can go off DSP. He has been told that he might be able to get a job, but he has no skills. What assistance is being offered and given to those sorts of people to get back into the work force?

Ms McGregor —These are issues that cover a number of portfolios now—Health and Family Services, DEETYA and, I think, to a lesser extent, Social Security. The people who are in that situation so presenting, or transferring to, and seeking employment assistance, would be assessed using an instrument that determined what skills they had and the impact of their disability. Depending on how they scored—and it is an objective instrument at that point—they would be referred either to a provider who would customise the assistance to assist them, funded through Health and Family Services, or to the DEETYA providers. That is probably all we can say without delving too much into all the issues that relate to the other portfolios.

Senator WEST —This bloke just happens to live 40 kilometres from the major centre in a small rural town. How well does your measuring instrument take into cognisance the issues and problems that confront those sorts of situations?

Ms McGregor —We do have people who would be able to visit. There are visiting services to assist.

Senator WEST —How often?

Ms McGregor —This is a one[hyphen]off assessment. They may require a secondary visit or discussion. Without understanding how many other people are in that category in that location, I find that difficult—

Senator WEST —I would say that there is probably one person in that category in this particular community. It is only a community of 2,000.

Ms McGregor —If you like, we can find out the specific details.

Senator WEST —I am not particularly interested in the specific details because this person has sorted his life out. I am concerned about all of those communities around New South Wales and around Australia that have populations of 2,000 and have one or two people that fit into this category—and I am sure they all do. What sort of service are we able to offer them?

Ms McGregor —In terms of the DEETYA arrangements, we will not know where the providers are until they are announced in the next couple of days. So, again, it depends on the location of the providers.

Senator WEST —So, my poor old patient—because that is what this person is in health terms—is being chopped up so that part of him has got to go to Centrelink, part of him has got to go to DEETYA somewhere, and part of him has got to go somewhere else.

Senator Newman —That has not been changed, Senator, over a number of years.

Senator WEST —It might not have, but I am conscious—

Senator Newman —People do have needs requiring access to different departments. We are providing outreach services wherever we can to people in rural Australia. One of the big initiatives from Centrelink has been to have outreach services. So I think the officer is really trying to help your constituent by saying that. If you want to take her away privately later and tell her where and when, it may be that we can arrange for outreach assistance.

CHAIR —But nothing has changed.

Senator Newman —Nothing has changed in respect of having to deal with several departments in this sort of issue. But we would be very happy to help you with your constituent.

Senator WEST —That is fine. The constituent has been able to solve his particular problem, but the issue I am wanting to pursue is that you have changed a whole lot of things. You have got a whole lot of new systems in place. I am wanting to know how such people are going to benefit, and how you are going to overcome some of the problems that we perceive for people who live in those rural areas. They are not necessarily that remote. This is an area—

Senator Newman —Senator, you are now talking about employment services, and you know that you need to go to the DEETYA estimates for that.

Senator WEST —That has been chopped up anyway.

Senator Newman —No. That is still as it was. DEETYA is responsible for the provision of labour market programs.

Senator WEST —This is someone who is coming off a disability pension, and I am wanting to know whether disability—

Senator Newman —But even people who have not been on a disability pension are entitled to special considerations under labour market programs. They were in the past, and still are. Therefore, you do need to go to DEETYA to ask about people with disabilities and their help in the labour market programs.

Senator DENMAN —Senator West, would you mind if I jump in there?

Senator WEST —No, not at all, Senator Denman.

Senator DENMAN —Could you tell me if there is a 1800 number or some such thing that these people in isolation can phone if they do not have easy access to a larger centre?

Senator Newman —The call centres?

Senator DENMAN —Yes.

Senator Newman —Yes, of course.

Senator DENMAN —Thank you.

Senator Newman —Do you want the number now? I have not got my wallet with me. I am informed that it is 132300.

Senator DENMAN —Right.

Senator WEST —I think I have run to the end of my questions.

CHAIR —As there are no further questions on 2.1, we will go to subprogram 2.5.

[9.30 a.m.]