2GB Sydney Live with Ben Fordham
E&OE
BEN FORDHAM:
Also, this afternoon, we’ve heard from the Federal Government today that tens of thousands of dole bludgers are using medical certificates from doctors to get the dole without having to find a job. Now does it feel like this is a broken record that we hear this time and time again? The Government investigation has revealed more than 70,000 people are feigning illnesses to avoid getting a job. On the line is Christian Porter, the Human Services Minister. Minister, good afternoon to you.
MINISTER PORTER:
Yes, good afternoon to you too.
BEN FORDHAM:
It’s a decent number – 70,000 people. How do we know they’re feigning illness?
MINISTER PORTER:
Well look we undertook an investigation and it all started around trying work out what the average number of people who use medical certificates to get out of their mutual obligations to search for work was. Once we found the average, which is about 7.6% – 70,000 people, we started to look at deviations from that average and that’s when the story became really interesting, because what we found was that there are these kind of hotspots where, say for instance, on the Central Coast of New South Wales almost 56% of the people on Newstart have managed to get themselves a medical certificate to get themselves out of searching for work; Inner Brisbane 30%; Inner West Sydney 30%.
BEN FORDHAM:
Well when they get that certificate, can you just clarify for me, does that mean that they’re out of their responsibility to look for work forever or for a time?
MINISTER PORTER:
Well for the period that’s nominated by the medical certificate. So they’re usually temporary but quite often once one expires people will go in in these areas and get another one.
BEN FORDHAM:
What could possibly be going on, on the Central Coast? You say usually the figure is around what?
MINISTER PORTER:
Well usually the figure’s around 7%.
BEN FORDHAM:
Yeah on the Central Coast it’s more than 55%?
MINISTER PORTER:
Yep – it’s 55.8%. So I mean look, obviously the Government accepts from time to time there will be a medical condition, maybe depression, some other condition which creates a temporary inability to search for work, that’s one thing. But I just cannot accept that you’re going to have one particular suburban region of Australia effectively that has depression or anxiety or back problems at eight times the national average. I mean that just does not bear any proper kind of scrutiny. So we’re now at the pointy edge of the problem and we’ve got to find a way to fix it.
BEN FORDHAM:
Alright, are the doctors involved likely to be fretting today hearing this news or would they be shrugging their shoulders and thinking ‘oh well good luck, what can they do to me’? I mean how can you disprove whatever diagnosis they came up with at the time?
MINISTER PORTER:
Well it’s not an investigation into doctors, it’s about us coming up with a way which we can make sure that the system’s more stringent and there are a variety of options. I mean one option is one we’ve actually exercised very effectively with respect to the Disability Support Pension, which is having Commonwealth appointed independent doctors oversight assessments and that’s something I’m going to have a look at; Some legislative changes are also a potential way to approach this problem. Probably you will need three or four things working in concert to fix this up.
BEN FORDHAM:
Sure. If you’ve three or four things – an investigation of doctors should be one of them, shouldn’t it? I mean that’s at the heart of this thing, you’ve got doctors who are ticking the box time and time again when they should be asking more questions.
MINISTER PORTER:
Well I would suspect, based on what I’ve seen inside the welfare system, there’s just going to be simpler ways to get where we need to be than investigating doctors. And one of the ways that we’ve found to do that, as with the Disability Support Pension, is just having doctors that we, in effect, are able to oversight on a simple basis that are independent from the relationship. One of the difficulties with all of this of course is, that the GP is in a service provider and client relationship with the person that they might be exempting – and I don’t know whether that’s the perfect basis on which to be making the most single minded independent decisions in these matters – so one of the things that we’ve done previously is having a greater degree of independence. But, as I say, we’ve also got a situation here where you’ve got mandated legislative excuses which revolve around alcohol and drug consumption. So in effect you’ve got people using drug and alcohol consumption as a legitimate legislated excuse for failing to look for work and then using welfare to underpin drug and alcohol consumption. Now I don’t really think that bears out in a common sense test for what people’s expectations are inside the welfare system.
BEN FORDHAM:
Well we appreciate the clean-up. Thanks for your time.
MINISTER PORTER:
Cheers Ben, thankyou.