This Woman With Cerebral Palsy Is "Housebound" After The Government Denied Her A Pension
Prue McCarthy has been without the Disability Service Pension for seven months.
Prue McCarthy was born with cerebral palsy and taught herself to walk when she was seven. Now, a decade after going off the Disability Service Pension (DSP) to care for her grandmother, she has been told she does not qualify to get back on it.
"I went off the DSP in 2005 when I moved in with my grandmother and went on the carer's pension as I was caring for Nan," she told BuzzFeed News. "I tried to get back on it when Nan died in August 2015."
It's now been seven months since Prue was told by her local Centrelink that she no longer qualified for the DSP.
This puts her at the bare minimum of the amount of work outlined by Centrelink as over the threshold of eligibility.
On the Department of Human Services site, they outline the eligibility basics like:
- Being aged between 16-years-old and "Age of Pension" age.
- Having been assessed as having a physical, intellectual, or psychiatric impairment.
- Having been unable to work for 15 hours or more per week at or above the relevant minimum wage within the next two years because of the impairment.
Currently, Prue is living off the $719 a fortnight she receives by working 12 hours a week at her paid job. She is also given newstart allowance of $100 a fortnight.
This combined weekly income puts Prue on the poverty line outlined by the Australian Council of Social Service.
Current available data does not allow more recent readings, but in 2009-10 the Australian Council of Social Services found 27.4% of people living with a disability were "living in poverty".
"My self-esteem has gone down as I have been forced to look at what I can't do in order to be eligible for the DSP, which resulted in a rejection anyway. "