After fifteen months surely The Herald-Sun & The Telegraph could get their disability pension facts straight

On 28 April 2010 the Federal Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs issued a joint media release (with the Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services) announcing a modified approach to assessment of impairment in relation to all new applicants applying for a Disability Support Pension after 1 January 2012.

On 10 May 2011 the Minister (along with the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Jobs and Workplace Relations, Minister for Employment Participation and the Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Carers) announced welfare measures included in the 2011-12 Federal Budget and made it clear that new work capacity/participation requirements applied to new pension applicants and to those existing pension recipients under 35 years of age who have some capacity to work. At the same time Budget documents made clear that some of those changes affecting new applicants were now expected to start in September 2011.

In a 12 May 2011 news interview the Minister made it clear that the new work participation rules would affect up to 90,000 pensioners under 35 over the next two years.

On 1 June 2011 the Minister issued another joint media release (this time with the Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Carers) in which new reforms were again announced. This release also made it clear that eligibility changes applied to new applicants, not to all 815,000 individuals already receiving a full or part Disability Support Pension.

Centrelink’s website also made mention of these changes to the Disability Support Pension.

These welfare reforms were widely reported at the time and remain on the public record. Yet on 30 July 2011 The Herald-Sun ran this line:

DISABILITY support pension applicants will no longer be able to claim they are too fat to work or are unable due to other ailments that would previously have led them to claim benefits. Instead, 815,000 people will be assessed using new impairment tables on what work they could potentially do based on their disability.(See snapshot above)

While The Telegraph made an identical statement of ‘fact’ via the pen of the same journalist:

APPLICANTS for the disability support pension will no longer be able to claim they are too fat to work or are unable due to other ailments that would previously have led them to claim benefits.
Instead, 815,000 people on the pension will be assessed using new impairment tables on what work they could potentially do based on their disability.

At best this is sloppy reporting by News Ltd newspapers and at worst it could be seen as an attempt to produce distress within a vulnerable group and create yet more political mischief for the Gillard Government to deal with.

Unfortunately on the morning of 30 July ABC News Radio quoted News Ltd and helped spread the canard that all existing Disability Support pensioners were to be re-assessed for eligibility.

It wasn't until much later that the national broadcaster began to correct the record, followed by The Telegraph quietly emending that offending paragraph. As of 9pm on 30 July neither News Ltd nor the political reporter who wrote both articles had corrected The Herald-Sun version.