Mental pain catches bad backs

Media coverage - The Australian, 7 June 2011

Psychiatric and psychological issues have been the fastest-growing condition of disability pension recipients over the past decade, growing from 18 per cent in 1992 to 28.7 per cent last year.

Mission Australia chief Toby Hall said research showed that many of those with a mental illness were capable of working, but they needed much more intensive support programs than were available in Australia.

Australia could benefit from adopting a New Zealand model that built a partnership of job providers, employers and health providers working together to support a person with a mental illness in a job.

Under that scheme, when people had used up all their sick leave or suffered episodic downturns, a package of welfare support was put together to support them while they got back into the workforce, he said.

National Welfare Rights Network president Maree O'Halloran said many people on the disability support pension wanted to work, but they "need the right supports as well as public and private employers who will employ them and accommodate any special needs".

Welfare groups fear a new set of impairment tables that will determine whether a person is eligible for the disability pension is likely to make it harder for people with a mental illness to get the pension.

Welfare Rights says it has been seeking information from the government about its review of the impairment tables, and believes it is time for broader community consultation about the review, and that submissions to the review should be made public.

"Any public messaging about mental illness not being a serious and debilitating condition is quite worrying," Ms O'Halloran said.

"We see it in Centrelink decisions sometimes where the attitude is, well, everyone is depressed -- get over it."

This piece originally published in The Australian, 7 June 2011