Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Replacing it with the word ‘assessor’. The minister at the table just said ‘medical assessor’. It replaces it with the word ‘assessor’. The assessments that are being referred to are known as ‘job capacity assessments’. One element of those is the assessment against the impairment tables. We know that an applicant must get a minimum of 20 points to be assessed as eligible for the disability support pension; however, an applicant can get more than 20 points and still not be granted the pension because the job capacity assessment finds they are still theoretically capable of at least 15 hours of work.

The effect of what the bill before the House does is to roll together the impairment table process into the general job capacity assessment process, to have them all conducted by the job capacity assessor. The problem with this—and clearly the minister does not understand this—is that making a decision about disability against impairment tables is a task that requires the exercise of medical knowledge and medical judgement. We do note that there can still be input or advice from a medical officer, such as treating doctors, but of course the bill, by deleting the phrase ‘medical officer’, moves that determination to a determination made by an assessor—that is, it has taken the impairment table determination, rolled it in with the rest of the job capacity assessment and made that the province of the job capacity assessor. If there is any further confusion about this by the minister, she might like to reflect on the words of the National Welfare Rights Network, which points out:

The impairment tables are replete with complex and detailed references to multifarious medical conditions. Points under the impairment tables are given according to the actual impairment caused by an identified medical condition. They are not given according to their likely impact in the workplace. It therefore makes sense that a person’s rating be assessed by a medical officer.

Those are not my words but the words of the National Welfare Rights Network. It is a simple point, and it ought to be conceded, that making a judgement against the impairment tables requires the exercise of a degree of medical knowledge and skill. It consequently should be done by a medical officer. Of course, that is only going to form one element of the assessment. The rest of the assessment needs to be done by an assessor. That is understood. But the minister, in proceeding with the bill in its current form, is deleting the role of the medical officer by deleting the use of the words ‘medical officer’ and replacing them with the word ‘assessor’. So it would do everybody a favour, particularly the Australian people, if the minister conceded the point and accepted the amendment. (Time expired)

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