Disability Statistics Flawed to the Max

Do not trust any "FACTS" the Government quotes.

The Government quotes wonderful statistics regarding DSP. Have you ever wondered how accurate they are? For instance, figures released by the ABS, provided by Centrelink show that only 6 people with CFS were granted DSP in the last year. Thus with one small coding error, a severe chronic disease affecting around 1% of the population has magically disappeared. I asked two fellow assessors, and each one of us has approved DSP for over 6 CFS sufferers in this time period.

A friend of mine from the OzME mailing list approached her local member Anna Burke with concerns about these figures.


While I cant post the letter here, I can assure you that Ms Burke seems to share my opinion that something is dreadfully wrong with the statistics provided by Centrelink.

So whenever the Government quotes figures related to disability, you'd better go to the source and check them. As Peter Costello said on Budget night "I can't believe 6.5% of the workforce have a disability". If he can't believe his own figures, how can we?