• It is estimated that 62,400 Australians are eligible to receive the Disability Support Pension (Blind) or Age Pension (Blind), that is, they are legally blind
• Between 198,600 – 269,500 people have a vision impairment that is not so severe that they qualify for a blindness specific payment. However, some of these people may qualify for the general DSP on the basis of their vision impairment.

• The DSP (Blind) is exempt from the income and asset tests that are applied to all other disability support payments. That means that a person who is blind is entitled to receive the pension no matter what other income or assets they have. On the other hand, a person who is on the general DSP, for example a person with a physical disability, will start to lose their pension once they earn more than a certain amount per fortnight, or if they acquire significant assets.
• The Age Pension (Blind) differs from the DSP (Blind) because it is counted as taxable income.
• People who are blind may also qualify for additional allowances and concessions from Centrelink and local, state and federal governments. For example, the Mobility Allowance, the taxi subsidy scheme or a concession on local council rates.

1. An income support payment, and
2. A disability allowance

People whose principle income is the DSP (Blind) or Age Pension (Blind) do not receive any additional financial assistance to meet their non-optional costs of blindness. This is illustrated in the following fictional examples.

Jo works full time and is paid $1000 per fortnight. Because Jo receives the DSP (Blind) her pension is not affected by her earnings. Jo uses the pension to pay for some of the extra costs she has because she is blind, including taxis, paying for someone to accompany her on outings and the cost of upgrading Zoomtext.

Tom receives the Age Pension (Blind). He doesn’t have a paid job or any other income like superannuation or shares. Tom relies on the pension to meet his everyday costs of living, and he finds this doesn’t leave him much for his additional blindness related expenses. Tom cannot afford to purchase adaptive equipment like a talking microwave and he does not go out as often as he would like because he can’t afford a taxi.

1. An indexed disability allowance that is free of means test and non- taxable should be paid to all people who are blind, regardless of their age. The allowance should be set at the current level of the Disability Support Pension. The payment would assist people who are blind to meet their additional, non-optional expenses related to their blindness.
2. People should be eligible to receive an income support payment, for example, Newstart, the Age Pension or Parenting Payment, in addition to their disability allowance, if they meet the income, asset and activity tests relevant to that payment. The payment should be means-tested and taxable.

Several years ago, the Board of Blind Citizens Australia decided to undertake a national research project looking at the non-optional costs of blindness. The research aimed to identify the direct, indirect and opportunity costs of blindness. The research commenced last year and involved three stages: focus group discussions, indepth interviews and diary keeping.

In the first stage, six focus groups were held across Australia. The groups were organised to test if different demographic factors had an impact on the level of non-optional costs people who are blind have, for example geographical location, age, eye condition and employment status.

In the second stage, indepth interviews were held with people who were carefully chosen because they had a range of experiences and lifestyles. The interviews covered: education, employment, job seeking, the impact of degenerative eye conditions, housing, mobility, domestic life, children, personal care, communication, shopping, banking/financial and leisure and social life. Participants were asked to identify their met and unmet need, the barriers to their obtaining their needs, their priority areas for a cost of disability allowance and their preferred method for receiving an allowance.

In stage three, people were asked to complete diaries of their daily blindness related expenditure for two weeks. The diaries asked people to record their met and unmet need, and the cost of time. As well as recording daily expenses, people were asked to record less frequently occurring expenditure and unmet need.

When people were asked to identify which of their cost areas were most affected by their blindness and which they would most like to be paid an allowance for, they overwhelmingly answered transport and adaptive equipment.

Other significant costs that were identified were the cost of accessible housing, the cost of informal support and the cost of lost employment.

In all of these areas, people identified a high level of met need (that is, money they had spent) and unmet need (that is, items or services they could not afford).

The DSP (Blind) and Age Pension (Blind) are paid fortnightly, but many of the blindness related costs that people identified were not fortnightly expenses.

For example, people pay for travelling and shopping on a weekly basis. Fortnightly, they pay for home cleaning and gardening. On a monthly basis they pay for their telephone and mobile phone. Quarterly they pay medical expenses. Annually, they pay for the repair and maintenance of their homes and for adaptive equipment.

The research also found that some people find it hard to save money to purchase expensive equipment and other large cost items.

1. Imagine that the Government has introduced a cost of disability allowance of $10,000, which you receive in addition to any wages, income support payments or other income you have. You have been asked how you would prefer to be paid the allowance, for example, a lump sum, a fortnightly payment, or another way. What would you answer?
2. Do you think your answer would change if you were at a different stage of your life?
3. If you answered that you would like to receive a fortnightly payment, do you think you would have any trouble saving for more expensive items? If yes, how might this be overcome?
4. If you answered that you would like to receive a lump sum payment, do you think you would have any trouble meeting your fortnightly costs? If yes, how might this be overcome?

The research found that people who had high levels of participation in the community had more non-optional costs. This included people who undertook paid or voluntary work and people who were raising children.

Other research has found that the level of income people have will tend to predict the level of non-optional costs they have. It is not surprising that people who receive additional income (including wages or Centrelink allowances) spend more on their blindness related costs.

Our research also found that those people who did not have additional sources of income identified high levels of unmet costs of blindness.

One possible way to assist people to meet their additional costs of blindness is to develop supplementary payments, for example, a job seeking supplement, an employment supplement, a volunteer work supplement, or a child rearing supplement. Alternatively, everyone could be paid the same allowance, which would give everyone the same opportunity to maximise their participation.

1. What effect do you think studying, working or looking for work has on the costs of blindness?
2. What effect do you think caring for family members has on the costs of blindness?
3. What is the fairest way to reimburse people for these types of additional costs?
4. Do you think that everyone should receive the same amount of cost of disability allowance?
5. At what rate should a cost of disability allowance be paid to people who are blind or vision impaired?

1. Thinking about your answers to all of the questions above, can you describe what you think a fair cost of disability allowance system would be?