I was talking to a guy yesterday with PTSD and OCD. The new changes to the DSP which went through the parliament on Tuesday means that anyone on the DSP cant be overseas by no more than 28 days a year.
If they stay longer than that they lose their DSP and have to reapply and are then assessed under the new impairment tables which are much harder.
Before the changes you could be O/S for 6 weeks, come back to Australia for a day and go away for another 6 weeks rolling on.
I thought the 28 days was pretty fair until this guy told me he had a long time boyfriend partner in Thailand, where his psych was too and he lived permanently. Some of these people would have got the DSP for MI issues.Now he can only visit there for a max of 28 days.
Apparently there are quite a few people who have long term partners they met O/S and moved to those countries to be with them.
Some O/S partners wont get a visa to move to Australia so some relationships will be broken.
I am not for one moment condoning Australians swanning around overseas in exotic locations on taxpayer monies ( and that should be stopped) but many DSP recipients only move to less expensive countries just to survive on that payment.
They also got into these arrangements under the rules that applied then.
I guess it will have a big effect on anyones mental health in these circumstances.
Anyway I am just mentioning it if anyone is interested.
Emergency, police & ambulance (24 Hrs)
Connect with a lifeline crisis supporter (24 Hrs)
Suicide callback service (24 Hrs)
Kids helpline (24 Hrs)
13 YARN