A man with severely impaired vision has won a two-year fight to get on the disability support pension, after Centrelink decided he was fit for work in 2017 and placed him on Newstart.
Adel al-Shuraifi’s disability pension application was denied twice by Centrelink, but the Administrative Appeals Tribunal later found him to be automatically eligible for the pension as he is permanently blind.
The agency chose to appeal this decision, and hearings were held in Brisbane to decide if Al-Shuraifi’s impairment was severe enough for him to receive the pension.
Al-Shuraifi was one of record-high 280,000 sick and disabled people on Newstart with a “partial capacity to work”.
It was this week decided by the tribunal that al-Shuraifi could be granted the pension.