TONY Abbott will today outline a tough Coalition welfare policy that would cut back the pension for people whose disabilities can be readily treated and suspend the dole for young people in areas where job vacancies have not been filled.
Mr Abbott, declaring that ''sometimes government have to be firm to be fair'', will also propose making work-for-the-dole mandatory for those under 50 receiving unemployment benefits for more than six months.
And he will say that half the welfare income of all the long-term unemployed should be quarantined for purchasing ''the necessities of life''.
''Allowing people to stay on welfare when there is work they can reasonably do is the kindness that kills,'' Mr Abbott will tell the Queensland Chamber of Commerce.
''It's the misguided compassion that eventually breaks down the social fabric, as the more perceptive Aboriginal leaders have long recognised.''
The Opposition Leader's hard line comes as the government is working on welfare changes, expected to be in the budget, to encourage people into work.
Mr Abbott says the reforms he is proposing ''even this government should not shrink from''.
Labor promised to retain work-for-the-dole but allowed it to decay, Mr Abbott says in his speech. Since 2007, participation has fallen 60 per cent to less than 10,000.
''Work-for-the-dole should be the default option for everyone under 50 who has been on unemployment benefits for more than six months,'' Mr Abbott says. ''Reasonably fit working age people should be working, preferably for a wage, but if not, for the dole.''
He points out that disability numbers are set to pass 800,000 this year at an annual cost of $13 billion. This is about 220,000 more working-age people on the disability pension than on unemployment benefits. The dole is $474.90 per fortnight for a single adult with no children, compared with a disability pension of $670.90 for a single person over 21.
Mr Abbott says that with only just over 1 per cent of disability pensioners moving back into the workforce each year and nearly 60 per cent of recipients having potentially treatable mental health or muscular-skeletal conditions, it is time for reform.
''What's needed is a more sophisticated benefit structure that distinguishes between disabilities that are likely to be lasting and those that could be temporary, and that provides
more encouragement for people with some capacity for work.'' Better directing of disability payments could help to part-fund ''much greater assistance to people with very serious disabilities'', as recently proposed by the Productivity Commission.
He says the government in Britain has reformed its disability pension, with more targeted payments for people whose disabilities might not be permanent.
Mr Abbott says suspending the dole for people under 30 in areas where there are unskilled jobs ''is perhaps the strongest signal that government could give that people must take opportunities to work seriously''.
''Why should any reasonably fit person be on unemployment benefits in Karratha, for instance, when employers can't find cleaners to work even at well above award wages?''
The proposal is the stick to match the carrot of a relocation allowance the Coalition offered at the election for young people.
Long a supporter of quarantining part of people's welfare, Mr Abbott says it is a ''justified interference in people's lives because taxpayers have a right to insist that their money is not wasted''.
In the Northern Territory, people on the dole long term have half their money quarantined for spending on necessities. There are also trials of the arrangement in the Kimberley, Cape York and parts of Perth.
Mr Abbott confirms that his election policies for the relocation allowance and a job commitment bonus for young, long-term unemployed people who find and keep a job, remain Coalition policy, as does the parental leave plan ''giving most mothers six months with their babies at full pay''.
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