Brassaud and Secretary, Department of Social Services (Social services second review)

This matter concerned an appeal by Mr Brassaud against the cancellation of his disability support pension by the Secretary of the Department of Social Services. The central dispute revolved around whether Mr Brassaud's impairments met the threshold required for the pension under the relevant legislation. The decision was made by Dr L Bygrave, a Member of the Tribunal.

The legal issues before the Tribunal were whether Mr Brassaud's impairments, when assessed against the Impairment Tables, resulted in a rating of 20 points or more, and whether he had a continuing inability to work as defined by the Social Security Act 1991. Specifically, the Tribunal had to determine the point allocation for Mr Brassaud's skin condition, depression and bipolar disorder, and chronic right knee pain, and then assess if these impairments, in combination, prevented him from undertaking any work independently of a program of support within the next two years.

The Tribunal found that Mr Brassaud's lower limb condition was fully diagnosed, treated, and stabilised at the time of cancellation, assigning it 5 points under Table 3. While the skin condition was awarded 20 points under Table 14 and his mental health conditions were awarded 10 points under Table 5, the Tribunal noted significant issues with the Job Capacity Assessment Report. These included the assessment being conducted five months before the report was submitted, failing to account for a subsequent knee arthroscopy, and not meeting the "fully diagnosed, treated and stabilised" criteria for his mental health condition due to an inability to contact his treating doctor. Despite these issues with the JCA, the Tribunal concluded that Mr Brassaud had a total of 35 points under the Impairment Tables, thereby meeting the requirement of s 94(1)(b). The Tribunal also found that Mr Brassaud had a continuing inability to work as defined in s 94(2) of the Act.

The Tribunal set aside the decision to cancel Mr Brassaud's disability support pension and substituted a decision that he continued to qualify for the pension.