YOUNG people who are deemed partially fit to work will be hauled off the disability welfare merry-go-round under the federal government's impending overhaul of the nation's $70 billion welfare system.

Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews has declared the age of entitlement over, promising to rein in young Australians who, under the previous Labor government, were given the full disability support pension despite their condition being relatively minor, occurring periodically, or failing to prevent them from working part-time.

In an exclusive interview with The Daily Telegraph, Mr Andrews also promised to make it harder for young people to be accepted into the DSP, as the government tries to crack down on intergenerational welfare dependency. In the last decade there has been a 22 per cent increase in DSP recipients, with more than 827,000 now claiming the benefit, at a cost of $15 billion, while the number of Australians on Newstart Allowance has grown to 550,000.

media_camera The federal government is planning a $70 billion overhaul of the Australian welfare system.

The government has appointed former Mission Australia boss Patrick McClure to undertake a review of the nation's welfare system and the parameters of his review will centre on the DSP and Newstart, areas of the welfare system where rorting is prevalent.

But Mr Andrews has ruled out following the mammoth task undertaken by the UK government, which asked all citizens receiving its disability pension to reapply to the system under bolstered criteria. He instead will turn his attention on young people, hoping to snatch them out from the cycle of welfare dependency, and put them to work. Even before they have had a chance to put their hand out.

"You could identify some cohorts … and they are obviously going to be younger people that don't have a severe impairment,'' he said.

"It would be fairly selective and it would be a very minor part of the 800,000 that you could potentially say 'well we need to look at them again'. The reality is, the previous government revised the impairment table, which is the criteria whereby people come on to (the DSP). You could at best look at those who might have come on to it very recently and see whether they meet the criteria of the new tables.''

media_camera People on the Disability Support Pension

Young people, according to Mr Andrews, presented the government with the best chance of returning welfare recipients to the workforce.

"But what we are more concentrating on are those who are potentially coming on to the DSP.

"If you can work with people who may p go onto the DSP, that's where your best chance of providing a successful outcome will be.''

While those subscribing to more traditional forms of generational welfare dependency will be examined - those living in low socio-economic clusters - young ethnic groups will also come under the spotlight.