That a National Disability Insurance Scheme is implemented to provide disability services and supports to all people with a disability who need assistance to participate and be included in the community on an equal basis with others. Such a Scheme should establish an entitlement to the funding necessary to achieve this purpose and provide for the person with disability to be the decision-maker about the services and supports they receive.
That Australia establishes a mechanism to assess and properly address the therapeutic and allied health needs of all people with disability that need assistance.
People with disability in Australia are more likely to be unemployed, or underemployed than those without disability. Since 1992, participation rates for people with disability in the workforce have fallen whilst the participation rate for persons without disability have risen.554
People with disability also face difficulties in retaining employment due to the lack of flexibility offered by some employers555 in relation to work times, job conditions and myths and stereotypes associated with their employment.
Furthermore, the employment rate for people with disability in the Australian public sector is also disproportionately low compared to persons without disability.556More recently, the Australian Public Service Commission found that employees with disability were 60 percent more likely than other staff to be retrenched.557
In addition, Australian governments do not require companies and organisations it contracts for the supply of goods and services to have or implement action plans for the employment of people with disability. There is also a lack of research into the reasons for the low engagement rate of people with disability in pre-employment training and ‘on the job’ training programs.558
The employment rate for persons with intellectual disability is substantially less than both people with other disability and persons without disability. This decline flows from the failure of government to provide ongoing and appropriate levels of employment support.
There is a lack of programs that provide ongoing support which aim to increase the self-esteem and confidence of some persons with psychosocial disability.559 Public mental health services are not funded to offer vocational services and often lack up to date knowledge of developments regarding employment for persons with a psychosocial disability.560
People with disability from non-English speaking backgrounds face intersectional discrimination561 based on their disability and ethnicity, which impacts on the low rates of workplace engagement.
People from an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander background with disability continue to face intersectional discrimination, often due to the failure of employment services to acknowledge the cultural and linguistic diversity of service users. Current Transition to Work or Community participation programs have not been redesigned to ensure they meet the needs of people from an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander background in culturally appropriate ways.562
Although transition to Work and Community Participation programs563 assist younger people with disability to develop the skills required to secure paid employment, there is a lack of collaborative pathways to employment across schools and open employment agencies.564
A Complaint Resolution and Referral Service funded by the Commonwealth to deal with consumer complaints against Commonwealth funded services has a restricted scope of services that it can respond to. It is a mechanism within a service quality strategy, and has no explicit legislative basis for its operation and no explicit functions or powers to provide complainants with substantive or injunctive relief if a service provider fails to act upon its recommendations.
Mainstream or Open Employment Support
People with disability are offered little opportunity to lessen their dependence on the Disability Support Pension (DSP). The structure of calculating DSP payments can provide a disincentive for people with disability to seek and retain work. Currently fewer than 10 percent of DSP recipients report earnings from work.565 A loss in DSP income is significant for people who pay for their own equipment and repairs and is a deterrent to accepting work with low to mid-range remuneration.
In March 2010, Australia introduced the DES program, ending the long-standing limitation on the places available in open employment services for people with disability.566 However, the DES program has, to date, resulted in only one in four program participants being placed in a job and in only 14 per cent of participants sustaining employment or training (required to achieve employment) for 13 weeks after placement.567
While the “uncapping” of DES services improved access to individually targeted disability employment programs, the tension that exists between the rights-based Disability Services Act 1986 (Cth) and the punitive aspects of employment participation found in the Social Security Act 1991 (Cth) undermine the effectiveness of the programs and policies assisting people with disability in securing and retaining employment.-
Systemic discrimination associated with negative attitudes and stereotypes held by employers in business, government and many not for profit organisations that people with disability are incapable of working efficiently and effectively, adversely impacts on the likelihood of people with disability gaining employment.568
Employers also hold incorrect assumption of heightened costs incurred by employers and are unaware of government funding to assist employers in this respect.569
Although the relevant government minister has powers under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth) (DDA)570 to develop standards for people with disability that regulate areas including victimisation and harassment at work, no such standards currently exist.
Case Study
Jenny has Aspergers Syndrome. She has worked hard to achieve a leadership role at work, but often experiences discrimination to the extent that one co-worker publicly stated that they should not have to work with a person who has a condition in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).571
Physical inaccessibility and a lack of available transport services, also affect the ability of people with disability to work.
A lack of available support on an as-needs basis and time limits on service provision572 often result in the ongoing needs of people with disability who are employed or seeking work not being met.
Case Study
Within six months Sam, an employee, had used up her entire quota of Australian sign language interpreting. This limits her ability to move through the ranks where more meetings are necessary.573
Segregated Employment
Australia has progressively moved to reform the provision of vocational and employment opportunities for people with disability who work in segregated employment. However, people with disability who work in Australian Disability Enterprises (ADE)574 are still segregated in employment situations that are subject to lower wages and conditions than other people.
Under the Supported Wage Systems, employers can pay people with disability less than the minimum wage, based on productivity levels.575 Wage determination methods used by ADEs are legitimised in registered industrial instruments developed with the assistance of the union movement. They provide a legally acceptable means by which ADEs are able to reduce Award wage rates of pay for people with disability they employ which, in any other circumstance, would constitute a breach of industrial law.576
According to the 2010 Federal Government Discussion Paper canvassing views on the future of ADEs577, the mean weekly wage of supported employees is $88 per week (compared to the average weekly earnings of $376 of Australians generally), rising from a mean wage in 2000 of between $41 and $60 per week.578 Despite this apparent improvement, in 2010, according to the Discussion Paper, 33 per cent of ADE employees still received between $40 and $60 per week and 57 per cent still earn $80 or less per week.
In addition, hours worked by supported employees have declined significantly in the last 10 years. In 2000, 61 per cent of these employees were employed on a full-time basis. In 2010, only 24.7 per cent of ADE supported employees were employed on a full-time basis. The remaining three-quarters are now employed part-time.579
There is also a lack of research and oversight about the wage setting practices of Australian Disability Enterprises.580
Women with Disability
Key issues include low workforce participation, lower remuneration and poorer quality jobs. Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that working-age women with disability who are in the labour force are half as likely to find full-time employment (20 percent) as men with disability (42 percent); twice as likely to be in part-time employment (24 percent) as men with disability (12 percent); and regardless of full-time or part-time status, are likely to be in lower paid jobs than men with disability.581 A 2004 Senate Inquiry into Poverty and Financial Hardship concluded that women with disability are also affected by the lower wages paid to women relative to men and are more likely to be in casual jobs with little job security.582
While the National Disability Strategy recognises that women with disability “face poorer economic outcomes than men with disability”, there are no gender-specific measures identified in the ‘Areas for future action’.
Australia has announced a raft of measures in an attempt to address pay inequities in remuneration, including changes introduced to the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) to include the right to equal pay for work of equal or comparable value.583 Whilst these and other measures are a welcome move for women in general, there is no specific reference to women with disability in the Australia’s planned measures announced in an attempt to address the pay gap.
