Disability Employment

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT (15:50): Today, I would like to speak about broad issues related to the employment of people with disabilities, particularly those with intellectual disabilities. I was very disappointed, as I am sure other members of this chamber were, to learn, through the Auditor-General's recent report, of the underpayment of several employees who were employed at what was the Strathmont Centre laundry. It is without a doubt outrageous that this underpayment had occurred and that apparently it had happened for some time without the opportunity for these workers to be represented by a union or other people defending their rights to an adequate wage. However, it is unfortunately just one example of the systemic disadvantage that many people, particularly those with intellectual disabilities, face when it comes to the Australian workforce.

Almost half of people with disabilities in this country live at or below the poverty line and undergo unfair wage assessment, which sees many of them being paid less than the minimum wage, something that would be considered immoral and illegal for any other worker without disability, and this often occurs in a misguided attempt to preserve their entitlement to commonwealth benefits such as the disability support pension or health care card. This occurs in what are known as sheltered workshops or Australian disability enterprises, which are, in my view, a relic of a bygone era and an unsatisfactory answer to an outdated question.

To keep people in sheltered workshops or Australian disability enterprises on the basis of their disability is like saying that the way we should solve racism in the workplace is to make sure that all people who are non-Caucasian work in a separate factory to those us who are, or the way we solve the issue of unequal pay for women is to again have them work in separate workplaces where they are assessed differently and paid different wages. We would not tolerate these solutions to these problems, so why should we continue to tolerate them for the issue of payment of people with disabilities?

Another example is like observing that many people in the workforce who are left-handed have trouble operating the tools used by those of us who are right-handed. Therefore, do we put them away in a separate workshop where they can use tools specifically for their left-handedness, where they can work at their own pace, or where they can be paid and wage-based just on their productivity because of the fact that they are left-handed? We would not tolerate this. Why then are we still tolerating the underpayment and immoral low wages for people with an intellectual disability based on the fact that they may produce fewer products than those of us who are not intellectually disabled?

I do not get paid less on the days I am less productive, and I do not get paid less for having social interaction as part of my work. Why then should these workers be expected to tolerate this? I also refute the argument that these sheltered workshops provide parents of people with intellectual disability a much needed break from their parenting duties and also give the person the ability to socialise with others outside their family home. It is my view that, if this is what a person needs and they need support to socialise, they should be funded to have that support, as well as be given the opportunity to be given fulfilling and fairly-paid work.

If the aim of work is not to earn a living wage and the dignity that comes with that, then it is not really work at all. It is ridiculous that, in a wealthy country like Australia, we continue to find excuses to underpay workers just to make ourselves feel better about providing people with disabilities socialisation and other opportunities. As I said earlier, none of us are paid less on the basis that we enjoy our work and make friends through doing so, so we need to make sure the funding is available for people with disabilities both to be supported to have social opportunities if that is what they need and to earn a living, adequate, dignified wage.

This argument is not just about the dignity of work: it is an argument that is fundamentally about the dignity of a human life and about whether the opportunities offered to that life should be less just because of the way that person was born. I understand that changes are coming under the National Disability Insurance Scheme, and that makes it even more important that we as a parliament and as a country work together to ensure the dignity of work and the dignity of a fulfilling life for all Australians.