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Boost national productivity through employment policies that include everyone

Australians with disability are severely underrepresented in the workforce. Barriers to employment persist, and those who are employed face unacceptable levels of discrimination and unfair treatment because of their disability.  

Disability is still not considered within the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) monthly Labour Force Survey that underpins the official unemployment rate. We must therefore rely on data from the Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers (SDAC), conducted every three to four years. According to the 2022 survey, 2.7 million people with disability living in households (i.e. not in closed systems) were of working age. Only 56.1 per cent were employed, compared with 82.3 per cent of people without disability. The unemployment rate for people with disability considered part of the labour force was 7.5 per cent, which is more than twice the rate for people without disability (3.1 per cent).  

For those who are employed, discrimination and unfair treatment are persistent issues. The median gross personal income of a person with disability was $575 per week in 2022, less than half that of a non-disabled person at $1055 per week. In 2022, one in ten people with disability (9.9 per cent) reported experiencing discrimination. A quarter of these people (24.5 per cent) reported their employer as the source of this discrimination. This was the third highest source, following service and hospitality staff and strangers in the street. Of people with disability who experienced discrimination in the labour force, 40.2 per cent reported their employer as the source, while 37.7 per cent attributed this to work colleagues.

Such statistics paint a stark picture about employment outcomes for Australians with disability compared to their non-disabled peers. For those stuck in segregated or exploitative separate systems, the situation is even more bleak. There are two aspects of the so-called Supported Wage System (SWS) that continue to inflict segregation or exploitation on workers with disability: employment in Australian Disability Enterprises (ADEs) and ‘open’ or ‘supported’ employment in mainstream settings.

Both result in workers being paid far below the national minimum wage. According to the Final Report of the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability, there are more than 17,000 people working at about 161 ADEs. Pursuant to the Supported Employment Services Award, a minimum wage rate of $6.03 per hour applies to Grade A workers in ADEs (Clause 15.2), which can be reduced to as little as $3.01 per hour by a productivity assessment (Schedule D.4.1). The second part of the SWS allows ‘mainstream’ employers, often supermarkets, retailers, or fast-food outlets, to exploit workers with disability on wages that are lower than their peers within the same workplace doing the same job.

All forms of segregated and/or exploitative employment relying on separate different systems that only apply to one segment of the Australian population must end. Neither the SWS nor the Supported Employment Services Award have any place in a future where Australia upholds its international obligations and stated commitments under Australia’s Disability Strategy 2021-2031. These produce poor outcomes for people with disability, the workforce, the economy, and the community.

There is a need for urgent steps to co-design a comprehensive, funded transition plan to end the Supported Wage System (SWS) and the Supported Employment Services Award in Australia. This does not mean closing ADEs down overnight; it means establishing a clear pathway to transition ADEs to a new business model that ends segregation and ensures that all Australians are protected by the existing mainstream minimum employment standards that apply to all other workers. The transition should be supported by investments in co-designed programs to address the shortfalls in mainstream employment that exclude workers with disability.  

The ‘Guiding Principles for the future of supported employment’, which resulted from a limited consultation with invited participants at the Supported Employment Roundtable in October 2022, are vague and lack the necessary potency to drive the change that is needed to overcome the disability employment gap in Australia and to uphold the employment rights of people with disability. These should be reviewed and strengthened as part of the transition plan away from supported employment.

In summary, JFA Purple Orange is calling on all political parties and candidates in this election to commit to:

  • Co-designing a national, staged, funded transition plan to bring an end to the segregated employment of people with disability within the term of Australia’s Disability Strategy 2021-31.
  • As part of the transition plan, abolishing the Supported Worker System and the Supported Employment Services Award within five years and reviewing and strengthening the ‘Guiding Principles for the future of supported employment’ through an open consultation process.
  • Investing in employment support models that focus on individualised, tailored planning to increase levels of mainstream employment by people with disability.
  • Establishing national annual targets for the mainstream employment of people with disability, with the ultimate goal of achieving parity with non-disabled people by the completion of Australia’s Disability Strategy in 2031.
  • Improving data collection about the employment outcomes of people with disability, including by funding the ABS to include a disability variable in the monthly Labour Force Survey, among other mainstream surveys, and increase the frequency at which it conducts the Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers.

Key Question

Do you commit to co-designing a national, staged, funded transition plan that would bring an end to segregated employment of people with disability within the term of Australia’s Disability Strategy 2021-31; investing in employment support models that focus on individualised, tailored planning; and improving data collection about employment outcomes for people with disability?