The Great Australian Rip-Off

The Disability Royal Commission yesterday heard that South Australian disability support agency Bedford Group, which boasts it is the second largest employer of people living with disability in Australia, pays some of its employees less than $3 per hour.

Advocacy agency JFA Purple Orange say this reveals the fundamental problem with the disability employment industry.

There is no moral or ethical defence for paying such low wage rates, especially given Bedford’s stated vision of an Australia where every person with disability is empowered to achieve their life goals, CEO, Robbi Williams said.

“The disability employment industry, comprising organisations like Bedford and termed Australian Disability Enterprises or ADEs, ultimately do a disservice to their employees.

“ADEs might say they offer tailored work in a welcoming environment that employees enjoy and that it is an alternative to sitting at home and augments the disability pension. The reality is it can trap workers living with disability into lifelong poverty and actively reinforce a segregated charitable view of disability.

“A typical ADE employee will never earn enough to pay for the good things in life, like saving for a place of their own. It is a poverty wage, a rip-off, and assumes workers living with disability aren’t entitled to the same workplace rights as other working Australians.

“Australia has to say enough is enough, and no longer support these outdated practices. Australians living with disability deserve better; they deserve proper award wages, and to be in the same workplaces as other Australians.”

 

Media enquiries

Robbi Williams, CEO, JFA Purple Orange

Phone: 0401 123 426 

Email: robbiw@purpleorange.org.au