Page 6081 - Week 18 - Thursday, 12 December 1991
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There are a number of issues of contention, however, which I think we should not fail to refer to in this debate. It is the case, for example, that certain trends have been emerging and are expected to be continued in the funding of certain disability services nationally. One trend is very much in the direction of moving away from sheltered workshops and moving instead towards the provision of integrated workplaces where disabled people are able to work, as much as possible, side by side with fully skilled workers. That, I have to say, is a very good trend. I would not argue for one moment that it should not happen, and that it should not happen at as rapid a pace as is possible. Of course, funding has been structured in such a way that this will happen and presumably, when funding for these services is transferred to States and Territories, that trend will continue.
But there is a problem with the question of what level of sheltered workshops ought to remain after the process has completed its course and there is, at the end of the day, a set of integrated workplaces around the country. What level of sheltered workshops ought to remain, and what number ought to remain? The ACT has, at least in the past, had such workshops and it may be the case that there are still some in existence. I am not sure. But we need to ask ourselves whether it is appropriate for that process to go all the way, or whether it should stop short and leave some people who are still in the latter form of employment.
I think the answer must be yes. There must be some for whom integration is not appropriate. There are concerns, very definitely concerns, at the Federal level at least, that this process will not permit those people to retain the kind of employment status which is most appropriate for them. I am aware that there is in the Federal Parliament a private members' Bill which is designed to deal with this very problem and provide for there to be a residue of protected employment, if I might use that expression, across the country. That, of course, brings forward for the ACT Government the question as to whether it will provide for such arrangements in the ACT.
Although the Commonwealth, I understand, is devolving responsibility into the hands of the States and Territories to look after these matters, it is also, of course, keeping some control over the purse strings and is directly funding these sorts of activities on the basis that certain things are happening in the States and Territories. One would assume that the conditions that are laid down there do require a certain level of integration in the work force.
The Federal Minister for Health, Housing and Community Services, Mr Howe, has made it clear that, irrespective of the success or achievement of those sorts of workshops, they must, as he has put it, re-profile if government funding is to be continued after 30 June next year. It is a very short period of time in which to be re-profiling, as
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