Page 6082 - Week 18 - Thursday, 12 December 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
he puts it. The Government insists that people with disabilities must be integrated into the open workplace regardless of whether they actually want to or not.
In a recession, clearly, we need to be able to ensure that people have the best possible opportunities; that facilities are best structured to provide for the maximum chance, the maximum opportunity, for them to find the appropriate level and place in which they might constructively be employed. We know that in the ACT there have been considerable difficulties in finding arrangements that will allow for all people to find that level of employment.
I know, for example, that Chartwell Crafts at Woden has had considerable difficulty in obtaining resources to provide employment for about a dozen mildly handicapped young people who otherwise would be sitting in their living rooms watching television all day long, having nowhere to be constructively employed. They are not employed in a sheltered workshop, let me hasten to say; they are employed in what is essentially a workplace which does provide for their needs particularly but which operates as much as possible along the lines of a business which is capable, potentially, of being able to sustain itself and provide those young people with a real standard of living.
As to whether that kind of enterprise would be classified as a sheltered workshop, I am just not sure. I am not sure to what extent the Federal Government's guidelines, in terms of its requirements with respect to funding, will prevent enterprises such as Chartwell Crafts from continuing to operate. I hope that the Minister, when he speaks on this matter, will give us some assurance.
It is quite clear that parents of disabled children are worried about what will happen to their children after June of next year. I think that they need to have it spelt out pretty clearly whether they can expect to receive continued funding for sheltered workshops. Already some, not necessarily in the ACT but in other places, have been forced to close down because of that lack of government assistance and commitment. If the private members' Bill to which I referred at the Federal level is successful, we would hope that that would not be a threat we have to experience. Of course, being a non-government members' Bill, we can expect it to face at least the potential to be rejected. I think that therefore we need to be aware, in the ACT, of what plans, what vision, our Government has for dealing with such matters.
In particular, it would be nice to know whether the ACT Minister will take the case for such enterprises in the ACT to the Federal Government and argue, as best he can, for the retention of those facilities where they are deemed to be important to retain. I know that he has had, it seems to me, some glimmer of success in his argument with the
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .