Page 4367 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 22 September 2010

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(b) the ACT Public Service Employment Framework for People with a Disability published in 2004; and

(c) people who self identify as having disabilities continue to make up around 1.5% of the ACT Public Service, although people with disabilities make up approximately 17% of the ACT population; and

(2) calls on the ACT Government to:

(a) develop a new ACT Public Service Employment Framework for People with Disabilities which:

(i) includes people with episodic disabilities, such as chronic illness and mental illness;

(ii) specifies targets and deadlines to work towards to achieve an increase in the percentage of the ACT Public Service workforce who have disabilities, and an internal accountability mechanism for a failure to meet those targets;

(iii) provides for flexibility in work practices that will allow the greatest productivity of all members of the workforce; and

(iv) includes a commitment to the collection and analysis of gender disaggregated data;

(b) consult with people with disabilities, and different types of disabilities, when developing the framework; and

Over the last 20 to 30 years our understanding of what is disability and how we should respond to it has changed. For many years the word “disability” was used to define those people who were suffering a significant and visible physical or intellectual impairment. Society believed that it was the person with the impairment that had the problem. The responsibility for solutions was placed on the person with the impairment and their family and friends.

But with the rise of human rights, the understanding of disability has changed. Disability is now understood to be a reflection of the barriers that society puts up, which exclude and disadvantage people with impairments. We as a society, therefore, have a role to play in minimising disability and breaking down those barriers.

In terms of employment, our very own public service could do better in removing those obstacles that prevent it from employing a higher percentage of people with disabilities. If we as a jurisdiction are to embrace human rights, we must embrace it within our own workforce. So it is for this reason that I am moving this motion which calls on the ACT government to renew and reinvigorate its ACT public service employment framework for people with a disability.

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