Page 4368 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 22 September 2010
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People with disabilities suffer high rates of unemployment and poverty. Practices which encourage sustainable employment for them bring benefits not only to their income status but also to their social inclusion. But separate to the obvious benefits that employment brings to a person with disability, employers also stand to reap rewards when they engage staff with disabilities. For example, evidence shows that, in contrast to the perceptions many employers hold, employees with disabilities have high level skill sets with levels of productivity that are equal to or better than those of their non-disabled counterparts.
They have better attendance records, are less likely to have accidents or make compensation claims and are more likely to stay in the same workplace for longer periods of time. Engaging employees with disabilities can also lead to better workplace morale and team development and enhanced corporate reputation and public image.
Looking at the ACT public service workforce profile, which is released annually by the ACT Commissioner for Public Administration, it is disappointing to see that only a small number of people with disabilities continue to be employed within the ACT public service.
Madam Assistant Speaker, I seek leave of the Assembly to table figures which outline the number of people with declared disabilities that are employed in the ACT public service.
Leave granted.
MS BRESNAN: I table the following paper:
ACT Public Service—Employment levels of people with disabilities—1997 to 2009.
The figures which have just been circulated are the earliest figures my office was able to source for the number of people employed from 1997, when the first ACT public service workforce profile was issued. At that time, the ACT employed 329 people that declared their disabilities. This represented 2.26 per cent of the ACT public service. Since then, that figure of 2.26 per cent has fallen consistently and now sits at around 1.5 per cent. This is surprising as it is in strong contrast with reports that 17 per cent of the general labour pool has disabilities.
The fall in numbers mirrors experiences in the commonwealth public service, where employment rates fell from 6.6 per cent in 1986 to 3.1 per cent by 2007-08 across all job classifications. For some reason which we have not been able to uncover, the employment of people with disabilities in the ACT public service has always been at a much lower rate than the commonwealth.
I do appreciate there have been some small and specific efforts in the last year or so through the ACT public service to employ people with disabilities, including the introduction of a disability toolkit for managers. But I am concerned that recent
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