Page 258 - Week 01 - Thursday, 15 December 2016

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(3) resolves that the Standing Committee on Health, Ageing and Community Services shall conduct an inquiry into the employment of people with a disability in the ACT, to report back to the Assembly by the end of 2017 with reference to:

(a) the implementation of the ACT Public Service Disability Employment Strategy;

(b) the effectiveness of current attraction and retention programs in the ACT Public Service and private enterprise;

(d) relevant experiences and learnings from Australian State, Commonwealth and international jurisdictions;

(e) the applicability to the ACT Public Service, of recommendations and findings from the report Employing people with disability in the APS published by the University of Canberra; and

(f) any other relevant matter.

Since my election I have been meeting with many community organisations, including those with a focus on disability services and advocacy. They would like us to consider how we can improve the ACT government’s employment of people with a disability. This comes after a similar inquiry was conducted on the employment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the public service.

There is still a significant barrier for those with a disability when accessing the workforce, often based on misconceptions about perceived cost and effort as well as a lack of awareness and confidence regarding how to integrate people with a disability into the workforce. However, studies have shown that there are no differences in performance and productivity from people with a disability. So initiatives such as this will seek to eliminate this stigma and also to create a better and more diverse workforce in the ACT.

The employment rate of people with a disability in the ACT public service was 2.2 per cent as of June 2016. A recent report by the Australian Human Rights Commission found that the ACT was the only jurisdiction with an increase in the employment of people with a disability over the 2013-2015 period, but there is clearly still more work to do to improve diversity in ACT workplaces and in the ACT public service. I was pleased to see the announcement of the ACT government to establish the office for disability and a disability reference group which will provide policy advice on disability issues.

The ACT government recognises that wider representation allows the public service to respond in a much better capacity to the needs of those in the community. Australians with a disability represent a considerable proportion of our community. We must ensure that their representation and engagement with the workforce reflects this, though there may still be things that we can learn from other jurisdictions.

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