Page 1882 - Week 05 - Thursday, 16 May 2019
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MS STEPHEN-SMITH (Kurrajong—Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, Minister for Disability, Minister for Children, Youth and Families, Minister for Employment and Workplace Safety, Minister for Government Services and Procurement, Minister for Urban Renewal) (5.48): I rise to make a very brief contribution in support of this bill. As Minister Steel has previously outlined, this bill introduces disqualifying offences for those seeking working with vulnerable people checks for the purpose of working in an NDIS activity. A person who has committed an offence listed in the bill will be automatically excluded from working or volunteering in this area.
I cannot overstate the importance of a connected approach to quality and safeguarding and the early identification and exclusion of those who pose a risk to vulnerable people. National worker screening, of which the amendments in this bill form part, is an important element of the ACT government’s commitments under the national disability insurance scheme’s quality and safeguarding framework.
Background checking has a preventative effect by deterring individuals who pose a risk of harm from seeking work and preventing them from working in the sector. Our capacity to impose restrictions on people who have demonstrated by their past behaviours that they pose an unacceptable risk to vulnerable people is enhanced by this bill and by the nationally consistent screening and monitoring it contributes to.
National worker screening will also support the disability sector as it continues to respond to rapid growth and demand under the NDIS. As the workforce has grown and changed, it has become increasingly important for employers to ensure that workers have the right attitudes, knowledge and skills to effectively support participants and to prevent and detect abuse and neglect. National checks that are portable across jurisdictions take into account a wider range of information and reduce red tape for employers, supporting the sector to build a skilled and safe workforce and increasing participants’ genuine choice of control.
The transition to the NDIS has brought many changes to the framework that safeguard people with disability. In implementing these changes the ACT government has worked to ensure that the transition to a new national quality and safeguards commissioner for NDIS providers and those involved in the sector has been as smooth as possible.
The ACT government will transfer responsibility for the regulatory oversight of NDIA-registered disability service providers to the National Disability Insurance Quality and Safeguards Commissioner from 1 July this year. These measures, along with other oversight mechanisms in the ACT, such as the ACT Senior Practitioner, for the reduction and elimination of restricted practices, and the Disability and Community Services Commissioner within the ACT Human Rights Commission, aim to support and uphold the rights of people with disability and protect them and prevent them from experiencing harm.
These amendments will strengthen protections for vulnerable people in the ACT and will enhance our capacity to improve restrictions on people who pose an unacceptable
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