Page 4369 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 22 September 2010
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efforts have not gone far enough, and we need something much broader which includes encouragement of cultural change.
If we are to see dramatic improvement in these rates of employment, there are several challenges to overcome. The first, of course, is to see a greater commitment from the government to employing people with disabilities but, secondly, and perhaps more importantly, we want to see the ACT public service encourage an environment in which people can more comfortably declare their disabilities and thus receive the assistance in the workplace that they find it difficult to ask for.
It seems likely that the ACT public service has a high level of hidden disability that is not being reported, and that in itself is a problem. Some staff may be operating with a sense of fear that their impairment will be discovered, and employers may be finding it difficult to identify where barriers exist.
In the commonwealth public service, discrepancies have been found between those statistics provided through its employment database and those provided through anonymous surveys. Rates of reported disabilities are always much higher in the surveys and reflect the apprehension that people with disabilities feel towards disclosing their disabilities because of any negative workplace attitudes they may encounter.
The motion I am moving today seeks to note the report entitled Making diversity work: a study of the employment of people with disabilities in the ACT public service. This report was released in June 2009 by People with Disabilities ACT, also known as PWD. PWD wrote this report because it was receiving anecdotal information that a number of people with disabilities were having inadequate employment experiences in the ACT public service. PWD conducted a number of interviews with employees and found that, while some staff had positive experiences, many also experienced an erosion of self-esteem. The people interviewed did not feel valued in the workplace and sensed alienation from colleagues.
These reports are saddening to hear, given the vulnerability of people with disabilities and the manner in which we pride ourselves on our high standards. No employee, let alone someone with disability, should come away from the ACT public service with such negative and somewhat destructive emotional experiences.
PWD were also driven to write their report because the Australian government ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Article 27 of that document states that people with disabilities have the right to have access to employment conditions on an equitable basis with their non-disabled peers. This convention does not set out any new human rights for people with disabilities but is a template for implementation of existing rights which have been consistently denied.
People with disabilities in Australia are impatient for changes, especially in regard to employment, and they see this convention as a powerful instrument which sits beside discrimination legislation and will empower them to take actions to improve their situation.
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