ࡱ> ;=<` 0&bjbj .2  2. . . . . . . . 8h. . . . p. . 5. " r M0U,& &&(. >l , $ . . .  . . .    Mrs Lyn Bewley 20 September 2005 Employment Inquiry Disability Rights Unit Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission GPO Box 5218 Sydney NSW 2001 Dear Sir/Madam, Interim Report: National Inquiry into Employment and Disability I have read with interest your Interim Report of the National Inquiry into Employment and Disability. My interest in your Report and the Interim Recommendations you make is not academic or professional, but personal, as my younger son has a disability and has experienced great difficulty in obtaining employment. My comments are not intended to speak for all people with disabilities, but particularly relate to people with disabilities similar to my sons. By way of background, it may be useful for me to set out in summary the way my sons disability has affected his ability to obtain employment. My son has Aspergers Syndrome. It is a disability falling within the autistic spectrum, and could be classified as a primarily social disability. My son does not have physical disabilities, nor does he have an intellectual disability, having completed Year 12 and obtained a Bachelors Degree in Multimedia. The primary manifestations of his disability are that my son requires clear and explicit instructions, leaving little to intuition or common sense, and is slow at completing tasks. After completing university, my son was unable to obtain employment for over 3 years. He used the services of two job providers who specialized in finding employment for people with disabilities, for eighteen months each. During this period, he had several work trials and placements, and attended many job interviews, but no one was willing to offer him paid employment. The primary reason for this was that he is a slow worker, due to his disability. He has skills, and a high level of education, but he will always be slower than other people without his disability. My son was unable to access traineeships and other forms of training for other jobs, due to his having already completed a university education. Eventually, he found employment at the Christian school where my husband and I both work. This job is an unskilled position which does not use his training or education, but we are grateful that he is gainfully occupied. It is this experience that colours my comments below. Your Interim Recommendations may be well suited to people with physical or intellectual disabilities, but in my view they are not appropriate for people with Aspergers Syndrome. Interim Recommendation 11: Workplace Modifications Scheme I submit that workplace modifications ought to include the cost of non-physical modifications. A worker with Aspergers Syndrome does not require different equipment, but does need his or her co-workers and supervisors to be trained to understand the nature of his or her disability, including the need to be given clear instructions, and not to be given conflicting instructions. There may need to be modifications to workplace procedures to ensure that what is required of a person with this type of disability is explicitly set out. Interim Recommendation 12: Employer tax incentives I would welcome any tax incentives that were available for the employment of people with a disability, particularly incentives that would encourage the employment of people such as my son, who have skills but are less productive than other employees, by reason of their disability affecting their speed of processing, and their frequent need to ask for clarification. I submit that consideration ought to be given to incentives in the nature of payroll tax deductions to the value of a large percentage of the wages of each person with a disability employed. Interim Recommendation 15: Work trials My comment on work trials is that they are only useful for people whose disability does not preclude them from being as productive and effective as workers without disability. In my sons experience, work trials did not lead to offers of permanent employment because, although his employers were happy with the quality of his work, they were unwilling to employ someone who was not as fast as other employees could be. Work trials can only be of advantage to people with a disability such as my sons if coupled with ongoing government wage subsidies or tax incentives for the employment of such people. Interim Recommendation 16: Transition to work schemes In my view, the Disability New Apprentice Wage Support (DNAWS) scheme and other traineeship and apprenticeship schemes should be available also to those who already have qualifications, but because of their disability are unable to obtain employment using their qualifications. Perhaps an appropriate test should be if a person has been unable to obtain employment for which they are qualified for a period of, say, 12 months. You recommend that the public service take the lead in recruiting people with a disability, but in my view this can only assist people like my son if positions are created for which people with a disability do not have to compete on an equal footing with people who do not have a disability. This is because people with Aspergers Syndrome are slow and lack initiative, and will never be as productive as other workers. However, they are keen to work, and are able to produce accurate work of a high quality, given sufficient time. The adoption of an affirmative action policy in the public service for those with disabilities would be one of the necessary methods of creating equity of employment opportunity for such people. Interim Recommendation 17: Government-funded post-placement support In my experience, specialized disability service providers were of no assistance because, although they may understand physical or intellectual disabilities, they did not understand my sons disability, being social. My son had several case workers at both disability service providers, and none had ever met a person with a degree who had a disability and as a result was unable to find employment. In my view, disability placement services cannot be successful while they are limited to apply for jobs on equal opportunity terms. While equal opportunity may be relevant for some people with a disability, for others, their disability is what makes them not equal, and until some form of affirmative action policy is adopted, they will never be able to find employment. Interim Recommendation 18: Other ongoing support services I support the recommendation that people who obtain a job without using government-funded employment services should also be able to access ongoing support services. Interim Recommendation 19: Flexible workplace I fully support the need to develop guidelines to creating a flexible workplace for employees with a disability. In the case of employees with Aspergers Syndrome, the types of flexibility required may include: Modifying the requirements of the position so as not to include certain tasks which the worker with a disability may be unable to perform; or Developing clear written procedures that can be followed, rather than expecting the employee to know when tasks need to be done, and do them of their own initiative. Interim Recommendation 23: Public sector leadership I support an inquiry into why employment levels of people with disability have fallen in the public sector. In my view, it is due to the adoption of policies of equal opportunity rather than affirmative action. It is only when affirmative action policies are adopted for the employment of people with a disability that they will have genuine equity of access to employment. Yours sincerely, Lyn Bewley .aT!*!d! ":"F$z$& ht.5\ht."#6M{) * K L ; < -.a$a$&abcT!)!*!d! " ":"##E$F$z$ & Fz$%%&&&&&&,1h/ =!"#$% @@@ NormalCJ_HaJmH sH tH :@: Heading 1$@&5\DAD Default Paragraph FontViV  Table Normal :V 44 la (k(No List 2"#6M{)*KL;<  - . a bcT!)*d  :EFz@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0y00y00y00y00y00y00y00y00y00@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@ 0@ 0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0@0&az$&&3&x 4&  #5&T 6&  i*urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttagsStreet/http://www.5iantlavalampft-com:office:smarttagsk*urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttagsaddress0http://www.5iamas-microsoft-com:office:smarttagsV*urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttagsplacehttp://www.5iantlavalamp.com/h*urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttagsCity0http://www.5iamas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags 8{Wa  BL ! !bqq^rrt-Wh ^`OJQJo(h ^`OJQJo(oh pp^p`OJQJo(h @ @ ^@ `OJQJo(h ^`OJQJo(oh ^`OJQJo(h ^`OJQJo(h ^`OJQJo(oh PP^P`OJQJo(t-         |L<t.@p@UnknownG: Times New Roman5Symbol3& : Arial?5 z Courier New;Wingdings"qhcfcf@}6}6!4d2QHX(?|L2Mrs Lyn BewleyKatrine Del VillarVanessa Lesnie Oh+'0  $0 P \ h tMrs Lyn BewleyKatrine Del Villar Normal.dotVanessa Lesnie3Microsoft Office Word@F#@8v@@}՜.+,0 hp|  6 Mrs Lyn Bewley Title  !"#$%'()*+,-/0123458Root Entry Fy:1Table6WordDocument.2SummaryInformation(&DocumentSummaryInformation8.CompObjq  FMicrosoft Office Word Document MSWordDocWord.Document.89qRoot Entry Fp7?1Table6WordDocument.2SummaryInformation(&  !"#$%'()*+,->DocumentSummaryInformation8pCompObjq  FMicrosoft Office Word Document MSWordDocWord.Document.89q՜.+,D՜.+,< hp|  6 Mrs Lyn Bewley Title4 $,