ACTIV FOUNDATION — LARGE-SCALE INDUSTRIAL WORKSITE
CLOSURES
317. Mr H.T. JONES to the Minister for Disability Services:
Welcome back, minister. I refer to
Activ Foundation's recent decision to close its large-scale sites for
supported employees in Western Australia.
(1) Can the minister advise the house
on what the state government's position is on this decision?
(2) Can the minister outline to the house how this
situation should be resolved in the interests of participants and families who rely on this valuable service,
including what role the commonwealth government should play?
Mr D.T.
PUNCH replied:
(1)–(2) I
thank the member for the question. I would first like to acknowledge the
anguish of supported employees and their families as a result of Activ's
announcement this week to close its large-scale sites in Western Australia. I also acknowledge the member's
personal connection to the program and the upheaval that this has caused
his family, amongst the hundreds of WA families adversely affected by this
decision. It has come as a huge shock to those involved, many of whom have been
supported by Activ for decades. I also point out my disappointment that just
eight weeks' notice has been allowed for those families to absorb and
adapt to this devastating news. Having a job expands social networks, raises
living standards, increases financial independence and promotes a sense of
self-worth and confidence.
But we need to be clear about what
has led to this point, and I must reiterate that the commonwealth has always
had responsibility for supported employment. The state will continue to play
its role and uphold all its obligations to Western Australians with disability,
as we always have, contributing nearly $1 billion annually to the scheme as
detailed in last week's budget. Indeed, what has occurred in the last
18 months is that the commonwealth has transitioned supported employment to the
National Disability Insurance Scheme pricing framework for supports and
employment from the previous federal disability employment assistance program.
I have been working closely with
Activ and the NDIS minister, Minister Reynolds, to try to encourage a positive
outcome for Activ to sustainably transition. Although there was a strong
undertaking from Minister Reynolds to try to resolve the issues, it has clearly
been to no avail. I ask: where is the leadership that Western Australians
expect from the National Disability Insurance Scheme minister, who is a Western
Australian senator, no less? Minister Reynolds' only advice to Activ
was that the NDIS could not hand out grants
to the organisation. Activ is not looking for a handout; it is looking for the
continuation of a funding model that was previously in place with the
commonwealth government and served the disability community well. Activ and
other Australian disability enterprises could at least be assisted to
transition their business models to the new system; in fact, members—this
is the rub—the federal government has been sitting on a $67 million
support package for Australian disability enterprises, such as Activ's supported
employment workshops, designed to help with the transition to new wage
structures following a final decision by the Fair Work Commission. The federal
government has been sitting on that money for months. Not one dollar from this
fund has been allocated to any industrial disability enterprise to date. The
Activ Foundation has repeatedly called on the federal government to allocate
that funding in order to prepare for the transition, again to no avail. The
commonwealth continues to sit on an unspent $67
million transition fund. It is doing nothing with it—nothing. All the
while, organisations such as Activ are now thinking about closing
supported employment services and seeing hundreds of people with disability—our most vulnerable—across
WA without jobs, many of whom have held those jobs for decades.
The McGowan government now calls on
the federal government and Activ to immediately suspend that decision to close the supported employment
workshops. All concerned parties need to keep the participants and their
families in mind—they are central—as they continue to work
through every possible option to keep these workshops functioning. I note that
the federal opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, has this week confirmed that if elected Prime Minister, he
will work to save the Activ workshops from closing, and I urge the Morrison government to make the same
commitment and alleviate the anguish being experienced by the supported
employees and their families.