Needs and options for improved access to information and advice on accommodating disability in employment

A roundtable discussion hosted by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission

Sydney 14 December 2004 11-3pm

Places are strictly limited and by invitation only: expressions of interest please to disabdis@humanrights.gov.au including notice of requirements for interpreting or other specific requirements.

Background

The Disability Discrimination Act was initially conceived as part of a strategy to improve employment opportunities for people with disabilities (and to reduce rates of dependence on social security).

The first proposal for federal legislation on disability discrimination was in fact put forward only as employment discrimination legislation.

National legislation on disability discrimination in employment was one of the major recommendations of the Labour and Disability Workforce Consultancy report, also known as the "Ronalds Report", among a number of other reports leading to the legislation. The DDA was put forward not as an end in itself but as part of a package to achieve greater participation and opportunity for people with disabilities and to ensure that Australian society benefited from people with disabilities being better able to contribute their skills and abilities to their full potential.

In over a decade of the operation of the DDA we have seen significant gains in some areas, including access to public transport, communication and information, and education. But although several thousand complaints of employment discrimination have been dealt with there is no real evidence of overall progress towards equal opportunity or participation in employment overall.

Rates of unemployment and underemployment among people with disabilities remain much higher than for people without a disability, and rates of participation in the labor market remain substantially lower.

A critical gap in the machinery for achieving the objects of the legislation appears to be the lack of any coordinated mechanism for ensuring that employers, service providers and others with responsibilities under the legislation have ready access to information on solutions to access and inclusion issues and on available resources.

In the USA such a mechanism - the Job Accommodation Network (JAN) - accompanied the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Employers frequently cite a reason for not employing people with a disability as ' it is too hard'. To facilitate ease of access for people with a disability we must make it easier for employers and a tool such as JAN could make a significant contribution to achieving this .

This roundtable is intended to involve participants from government, employer representative bodies, disability employment and service agencies, and other interested and expert organisations, in discussions of possibilities for establishing a similar mechanism in Australia .

Agenda:

Commencement: 11 am

Welcome: HREOC

Broad context: Employers Making a Difference

Presentation on the US Job Accommodation Network: Griffith University

Presentation on the current situation in Australia : Office of Disability

Lunch and informal discussion

Close: 3pm

Venue: HREOC offices, 133 Castlereagh Street Sydney