Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Some of the people I met there have been going to this place for decades. Their very elderly parents were with them, and these parents were pleading with me, saying, 'Please don’t let the changes that are muted mean that this won't happen any more.' Sometimes their children were in their 20s and 30s and even older, but the benefits they get—I know, as a compassionate person, you understand this, Mr Deputy Speaker—are not financial rewards but all the intangibles.

Due to legal proceedings concerning the Business Services Wage Assessment Tool, which may take some time to resolve, the government has rightly decided to establish a payment system to give reassurance to supported employees, their families and carers to remove perceived liability that could impact the ability of Australian Disability Enterprises to deliver ongoing employment support. The payment scheme provided by this bill will allow registration from July for payments to former and current employees in relation to work they have performed in the past. The payment scheme will deliver payments to eligible workers as quickly as possible. If a person is eligible, the payment will be calculated based on half the amount the worker would have been paid, had the productivity element only of the Business Services Wage Assessment Tool been applied.

If the payment amount works out to be greater than zero, the eligible applicant will receive a letter setting out an offer to pay that amount and the time in which the applicant may accept the offer. During the acceptance period, the applicant must seek independent financial counselling and legal advice, because we want everyone to go into this informed and aware. Access to a legal adviser and a financial counsellor is funded through the scheme, and certificates from the financial counsellor and the legal adviser must accompany the applicant's acceptance of the offer. Again, as you can see, Mr Deputy Speaker, we are doing everything we can to ensure that people go into this very informed and comfortable with what is going on.

Payment will be made once valid acceptance has been lodged by an eligible applicant. To ensure people with a disability have the opportunity to provide further information or raise any concerns, the scheme will have both internal and external review processes. It is the applicant's choice—again, very important—whether he or she receives a payment from the payment scheme. If the applicant accepts an offer, he or she will cease to be a group member of the representative proceedings and will be unable to make any further claims in relation to the assessment of wages under the tool. In the longer term, a new wage assessment process will be developed for use in Australian disability enterprises. This will obviously be ongoing over the next little while. It is also something that is going to have to be done very carefully, because this is one of those situations where we do not want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. This is a very important sector of our community for people with a disability and we must make sure that it survives. However, the government's immediate priority is to ensure minimal disruption to the employment of supported employees. The payment scheme established by this bill demonstrates our ongoing commitment to improving certainty for those involved.

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