Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to briefly speak about the disability workforce and their contribution during the pandemic. I acknowledge that Australians with disability, their carers and loved ones, and the service providers who have worked so hard, have all contributed to keeping people with disability safe. But today I want to pay particular tribute to the disability workforce itself.

The disability workforce work in people's homes, they work in employment programs, they work in the community and disability enterprises, and they work hands-on—very close. They work with Australians with complex needs: they feed, they shower, they toilet, they put to bed and they get up and dress every morning Australians with disability. They are front and centre in the lives of people with disability. In many ways they are a second pair of limbs or eyes and ears—literally. They find it hard to follow the protocols which the rest of us have the opportunity to practice because the people they care for can't practice the safety protocols.

But, regardless of the crisis, Australia's disability workforce have turned up every day. They are skilled and they are excellent. They number about 100,000. They are low paid, but they've been at the back of the health queue for PPE and the like. They have not received a retention bonus; they're casual, they're contract, they're part-time, and they've been unemployed through the day program closures. JobKeeper hasn't covered all of them, but today, at the very least, we can salute the contribution of our disability workforce.