Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Fraser for raising this matter. I can certainly assure him that the government would take those observations seriously. The interesting thing about all those statistical readouts, whether in a percentage term or an actual term, is that it also relies on people accurately reporting whether or not they see themselves as having a disability. The changing mix of workforce circumstances could have an impact on that. I do not think there is any reason to dispute the ambition, which the member for Fraser has acknowledged, of the government trying to encourage more people who see themselves with disabilities identifying the need to move away from a welfare circumstance into an employment circumstance. I also agree with the member for Fraser that the public sector has an important role to play in providing an example to the private sector about looking at the entire Australian potential workforce, particularly at a time when we are short on people. There is a lot of talk about skills, but we are short on people.

The member for Fraser also acknowledged Indigenous workforce matters. In a previous portfolio role I looked very closely at the non-English-speaking background make-up of our public sector. I noted—anecdotally, I will submit—that there were fluctuations, ups and downs, in the number of people from an NESB first and second generation in the statistics collected by the Public Service Commission, mainly because a lot of people who might have been a second-generation Australian did not see themselves as being from a non-English-speaking background. I speak of the very large numbers of post-World War II immigrants from southern Europe—Italy, Greece and so forth. They saw themselves as Australian rather than from a particular ethnic background that was supposedly non-Australian, or however you want to describe it—which, of course, is not a reasonable descriptor at all.

It is important that we have positive employment programs that encourage our first Australians, our most recent Australians and indeed those from a disability circumstance to be featured in the public sector. And, of course, we do. We do not have programs that prevent people from being part of the public sector workforce. As I said, I think the public sector has an important role to play in showing the private sector the way forward.

The Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service, Kevin Andrews, the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and, indeed, Dr Sharman Stone, the Minister for Workforce Participation, are both directly charged with encouraging improvements in these circumstances. I can certainly say from the government’s point of view, and as a minister who is looking at initiatives to train up those who have been out of the workforce to re-enter the workforce in either the public or private sector, there are enormous amounts of money deliberately set aside. So I can say to the member for Fraser that there are no impediments to progress. I do not believe there is anything to indicate that there is a will against progress.

I thank the member for Fraser for his contribution in this consideration in detail stage because I do not think it hurts to constantly encourage, as this government has done, each of the secretaries of departments to realise that they have a role to advance the cause of our first Australians—or else their own performance based pay arrangements might be affected—so that we do not see accounting methods for disabled Australians, Indigenous Australians and indeed people from a non-English-speaking background simply as an accounting exercise. There needs to be a positive reason for hiring people, and setting out policies that make it very plain that we want to report progress on that. So, I do not mind the member for Fraser’s challenge. I am sure that Dr Shergold, the Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, will note those comments very closely, and I look forward to improvements in the following years.

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