Powerd NewsWrap 6th August 2025

Vision Australia ID 0:00

Welcome to a Vision Australia radio podcast. Love our podcasts. Why not listen to us live, tune in anywhere, anytime, ask your smart device to play Vision Australia radio or visit va radio.org on

Speaker 1 0:22

the Vision Australia and reading radio networks. This is the Powerd news rep,

Sam Rickard 0:27

G'day. I'm Sam Ricard. It's the sixth of August, 2025 we're presenting articles from the powered dot media website, and joining me, as usual, is the right of these articles. Emma Myers, G'day, Emma, can you believe it's August already?

Emma Myers 0:41

No, I really can't. Sam, it's flying by this year.

Sam Rickard 0:46

And, yeah, we're hurtling towards 2026 now, and that's just the way it goes. What's been catching your attention this week?

Emma Myers 0:54

So the Fair Work Ombudsman has launched an inquiry into the disability sector's compliance with workplace laws, which means they're going to hopefully clean up any dodgy business.

Sam Rickard 1:10

And we're not really talking about sheltered workshops this time around. We're talking actually about support workers, aren't we? Yeah,

Emma Myers 1:16

we're talking about support workers, support services and just the challenges that they face, such as a strong demand for their services, relying heavily on migrant workers who are susceptible to being paid less than they should be, and just financial viability of workplaces.

Sam Rickard 1:43

You've got three different but related sectors that seem to be having a similar problem, and we're talking disability Aged Care and Early Childhood as well, which they sort of see the headlines and you think it all looks very similar. You're finding it difficult to find good workers, you're finding it difficult to pay them decently, and some people will screw the system,

Emma Myers 2:06

yeah, if it gets there in the system, there were people who were going to take advantage of it, definitely.

Sam Rickard 2:13

All right. So without further ado, we will head over to the newsroom. Our guest news reader for the week is Michael Thomas,

Speaker 1 2:21

thank you, Sam, the disability support services sector is under intense scrutiny following the Fair Work Ombudsman or fwo decision to launch an inquiry into the sector's compliance with workplace laws. The disability support services sector builds independent skills and provides care, emotional support, physical assistance and supervision for people with disability in homes, community and residential settings. Over the last four years, however, the fwo has handled more than 75,000 non compliance inquiries, as well as receiving over 2500 anonymous complaints. Compliance challenges can include a range of factors such as a strong demand for their services, heavy reliance on migrant workers, high levels of casualisation, and concerns about profitability and financial viability. According to fwo, a statement on the Fw website claim their primary objective within the inquiry's first phase is to identify drivers of non compliance, which is proposed to take 18 months. Spokesperson for the Fair Work Ombudsman, Anna booth, says the inquiry will assess what and who the key influences are in contributing to workplace relations breaches in the sector. Once we have identified the root causes of non compliance in the sector, we can work with key industry partners and government stakeholders in taking action to effectively secure an improved, sustainable culture of compliance with Fair Work laws. Says ms booth, Australian Services Union spokesman Angus MacFarlane responded positively to the announcement. The Australian Services Union, as Australia's largest union for workers in the NDIS, welcomes this historic Fair Work Ombudsman inquiry and the resources being deployed to investigate exploitation in the disability sector. Mr. McFarland argues that the disability community deserves to know their NDIS package is being appropriately spent and that their support workers are paid properly for the work they do. We need to build a strong and sustainable NDIS where support workers are valued, trained and well remunerated. This inquiry will assist in helping the NDIS reach its potential and promise to the broader community. Spokesperson for the Fair Work Ombudsman, Anna booth, stressed that change won't happen overnight. What we're looking to achieve. Ultimately is for businesses to commit to self reporting non compliance in the sector, and for workers to have a strong understanding of their rights and obligations.

Speaker 1 5:17

Australia's Disability Discrimination Commissioner has called on the Queensland Government to honor its commitment to the development of a national roadmap for Inclusive Education, following its decision to fund six new segregated schools, the National roadmap for inclusive education, a key principle of which is to provide equal access to mainstream education, seeks to facilitate a process of reform to ensure an equitable and participatory experience and environment for all students. The Queensland government says the new segregated schools will ensure students with higher support needs receive their specialized Teaching and Learning required for them to thrive. However, Disability Discrimination Commissioner Rosemary Kayes says the decision is a big step backwards for the education sector and students with disability. It is deeply concerning that the Queensland Government is blatantly ignoring all the evidence and expert advice in relation to the significant benefits of inclusive education for people with disability, says ms Kayes, according to the Australian Federation of disability organization, or afdo, nine in 10 school aged children with disability attend school, with Some going to study at university. However, many face challenges engaging in education. This is reflected in the overall lower levels of educational attainment for people with disability, according to afdo. Afdo also states that 26% of students with severe or profound disability attend a segregated special school, compared with the 53% who attend regular classes and the 23% who attend special classes within mainstream schools. The Disability Discrimination Commissioner argues the funding commitment to build these segregated schools goes directly against the Queensland Government's commitment to inclusive education, the principles of the national roadmap for inclusive education and a key recommendation of the recent disability Royal Commission. Rather than embracing a brighter future for all Queenslanders, the Queensland Government is locking the state into a failed ableist model of the past, which penalizes people with disability, she claims ms Kayes went on to stress the lifelong impact segregated education has on students with disability. If we want a society where everyone is included and where everyone feels they belong, then we need to be phasing out special schools, not building more of them, she says. The Disability Discrimination Commissioner says she has written to the Queensland premier as well as the Queensland education minister, and is awaiting a response. Now back to Emma and Sam. Thank you.

Sam Rickard 8:18

Michael, so special schools. Again, this is a follow up of an article you did not that long ago. Really?

Emma Myers 8:26

No, not really. It's a follow up on the Queensland Government's decision to build six new segregated schools, and this time we have the Disability Discrimination Commissioner, Rosemary cares calling on the Queensland Government to honor its commitment to what they said they would do following the Royal Commission and the National roadmap for inclusive education.

Sam Rickard 8:57

This is just a endemic of the issue with the with the Royal Commission. I mean, it was all done. We were sort of harrowing in its own way with what we heard. And then it's like, okay, okay, we've listened, and we'll take what you heard, we will put it in one big folder and then plug it all on a shelf. That's kind of the impression I'm getting here, at least from the Queensland Government regarding segregated education. I mean, you've got similar

Emma Myers 9:23

thoughts. It really boggles the mind when all of the states committed to the national roadmap for inclusive education, and then they've just taken a giant step backwards in what then say they do. And it really came out of the blue, it came back when they released their yearly budget for the state and what they do segregated schooling goes directly against their commitment. So it can't really understand what their thought process was when they said, I. I will just check some extra special scores in the area, and that'll be

Sam Rickard 10:07

split at the moment, on, on opinion on this is really not whether to have special schools or not, not to have special schools. It's the role that education plays.

Emma Myers 10:18

Yeah, and the research shows that people with disability do better in school and in life in general. If they attend a mainstream school, it's the opposite. When they attend segregated education, they have lower levels of educational attainment and they have lower levels of succeeding in life after school,

Sam Rickard 10:44

well, I will speak up for the way I went to school, which was, well, the first two schools I went to had a special unit which we were sort of integrated out of, usually, and or a resource unit in the case of high school, where If we needed something, or if, first we needed a staff member to accompany us, to do something, to stop us from, I don't know, burning ourselves in the metal work room or something like that, then yes, they were there for us. But we Yeah, definitely, I was integrated into the special education system well and truly for most of my my years. Yeah. I mean, what about yourself? I think we've talked about this before, but I mean, just trying to remind the listeners,

Emma Myers 11:23

yes. So my parents briefly debated sending me to a segregated schools, but they did not want to wrap me in the cotton blanket and tell me everything was okay, so they ended up sending me to Main Street School, and even then, I knew that school would be difficult for me with the bullying aspect. They thought that it didn't prepare me better for life long after

Sam Rickard 11:52

school, where did you go to school? Which part of the part of Australia? I

Emma Myers 11:57

went to school in the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, and I didn't really have that many options, because even though you get sent to the school closest to where you live, there were only a couple of options that had routes and wheelchair accessibility. And it just so happened that we got into the school that I went to when they were in the middle of doing some refurbishments at the school. And so instead of them building another flight of stairs, they turned it into a ramp instead?

Sam Rickard 12:41

Well, you might have changed something there for any future people. That would have been pretty neat.

Emma Myers 12:46

Yeah. I mean, I was the only wheelchair user at the time to go to school, but upon leaving, they got two more units with mobility aids come to that school because of the

Sam Rickard 12:59

access. Those nifty to know you've left your mark anyway. So what have we got to look forward to next week? I understand you've already published an extra article this just before I went to air.

Emma Myers 13:12

Yes, a good news story. For once, the government's decision to review the Disability Discrimination Act so we could see some changes ahead, hopefully good ones.

Sam Rickard 13:25

Definitely, definitely because, I mean, the Act came in in I said, 1991 so yeah, nice tea too. Well, a lot of a lot of things do need to be changed. A lot of things have changed since then. We can definitely get our teeth into that next week, but that is a wrap for this wrap. So thank you, Emma for joining us, and bye for now, bye.

Speaker 1 13:46

You can find these articles and more by going to Powerd, spelt P, O, W, E, R, D, dot media, along with the podcast of this show, the Powerd news wrap was brought to you by disability media Australia. The show was produced by Sam Rickard in the Adelaide studios of Vision Australia radio.