Australia spends more than $1.3 billion a year on disability employment, yet people with high support needs remain excluded from mainstream work and can still legally be paid a fraction of the minimum wage.

Australia spends more than $1.3 billion a year on helping disabled people find work. Yet for many Australians with high support needs, that investment has delivered very little. The rate of employment of this cohort has remained stubbornly low for decades.

Nearly three years ago, the Disability Royal Commission made a series of recommendations to fix this problem. It called for an end to sub-minimum wages for disabled workers by 2034, the phasing out of Australian Disability Enterprises, and a road map for reform that would see disabled people employed in inclusive workplaces. But little progress has been made.

The statistics should make every Australian uncomfortable. Only 34 per cent of people with profound or severe disability are employed, compared with 82 per cent of people without disability.

For those who do find work, the picture is often no better. Under the Supported Wage System, some people with disability legally earn as little as $3.31 an hour. Whatever the historical justification for the scheme, it is increasingly difficult to defend a system that allows Australians to be paid a fraction of the minimum wage because of their disability.

These outcomes are not inevitable. They are a consequence........

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