A frontline disability support worker has told a Maitland meeting of a looming crisis for people with a disability because of the NSW government’s plan to privatise services.
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Rachel Smoothy was speaking at Monday’s meeting of the Maitland Community Union Alliance.
“This government is privatising our disability services and allowing big overseas multi-national corporations to take over these services,” Ms Smoothy said.
“They have 14,000 employees, who will be virtually sacked or offered jobs with a new multi-national provider.
“These big overseas companies want to employ workers who are in Australia on temporary working visas.”
But Disability Services Minister John Ajaka said the non-government sector already provided 60 per cent of disability and community care support services in the state, and they had the flexibility and responsiveness to meet the needs of the most vulnerable people in communities.
“We will need tens of thousands of additional disability care workers in NSW. Current employees are in a good position to benefit from this growth,” Mr Ajaka said.
The government had also developed quality safeguards for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, including a protocol for the management of complaints and incidents.