Employment of the disabled.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)

SIR: I have found Peter Saunders' work to be engaging, both in Quadrant (September 2005) and in the material available on the website of the Centre for Independent Studies. It is quite true that most people in Australia--and I would like to specifically refer to those on the disability pension--do have a generally poverty-free life. A warm roof over your head (albeit often state-owned), something to eat, clean water, health and hygiene are indeed a blessing, and most disability pensioners do find that they can participate in many, less expensive, but common aspects of Australian life.

I agree that poverty is not relative, rather it is absolute, and there are very few absolutely poor people in this nation. While I find Mr Saunders' work excellent on the level of challenging the status quo of professional poverty ideology, I think he has missed a very important but obvious point when dealing with the disabled in our society.

If you have a disability this means you are not capable of doing certain things. This means that finding work you are capable of is extremely difficult. I dare anyone who wishes to contradict me to do a day's manual work with one arm tied behind their back, and see whether they can keep their job in spite of the fact that they would work slower than their able-bodied counterparts. The glaring facts of rehabilitation science, occupational therapy, are hard to ignore.

There is a counter-argument that the physically disabled should be trained in occupations not requiring manual skills, such as clerical work, or more intellectually challenging occupations such as the professions. I think this is living in a fool's paradise. First, because many people are just not capable of the intellectual demands of more highly educated persons, and it is just foolish to hope for something different. Second, tertiary education is prohibitively expensive, and there is no guarantee of employment at the completion of training. This also includes less expensive TAFE courses. TAFE courses are often manually oriented, and those courses that are not manually oriented do not often serve the needs of industry to the extent desired. TAFE is often technologically backward, because of budgetary limitations. As a result many TAFE graduates, especially the disabled, are often no better off after completing their courses.

There are only so many clerical jobs to go around, and not everyone is suited to a clerical life. A former carpenter with an arm missing will find it extraordinarily hard to get employment in a ...