03 Jul2015

Senator David Leyonhjelm throws support behind ADEs

Independent Senator David Leyonhjelm has emerged as a strong supporter of ADEs. In an article titled 'Let's not price disabled people out of a job', he recently wrote in favour of pro rata wages for workers with disability in the Australian Financial Review.

What is an ADE?

An Australian Disability Enterprise (ADE) is a not-for-profit organisation, with charitable status, which provides meaningful employment for people with significant disability who would otherwise not be able to work. It is a business that makes products, or provides services. It is usually run by a not-for-profit organisation, but it is still expected to make a surplus after paying all its costs, including staff salaries.

Who works there?

So, an ADE operates in the same way as other businesses, but there is one major difference. An ADE employs people with disability, and its employees are supported in their work.

'Supported' means that there are support workers available to give the employees any assistance they need with their tasks. For example, an employee with learning difficulties may need regular reminders from their support worker about how to do a task. Support workers are also paid employees of the ADE.

How are ADEs funded?

ADEs are given Australian Government funding for each person they employ. The amount of funding depends on how much support the employee needs to do their job. There are about 600 ADEs around Australia that employ more than 20,000 people with disability.