Countries around the world have commemorated the United Nations-sanctioned International Day for People with Disability.
Despite being a wealthy country, Australia performs poorly in international rankings for employment for people with disability.
Australia comes in at position 21 out of 29 OECD countries on this scale and 45 per cent of people with a disability in Australia live at or near the poverty line.
Advocates and the federal government know action is needed and a revamp is underway of Government Disability Employment Services.
SBS Chief Political Correspondent Catherine McGrath reports.
Disability week and the International Day bring great stories and achievements to light.
But it is also a time for some difficult and complex truths about the lack of Australian employment opportunities for people with disability.
Actuary John Walsh is the Patron of the International Day for People with Disability in Australia.
In a wheel chair since his early 20s after a football injury Mr Walsh says things are improving, but not fast enough.
"I think Australia still has a long way to go in employment of people with a disability. According to the official statistics we are near the bottom of the ladder of OECD countries in terms of employment of people with severe disabilities so ther eis quite a lot of scope for improvement."
Australia is ranked 21 out of 29 OECD countries in the number of people with disability who work.
Only around 50 per cent have jobs.
45 per cent live at or near the poverty line.
Both sides of politics at a state and federal level realise more need to be done.
The federal Assistant Minister for Social Security with responsibility for disability employment is Alan Tudge.
"Unfortunately if you have a disability you are twice as likely to be unemployed as a person without one and we have to do better.
There is a government designed to help people with disabilities get into work.
But it is failing.
Only one in three people who find a job this way keep it.
The Government is currently revamping that scheme and looking for community input.
Minister Alan Tudge explains:
"We have a Disability Employment Service which is there to help people get into work but it can perform better. At the moment only about a third of the people who use that service end up with a sustainable job. So we are going through a process now of engaging with the community as to how we could reform that."
International Day patron John Walsh says the unemployment rates are still too high.
"There are multiple problems with accessing employment they range from physical problems, access and just the general problems of attitudes of teh general population which need quite a lot of work."
And John Walsh says more awareness is needed around the subject of employment.
"People with disablity have been hidden effecitvely for so many decades it is only in the last 10 or 20 years that we are starting to recognise that people with disabilities actually hve something to contribute to the society and the economy. So, it's effecitvley word of mouth people getting to know people and people who have potential and realising that there may be potential in others. That is going to take time.The more we can point to successful stories and achievements the less time it will take."
MInister Alan Tudge agrees that community attitudes have been a problem.
"Clearly there is still some stigma with employing people with disability and we have to overcome that."
One Australian business is leading the way.
PricewaterhouseCoopers, or PwC, has opened all of its job applications to people with disability.
Ian Hockings is the partner who oversees the program.
"All of our recruitment team are being train at looking and supporting people with disabilities to come into our workforce. There is a broad accessibility piece that is part of our access and inclusion plan. We have looked through the end to end recruitment process to see what we can do to improve that process."
Bjorn Zangmeister was out of work and suffering a depressive illness but found a job at PwC under its new recruitment scheme.
"When they rang me and said congratulations you have got the job I was delirious."
Mr Zangmeister says it has changed his life.
"I love coming into work in the mornings. I don't think many people can say that but I asolutely do."
PwC says their inclusion program helps clients as well as the wider community and increase the talent pool for workers.
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