HSU National

Support Disability Support workers

There's no NDIS without disability support workers

The recent review of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) has found that skilled disability support workers (DSWs) are either being pushed out, or are burning out, due to poor working conditions and low wages. Plus, there’s not even a minimum qualification for workers, meaning standards are slipping.

The HSU is leading the charge to get government to urgently address these 8 main issues to put the heart back into the NDIS:

Lift Quality & Safeguards

  • Stop the rorts and rip-offs

    All providers to be registered proportionate to risk

  • Fund training

    To encourage professional development and workforce retention

  • Implement a national worker registration scheme

    To screen all workers and introduce minimum qualifications

  • Fund bargaining and wages

    Above the award to make support work a career of choice

End Worker Exploitation

  • Regulate gig platforms

    To ensure all DSWs receive fair basic worker entitlements

  • Fix the Award

    Stop employers ripping off DSWs by misclassifying them, and fix the gendered $6.60 per hour sleepover allowance

  • Improve job security

    Establishing a national portable leave entitlement scheme will aid worker mobility

  • Improve working conditions

    To reduce burnout and benefit both participants and workers

Sign the petition to demand better

Your voice can help make a difference

A well-qualified workforce with decent, safe working conditions is best equipped to support participants. But standards are slipping across the NDIS, and workers and participants are paying the price.

Skilled workers are either being pushed out of the sector or are leaving due to burn out, and the sector is failing to attract more workers to fill the gap. Workers have never been less supported to deliver high-quality services, and the NDIS faces a workforce crisis.

HSU and HACSU are fighting for a national worker registration scheme which recognises the skills of support workers and disability support workers as the professionals they are.

We won a voluntary worker registration scheme in Victoria - now we're demanding a compulsory one, nationwide.

Worker registration and accreditation:

  • Will ensure all workers get access to basic training and fair pay

    Workers would need to have a Certificate to do some kinds of support work. This would ensure more workers are paid wages that reflect their skills and qualifications and have the training necessary to support clients.

  • Will support your career progression

    A positive worker registration scheme can involve a professional development requirement. Workers would be entitled to 10 hours a year of paid training to refresh learning or gain new experience.

  • Will lead to safer workplaces

    Workers' registration levels can be linked to supervision levels, so that staff with less training or experience get more support from a supervisor or another worker, and ensure appropriate client matching.

  • Will treat disability support work as highly-skilled, professional work

    Setting minimum standards for disability support work, as we do for nurses and allied health professionals, will lift the value of disability support work in the community and make it a career of choice.

  • It can be easily rolled out and ensure no worker or client is left behind

    Training requirements would not apply to lower-risk work, and all workers can still enter without qualification, provided they get one over time. Workers with lots of prior learning, work or training experience can access alternative pathways to attain qualification.

Sign the petition to support our campaign.

Click here to sign
Image showing all of the union logos that make up the HSU