Yesterday’s Budget 2023 included increased support for disabled people to access disability services and continued transformation of disability support services.
Among the highlights for the disability sector was an end to minimum wage exemption permits, the Government said.
However, Cargill Enterprises chief executive Geoff Kemp, of Dunedin, who employs 74 people with intellectual disabilities, said although he applauded the announcement in "principle", how to ensure no-one was worse off remained unclear.
Many Cargill staff were on supported living benefits — and it was unclear what would happen to those benefits as employees were brought to a minimum wage.
He pushed back at Minister for Disability Issues Priyanca Radhakrishnan’s framing of minimum wage exemptions as "discriminatory"; the language she used was frustrating, he said.
"The issue is the open market doesn’t make room for people with intellectual disability in their workplace.
"We are the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff," Mr Kemp said. "We find work for people; we are not finding people for work."
