2011 Disability Speech: NSW Careers Forum
Disability Rights
NSW Careers Forum
"Your career, your future - navigating the journey to employment for students with disability"
TUESDAY, 6 September 2011
RITA KUSEVSKIS-HAYES: Good morning, everybody. If I can ask everyone to take their seats. Good morning, everybody. My name is Rita Kusevskis-Hayes, and I would like to welcome you on behalf of the 2011 Careers Forum Organising Committee to the University of New South Wales.
Okay. A few things I will very briefly go over for today - some housekeeping before I introduce our guest, and also I would personally and on behalf of the committee like to thank you all for coming. I know students not at UNSW have given up their time from some of their valuable lectures and tutorials to come today. We really appreciate that. We appreciate your commitment and also we value that you realise that this is a unique opportunity.
It doesn't happen often - once a year at the moment - and we also, as I said, appreciate that you have given your commitment and time. I will go through a couple of housekeeping guidelines for today before we get the day rolling.
There's a volunteer army available today. Is there a volunteer in here at the moment? No. Okay. You'll see them with a "V" on their chest. They look like they have come out from comic book kingdom. They are a volunteer army from ARC on the campus. There are people with "Ask me" badges and you can ask them. Just talking to somebody, ask them.
David is holding up a T-shirt at the back with a "V". He is from our ARC organisation. We have real-time captioning happening as you can see on the screen behind me, so everything you say will be going up. Denise is sitting here to stage left, your right, and will be working hard doing the captioning.
We have two interpreters, Neil and Melissa. If anyone needs an Auslan interpreter, make sure you move to towards the front to view. AV - we have Wilson, for anyone with technical problems. Wilson, he's standing up. If anyone has technical problems, Wilson will be available. Our valiant timekeeper is Shane Smith. He'll keep us to task on time.
Bathrooms are outside near the registration area, towards the lifts. Make sure, everybody, you have a forum bag. Okay. That's really important.
Those of you who may have been proactive and gone onto the website would have downloaded, perhaps, all of the materials for today. If not, there are copies available in your bag, and also if you requested any individual format, they'll be available at the registration desk
There's a real-time transcription link. If you have a mobile device, you can go online, you can get the captioning up on your mobile device as we sit in the audience.
There's a survey online and hardcopies in your bag. Morning tea/lunch will be provided; lollies as a quick snack between workshops, and you have water bottles, and there's a water bottle filling station that the volunteers will direct you to. If you are thirsty, you can use the water bottle provided by CRS.
We have an action plan. When you leave, everyone in the room will have a plan of action. This is something we will work on today. You will have the opportunity at the end of each session to fill in, after each session is run, one key action point, "As a result of the workshop I attended I will now go and tidy my CV or get my career's advisor to have a look at my CV", or "I'll go online or look for applications for jobs."
That is in everyone's bag and is available online. There are electronic copies. We have them available as well on USBs, if you still need one. Keep that in mind.
At the end of the session you'll see a slide saying, "Action plan". Think about, have a reflect for a moment about what that session gave you, and what you can take away from that session to actually do something after today.
So that's your action plan.
All right. Places to go and things to do. The workshop rooms that you'll go to will be upstairs. There are lifts and escalators. If you need a break or a rest to get yourself out of the madness of the day and the noise, there are additional rooms for break-out space on levels 2 and 3, and there are signs around the premises.
Morning tea and lunch is at the Sam Cracknell Pavillion, which is across the walkway, so we get to have a breath of fresh air on this beautiful day. There'll be volunteers helping everyone.
Inclusive practices - we have real-time captioning. We'll go through in detail in the summary. If you want to go online, there's a log-in and a password thanks to Denise. There are e-copies online, and the Facebook setup, Auslan interpreters, signing, saying, "Hello." We have an audio recording made of today's sessions that everyone can go to the link listed and listen to the recordings after today. They'll be available after tomorrow.
Okay. Action plan.
Now, I would like you to have a really good think as the day goes on about what you hope to gain from today, what information you hope to get, and who you would like to talk to. The presenters and the guests will be around for morning tea and lunch, and other students. The graduate panel of students will be good value to sit and talk with.
Every time you see the logo, it's time, or I or the speaker will say, "Action plan time" - make sure you put down an action plan point.
I would now like to introduce Dennis Golding, from Nuri Gili at UNSW, to do a 'Welcome to Country'. Thank you, Dennis.
APPLAUSE
DENIS GOLDING: Thank you. My name is Dennis. I'm a descendant from the Gadigal, from the Eora Nation, on whose land we stand on today. I would first like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of this lands, the Gadigal, and the Ichigal(?) people from the Eora Nation.
I grew up in the Redfern community. This is where I learnt about my culture and my people and their history. I also now work at Nuri Gili Indigenous Programs, where we promote indigenous pathways for students - for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
I have been given an invitation to do a 'Welcome to Country'. I have done pretty much - quite a lot of welcomes at some of the events here at UNSW, and some off campus. This has been taught by my grandmother. She's an Aboriginal Elder of the Aboriginal community and taught me her knowledge. I'm able to give you a warm welcome as well.
We are on Gadigal land, and let us all acknowledge those and pay respect to the Elders past and present. Everyone welcome to Gadigal, and Ichigal land. Thanks.
APPLAUSE
RITA KUSEVSKIS-HAYES: Thank you, Dennis, for that, and that warm welcome. I would like to introduce my boss at UNSW, Sandra Norris, the Director of Student Development on UNSW, to welcome you on behalf of UNSW.
SANDRA NORRIS: I think that will be okay. Good morning. It's my very great pleasure to welcome our presenters, colleagues and, most importantly, students from across New South Wales and the ACT to UNSW for this event.
It's a wonderful opportunity for you today to gain some information, to network, to hopefully learn some practical strategies; and, I think, to be inspired. And to have some clearer ideas as to how you might go about pursuing graduate employment opportunities.
To help us along the way today we are very privileged to have with us Mr Graeme Innes. Graeme is a lawyer, mediator, and passionate human rights and disabilities advocate, who in 1995 was made a Member of the Order of Australia. Since 2005 Graeme has undertaken the role of Australia's Disability Discrimination Commissioner, and during that time he has also been Race Discrimination Commissioner and Australia's Human Rights Commissioner.
By Graeme's personal and professional achievements, I think we all have lessons to learn, and certainly inspiration to embrace. So please join with me in warmly welcoming Graeme to the podium.
APPLAUSE
GRAEME INNES: Well, thank you very much, and I acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands on which we meet. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you at this forum tonight.
Let me congratulate all of you who are students here today - sorry, I said tonight - I'm getting ahead of myself - students here today, clearly keen to progress your careers, and I hope that today, during the day, is a real opportunity for all of you to learn from each other and to learn from the presenters who are here, because this is a challenging and difficult, but also a very exciting time in all of your lives and in your careers in whatever direction they are going to take.
What gets you out of bed in the morning?
Now, I don't want to hear the answer of your mother. That might be the case for some. It might be just, you know, basic bodily functions - bathroom, hunger, partner snoring; but, really, that's what today is about because what you have to do, and what today is, is a very valuable opportunity for you to build from. What you have to do is work out what will get you out of bed for the next 40-odd years.
And that is a challenging decision. It's a challenging issue, and it doesn't mean it has to be the same all the time. These days more and more people take the opportunity to change or alter their careers; but, really, that's what finding the right job for you is all about. It's what it is that's going to get you out of bed.
Sure, it's important to find a job that helps you to pay the mortgage, raise a family, travel overseas, whatever it is that you want to do, but it is harder to do a job you are doing just for the salary, and you have to really be motivated in the career that you find. It's a very important decision.
I always used to smile when Steve Waugh, the previous - a couple of captains ago now - of the Australian cricket team used to say that he thought as captain of the Australian cricket team he had the best job in the world, and they paid him for it as well.
I used to smile about that until I got the job that I have had now for some time, because I'm in a very similar position to Steve Waugh. I mean, I would like to be playing in the Australian cricket team - that is probably not going to happen in the next little while; but I really enjoy the job that I do, and wake up every morning and rub my hands together to get into work at the Australian Human Rights Commission, and it makes a huge difference if you can put yourself in that position.
It's very exciting that you are teetering on the edge of these major decisions, planning for the future and getting ready to change the world. I hope to change the world for the better, and I've been given the chance to provide you with some guidance in your onward journey, although most of the presenters that are here today, and the people running the various stalls, et cetera, that are here today, are in a better position to do that.
But I have been given the chance to start off the process, and I want my words to count. Now, having a teenage daughter myself, I know just how hard it is to make sure that those words count. So I want to start with the words of a poet of our time. Now, she sings them, but I won't emulate that because that would ensure my words wouldn't count.
But nonetheless, she is, I think, still a poet of our time. These are those words:
"Have you ever fed a lover with just your hands; closed your eyes and trusted, just trusted; have you ever thrown a fist full of glitter in the air; have you ever looked fear in the face and said, "I just don't care"; it's only half past the point of no return; the tip of the iceberg; the sun before the burn; the thunder before the lightening, and the breath before the phrase; have you ever felt this way"
Now, can anyone tell me who sings those words? There must be some fans of this singer in the group.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Pink.
GRAEME INNES: Of course, her song, 'Glitter in the Air', is what I quoted from. I heard her sing those words beautifully in one of her Sydney concerts - I think two years ago now. In fact, it was the first rock concert that my teenage - now teenage daughter, she wasn't then - had gone to. I took a friend of hers and her with me to see that concert - or they took me with them, I think, more directly.
I regularly listened to those and other words of hers on my iPod. Now, many people think that those words only apply to opportunities for love. Perhaps they do. I think they also beautifully capture a much broader message for life - to throw glitter in the air, to take the opportunities that life presents, and to live life to the full.
I'm very much in favour of the view that if you are not living on the edge, you are really taking up too much room. So I really do encourage you in your career choices not to sit back and wait for opportunities to come to you, but go out there and get them.
But in living life to the full, I remember, and I encourage you to remember, that others should also have those opportunities to live life to the full. And it's important too, I think, in your careers, to think about the impact that what you're doing or what you're not doing can have on other people in a direct and indirect way.
So let me move from one iconic American woman of today to another iconic American woman of the 1960s. Yes, back in that period of history known to some of us as 'the last century', and I refer to Rosa Parks. Can anyone tell me who Rosa Parks was?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: A black activist who didn't give up her seat.
GRAEME INNES: Who didn't give up her seat. You are right. She refused to sit at the back of the bus. In the US in the 1960s, millions was spent on providing public transport systems, but in many places in the US black people could only ride at the back of the bus. Rosa's actions in refusing to do this was a spark for the civil rights actions in the US.
That was way back then. More than 50 years ago. It wouldn't happen in Australia today. Well, wouldn't it?
For many people with disability, sitting at the back of the bus isn't possible - because we can't even get on the bus. That is one of many examples where opportunities are not equal in the world you are about to change, where you are about to go and throw that glitter in the air.
That doesn't mean that you should stop wanting to make those changes. In fact, what I think is that it should be the catalyst, the incentive that makes you go out there and make those changes, because every step you take towards making those changes, apart from benefitting yourself, will make the world a little more equal for people with disability.
I thought I might talk to you a little bit this morning about my own career. When I started working - sadly longer ago than I like to think about, because, sadly, I'm not sure that things have changed a lot since I started working.
I was lucky. I wanted to be a lawyer from about the age of 14. So I was lucky in that I always knew what I wanted to do. I really feel for people who aren't - who don't have that level of confidence in that part of their decision, because I think that adds to your challenge if you are in that circumstance.
But I always wanted to make change, and I thought that changing our society, improving the world that we lived in - probably one of the ways to do that was going to be by having a chance to change the laws. So I was clear about that approach.
And when I studied it was before we had computers, mobile phones or the internet. They were just things that didn't exist in our thinking. And I studied using much material in Braille, on paper, punched out by Perkins Braillers, and much material on cassette tape. I started at school with reel-to-reel tapes, but graduated to cassettes by the time I hit university, recorded by dozens of volunteers who played an important part in my life.
So I went to university for four years. I had a basic law degree - not at this university, at one a little way away, which is named after our city rather than our State. When I finished my law degree at Sydney Uni, I went out to find a job as a lawyer, and I spent about 12 months trying to find a job before I found one.
Now, in that 12 months I went to about 30 interviews, and I had a basic law degree, it wasn't - I didn't - I hadn't won the university medal or anything like that. I had mainly passes with a few credits; and I went to about 30 job interviews. I'd say in about half of those, in about 15, I just wasn't the best qualified applicant, so I didn't get those jobs.
In the other half I think I was fairly competitive, but I turned up as a person with a disability. I used to never mention that I had a disability in the - when I applied for the jobs, because I learnt the lesson quickly that that meant I didn't get a job interview.
So I'd turn up for the interview, do the interview, and it would be the, "Don't call us, we'll call you" situation, and I didn't hear from those employers again. Or if I did it was, "Sorry, you know, you have been unsuccessful, you weren't the best applicant."
There was only one person honest enough to tell me - and this was before the days of discrimination legislation - only one person honest enough to tell me that I didn't get the job because he couldn't see how as a blind person I would be able to effectively work in his legal practice.
Interestingly, that was a man with a disability, a different disability. He had a prosthetic leg, but he just made the assumption that a blind person wouldn't be able to work in his legal practice.
So, eventually I worked out - took me a while, but I worked out that I wasn't going to get a job straight up as a lawyer. So I applied - I went and did the New South Wales Public Service test and got a job as a clerical assistant in the New South Wales Public Service. I used to joke that I was the only clerical assistant with a law degree in the New South Wales Public Service, but it was probably true.
And my first job was working for State Lotteries, just when Lotto was starting in 1979. Part of my job, not all of it, involved answering the telephone and telling people the winning numbers. You really needed a law degree for that job. I was made redundant by an answering machine.
I used to spend time working out sequencing of numbers, which numbers came out; had fascinating conversations with people who had theories out there - none of us won Lotto, but - why do I tell you this?
Well, I tell you it because I think there's a reality out there for people with disability, and it's something that we may as well all face. And that is that people with disability just have to work harder to get a job and have to work harder in that job. I'd like that not to be the reality. I think there is little doubt that it is the reality.
I moved on to the Department of Consumer Affairs as a clerk, and again my job seemed to be around answering telephones, because I'd worked for the Lands Titles Office answering telephone inquiries, legal inquiries, then the Department of Consumer Affairs, doing the same work. I think it was a lot to do with the fact, "Blind person, what can we do with him? Oh, he can talk on the telephone, we'll get him to do that."
I worked in the phone group in Consumer Affairs. It was a big table, as many as 10 people, supposed to be 10 people, and as many people turn up, never was 10, sat at the table and took the telephone inquiries. The only way they were modified is they had a switch to turn the microphone, the mouthpiece, off on the phones. Thank goodness they did, because that switch would often get flicked off whilst the odd comment was made about the caller.
We used to answer the phones, "Consumer Affairs, are you calling STD?" If they weren't, it used to stand for something trunk dialling - I can't remember the acronym. If you dialled outside the Sydney area, it cost you money, it was timed. If you dialled from Sydney, it was a one-off payment. These things changed with mobile phones. We said, "Are you calling STD?", because we'd give them priority.
We had amazing responses. People would say, "No, I'm calling from my lounge room", "Where's your lounge room?", and we gave people advice on a range of consumer affairs issues.
And then I got a job as a clerk in the legal section of the Department of Consumer Affairs, and this is after a couple of years, and the head of that department - and he's a friend of mine now - despite his misgivings, decided that he'd let me have a go at being a lawyer. And I was appointed to a job as a legal officer in the Department of Consumer Affairs.
And from there I moved on to being a conciliator at the Anti Discrimination Board in the International Year of People With Disability in 1981. The State Discrimination Legislation was amended to make discrimination against people with disability unlawful. They were looking for a conciliator with experience in the disability field. I had done that as an advocate while I'd been doing my paid work and doing university. I had been a bit of a student advocate.
From there, I moved on to roles in Western Australia as a conciliator, and a lawyer acting for people in discrimination tribunals in Western Australia, representing people. And then to my - to actually participating in those tribunals, sitting on those tribunals and in other tribunals and into my current job.
And, what is my current job?
It's Disability Discrimination Commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission. As from yesterday full-time Disability Discrimination Commissioner. I did have two commissioner roles I carried out for about five years. The Government decided to employ a full-time Race Discrimination Commissioner, so I don't carry that responsibility any longer. I read a few articles in the paper yesterday and had a slight smile on my face and thought, "Helen will have to deal with that."
Helen Szoke is the Race Discrimination Commissioner, and there was racist stuff in a couple of yesterday's newspapers, starting with 'The Daily Telegraph's editorial. But I don't need to worry about that.
A day in my life involves coming to functions such as this, talking to groups such as this, media interviews, launching of reports and preparing for those; approving legal decisions which the Commission may be going to make, and advising Government on - on policy issues to do with disability discrimination.
So, what have I learnt in the opportunities that I have had during my career?
Well, I think the first thing, and you would have picked up on this message, is to work to your passions and to your strengths. Think about what it is that gets you out of bed in the morning, think about what it is that motivates you. Because in the end just having that salary won't be enough.
I think, you know, within reason having a go, giving things a go, having a crack at things. I think Amnesty International's motto is, "It's better to light a candle than curse the dark'. It's an important motto to work by.
It's amazing the issues addressed in Australia and the world because someone thought something needed to change, and decided they would take an action to change it. There's a lot of sayings which indicate that, but it's always better to do something, than complain about the situation that you are in.
I think it's important to work smart. People with a disability are coming from behind the line, we are not getting an equal opportunity. Hopefully it's better than it was, but I think we still have a long way to go.
So you have to work smart. You have to be strategic about the opportunities you choose, strategic about the issues you decide to take on, the fights you are going to have. In the same way in my job, that I have to be a bit strategic and think about what fights to take on. You can't take them all on.
I try and find, within the bounds of principles where sometimes you have to challenge things - I try to find the fights that I think I will win. I recognise that progress occurs not usually through big leaps, but through incremental gradual steps.
And you also have to work hard. As a person with a disability - and I have heard Professor Ron McCallum, Senior Australian of the Year, Chair of the UN Committee on Conventions of Persons With Disabilities. He says you have to work harder. That's the reality. Accept that, move on.
One of the things that I tried to follow in my career is that the whole is always more than the sum of its parts. So teamwork really counts for a lot. So both in studying, about the - in working, I think that as a general rule you'll get better - you'll progress further and the organisations that you are working for will progress further if you are a team player, rather than trying to do things on your own. That's a lesson I have learnt many times.
I think that mentoring and peer support is important. I learnt from many other people who have done it before me and done it before me. One of the real examples I learnt from when I was a young teenager was a man I met called David Hunter, who was totally blind, and he had been a member of the State parliament for 35 years. He was the longest serving member in the State parliament.
That just opened up my thinking really. I thought, "If he can be a member of parliament for all of that time, I can do anything I want". I don't want to suggest unrealistic aims, but it is sometimes worth having a look at what other people have achieved before you set your goals.
And I think that you need to pay that back, so you have to be prepared to share your knowledge and your experience with others. That is one of the reasons that sometimes against the advice of people with whom I work, I - I come and talk to forums like this, because I think it's really important that I share some of the things that I have learnt in the same way that people shared some of the things that they learnt with me when I was in that situation.
It's an old saying, but a goody - you know, if at first you don't succeed, was my mother's saying, try, try again, have another go. Some people call me stubborn. I call myself determined, and it is just working away at things. That can be very important in terms of getting to where you are in a career. You won't necessarily be successful at the first job interview or the fifth or 10th or 20th, but you just have to keep having a go.
So when you take those opportunities that Pink talked about, that I talked about, and change the world for the better, it's important not to be stopped by thinking that you, one individual, can't make a difference, because that's just not the case. You can.
It's important to grasp the opportunities, live on the edge, and as that famous Australian business woman Sarah Henderson says in her work, "Don't keep looking out for the light at the end of the tunnel, stride down there and turn on the bloody thing yourself."
And it's important to throw that glitter in the air. So thanks for the chance to speak with you this morning.
APPLAUSE
RITA KUSEVSKIS-HAYES: Thank you, Graeme.
GRAEME INNES: I'm happy to do questions.
RITA KUSEVSKIS-HAYES: At this stage if anyone has a question while Graeme is here. This is a unique opportunity, if anyone has a question, if they'd like to raise their hand. I think you've overwhelmed them with your anecdotes from Pink. You are welcome to stay. I understand and appreciate that you are so busy.
GRAEME INNES: I'll stay for morning tea.
RITA KUSEVSKIS-HAYES: Thank you.
GRAEME INNES: No problems.
RITA KUSEVSKIS-HAYES: I assume, yes, everyone is having the morning coffee kick-in. Graeme will be around for morning tea.
Quickly, the procedure coming up for the next couple of sessions I'll quickly go over with you, so you know what to expect; is that we are about to have the first of our panel sessions that will go until 11 o'clock, and 11 o'clock we'll have morning tea. You'll have a chance to ask Graeme, I guess, what song from Pink that came from, and talk to a few of the people on the panel this morning.
After that we'll break up into our workshop groups. So we have the opportunity to have four groups. At the moment we has three, and they will be held upstairs. Two of them - one of them will be here. If you prefer to stay in this room, you can come back after morning tea to this room, and then we'll have lunch after that, and be back in the room.
I'm about to also say to you, if some of you feel you need a stretch, by all means get - have a stretch, move around. It will be a long and interesting day. By no means do you have to be stuck to your seat. That's why we planned a few opportunities to get about, go outside and have a walk on this beautiful day for coffee and muffins.
One other thing, when you think about the action plan, a point might be to follow up the Pink song or the Sarah Henderson book, or go home and reflect and think about a few things that Graeme said this morning.
He's right, I worked in the disability field for over 20 years. The most important thing anyone can do is give it a go. Really give it a go. Ask, talk to people, but also give it a go.
All right. Talking about give it a go, we'll have some employers in a moment who will talk to us about giving people a go. I'd like to welcome Suzanne Colbert AM, Chief Executive of the Australian Network on Disability to invite the panel and present the next session leading up to morning tea. Thank you, Suzanne Colbert.
SUZANNE COLBERT: Thank you, Rita. If I can invite Ros and Ann and John to have a seat so we can get into hearing about what in our office we call the game of employment.
Rebecca, who looks after our Stepping Into... program. I hear her on the phone to students from time to time, and say, "Getting a job, it's a bit of a game. So you just have to understand the game plan."
So we have some inside players this morning, whom I hope will reveal their secrets that will help you play the game successfully, and reduce the time spent from sending out those applications from where you are now to the place that you want to be.
I would also like to start off by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land, the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation.
Just to mention something about the Australian Network on Disability, and to give it some context - I spent about 10 years from 1990 to about 2000 helping people with disability to get and keep meaningful work. At the end of that 10 years, I realised that it wasn't people with disability that needed help, it was employers; that sometimes it was hard for employers to see past a disability and to see the fantastic skills and attributes that people with disability could bring.
And so for the last 11 years the Australian Network on Disability has been growing the number of businesses who are working together to be inclusive and to ensure that they are creating a level playing field so that they can welcome skilled and talented people with disability to contribute to their business success.
What I have learnt in my time as being an employer - I've been an employer for 18 years in a small organisation of one time or another, is the things that I most value as an employer is knowing what someone can do.
I know that sounds really simple, but if I was to recruit you tomorrow, what I would need to know when you come in the door is what exactly can you do. And so when people tell me that they have got a qualification, and I think it is obviously important that you have a qualification and you put that on your resume and for your first job, include your academic transcript.
That's not the same as what you can do.
So, I hope that you will write on your action point from this panel, "Talk to the people who are closest to me and ask them what they notice that I do". And, how is it that you are, what are your attributes, what are the things that make your eyes shine, and that passion rising in you, and think about how you can apply that to the workplace.
Getting the first job out of uni is definitely the hardest.
Because, at that point you are really competing with other people that have a transcript very similar to you. And so the way that you can differentiate yourself is by the results that you have produced and those aspects that are unique to you.
For example, if you worked with me, you'd probably not want to give me a piece of paper because I'm not good with paper. I will lose it, I will get it mixed up with other pieces of paper. I would be - you know, paper is not good for me. I do like hardcopies, but I can't manage them. So know those things about yourself. So that as you start working you know where your strengths are and how you are going to organise yourself.
None of us are good at everything. We are just unique packages, and the trick is knowing what you have got to offer in your unique package. I have been sacked as a checkout chick. I make an absolutely lousy checkout chick, but I feel I have made substantial progress in working with inclusion of people with disability over 20 years. But I'm probably never going get a job as a checkout chick again.
So we are not good at everything. Just be really clear about what are the things that you are good at.
So looking for a job is a business. It's not personal. So remember that. When you get your fifth, "No", or your 10th, "No", it's probably not personal. It's just business.
And so what I hope that you will get out of talking to our fantastic panel today is an insight into the business of applying for jobs and the business of recruiting people for organisations that are making a commitment to creating that level playing field for people with disability.
So, John, I might ask you to introduce yourself, talk a little bit about your organisation.
JOHN NORTON: Thanks, Suzanne. Is that on? Can people hear me? Yes.
I'm from the Australian Public Service Commission, a small agency in the Commonwealth Government. We have 270 staff and have a broad role under the Public Service Act. There's general responsibilities we have. One is to develop the leadership of the Australian Public Service, to ensure it's a high performing service for all Australians, and another general responsibility around employment framework, how people are engaged and employed into the Public Service, which I can talk a little bit about as part of the role today.
In terms of our performance overall against most OECD measures, the Australian Public Service comes up looking pretty good. In fact, we are in probably the top three countries for most measures that the OECD likes to form itself across in developing countries.
Google APS jobs - the main portal where jobs are advertised. Government jobs under the legislation need to be open, permanent jobs, to everybody in the community to apply for. That's the main tool, so if you google APS jobs, that will give you a lot of information about jobs available.
The tag line says, "One career, thousands of opportunities". I think that describes one of our strengths in terms of attraction very well. It's the variety of jobs that are on offer in the Australian Public Service that may be of interest to you.
So everything from Border Security - perhaps a very challenging term at the moment - through to climate change policy, water management, customer service delivery - you name it, there's jobs in the Australian Public Service just about in every field. So variety is one, mobility is another, in that we are encouraging mobility.
My career - every three years or so I have moved and made some significant changes in the types of roles I have taken on. That's a useful thing to consider. Particularly when you listen to Graeme's career history. His was similar, lots of changes along the way
Others are attracted to the Australian Public Service for wanting to make a difference. Graeme picked up that theme in his talk. There's lots of opportunities to work on policy to improve the lives of all Australians, or particularly disadvantaged groups.
So there's a lot of policy reforms going on at the moment. It's an exciting and challenging time, but if you look at carbon tax, the National Broadband Network, immigration policy - to name a few - we have some significant challenges to work on, and increasingly it's not just for one Department, so what we are seeing now is collaboration is important; the ability to reach outside the Department, understand the big picture, form relationships with other people to help solve big and complex problems is one of the real exciting things to be involved in.
We take the development of our graduates very seriously, because we see them really as the leaders of tomorrow. So the Australian Public Service also has a very good track record in investment in development of graduates. Most Departments offer at least a post-grad qualification in the first year of placement. There's an opportunity to network and collaborate. I talked about that.
There is something called SNOG - we love acronyms in the Australian Public Service. I'm not sure who came up with that, it may have been a graduate. It stands for Social Network of Graduates. If you are a graduate in the Australian Public Service, you are linked up to a range of others having the same experience, not necessarily snogging.
SUZANNE COLBERT: Bit hard to compete with that, isn't it?
JOHN NORTON: We are also focussing more and more on building disability confidence in the Australian Public Service. Our track record has been weakening, I must say, over the last 10 years, and focus our mind on what do we need to do to turn this around.
We are at about 3% of the work force that we know have a disability. The disclosure rate is 30% of our workforce we don't know the status of. So it's likely that the actual population with disabilities is higher than 3%, but we know we have a lot of work to do. Building disability confidence is one of the main roles of my team.
Also, people like yourselves, when you join the Public Service, that's part of the role. What we find is if a team experiences working with someone with a disability, that's a key factor in improving disability confidence, not just with that team, but more broadly across the organisation.
So in closing on the intro, one of the mantras we like to play in our team is we can believe we can give you the support you need to perform at your best in the Australian Public Service. Come and give us a go.
SUZANNE COLBERT: Thank you, John.
APPLAUSE
SUZANNE COLBERT: Well done. We look forward to hearing from Ann Pitkeathly from the RTA. I have to say the RTA has been a member of the Australian Network on Disability and has made some - for some time - made fabulous progress, and I know that Ann has great stories to tell. Welcome Ann.
ANN PITKEATHLY: Thank you, good morning. As stated, I'm Ann from RTA. Most of you will know RTA when you have gone to apply for your licence, perhaps, or if you are not driving, for your proof of age card. Most people feel that that is our business. It is actually only 20% of our total employment in the registry area.
So I would actually call us a Government administration body. We are also one of the largest employers of engineers in Australia. We are one of the largest employers of surveyors in Australia. So we are quite a diverse group. We include trades, engineers, customer service and we are just about to merge in with maritime services as well. So we have some very interesting times ahead.
In terms of what we do for people with disability - I'm not quite as organised as John - we've been pushing to get our policies and our strategies in place for the last couple of years. It takes a long period of time to get those agreed to, endorsed - rubber-stamped, if you like.
So at this point in time I have been going with a lot of programs or projects, if you like; working on the policies as well - would love a bit of help with that, but working on bringing people into the organisation to very much build as John has said, that confidence within teams.
And I'm very lucky that the organisation has about 9% of our staff, and we only have 50% disclosure, so it may be higher. 9% of our staff have disclosed a disability, and about 3.6% of those are requiring workplace adjustments such that it's recorded.
Many times an adjustment is very minor, a team member or management will put it in place, and it may not ever come near my deck or OHSs desks.
The programs we have been running to attract people with disability to our organisation include the internships that we run through Australian Network on Disability. We have got some fantastic people, very unique people that have joined us through an internship program. Happy to talk at length on that if people are interested.
We also support the Paralympian program. Again, we have found amazing sports people. Gee they have interesting other skills that they bring, not only in their working life, but all sorts of other things that they have been exposed to, and that often really do add to their work. I have some amazing examples that I can talk to about that.
We also do find that our traineeships that we offer, as mainstream traineeships, often attract people with disability, and that they seem to be well supported in our workplace. At the moment we had five people that disclosed disability coming into our 30-odd traineeships that we offered at the beginning of 2011. So we are really pleased to see the variety of people that are joining us and the different areas of the business.
So some of those people may be in registries, but a majority of those are in the regional offices, in the head office, and are in our graduate programs where they actual move. Our graduate program is a 3-year program where you move every six months, and we have amazing stars in that area as well.
That probably gives you enough overview at this stage about what we do.
SUZANNE COLBERT: Thank you. We have a perspective from the Australian Public Service and a New South Wales State perspective. Rosalind Reidy is from IBM, and IBM is recognised as a global leader in the inclusion of people with disability.
We know from the Australian Network on Disability that global corporates are really engaged in inclusion of people with disabilities. So welcome, Roz.
ROS REIDY: Thanks, good morning everyone. I'm delighted to be here and to tell you a bit about IBM.
As Suzanne Colbert mentioned, we are a global company. We have about 400,000 employees worldwide. We operate in 170 countries around the world; and this year we are actually celebrating our 100th anniversary. We are very proud that we have been in business for 100 years.
And as Suzanne Colbert mentioned, we do have a long history in terms of inclusion of people with a disability and diversity generally in our workplace. In Australia, we have had a disability strategy in place for about the last 15 years. Certainly we have had a strong focus on trying to increase the number of people that we employ with a disability.
I suppose we have gone about that in three main ways. One has been to look at accessibility and making sure that our workplaces are actually accessible for people who have a disability. So we work closely with our real estate operations team on that.
We also operate an accommodation's fund, and that fund is to provide accommodations for any employee who requires a disability - be it, you know, software, hardware, equipment or some sort of service. We do run our accommodations fund slightly differently from a lot of other organisations insofar as we run it as a centralised fund.
And in doing that we take it away from a departmental level, because we feel that that is the best way to ensure that for a manager who is hiring a person, that they are not thinking in the back of their mind, you know, "If an accommodation is required, that will impact my budget."
So that's something that the diversity team looks after. We manage - we manage that fund, and the feedback from hiring managers is positive around that.
I think the third area where we really have strong focus is around education and awareness. Because we do realise that a negative attitude can have, you know - will be the biggest barrier that a person with a disability will probably face. So we do quite a bit of education, often through the Australian Network on Disability, with our HR team, recruitment teams in particular, to make sure that they feel confident in terms of dealing with someone who has a disability. And we also extend that to our managers as well because they obviously have a big say in terms of hiring decisions.
So those are probably the three main areas that I look at in terms of my role as a disability program manager. But I do work very closely with our recruitment team because they look after our graduate and our intern programs.
Our graduate program has been going for a number of years, it's very success. We take in a number of graduates. It's not just because we are an IT company, it's not just IT-related graduates that we take in. We also have business graduates, are a big part of our intake. And also in the marketing and communications area as well.
So we have a graduate program that runs for a whole year. Where there are responsible programs for the graduates, education that they go through, we run an intern program, and the intern program is usually run for six months or 12 month internships. So typically it's for university students who may be in their second or third year of university, so not yet finished, but who want to get some practical work experience. And so they can apply for our intern program. That is something I would say is valuable in terms of making that transition into the workplace, to have practical experience behind you.
So very happy to talk more about that at the break, if you are wanting to know about either of those programs.
SUZANNE COLBERT: Thank you. We have kind of got a sense of what organisations do, but it's also helpful to make it more concrete. So, Ros, can I ask you about a graduate or an intern with disability that has come across your path in the last couple of years, and what are some of the things you've been able to do at IBM to help them achieve their potential.
ROS REIDY: Sure. We had - this year we had probably about three graduates who have come on board, disclosing that they had a disability. One of them in particular required some accommodations because he was hearing - he is hearing impaired and he's based down in Melbourne.
So right from the get-go, obviously because of his disability, he let us know that he was hearing impaired and would need an Auslan interpreter at the time of the initial interview with our HR team, with our recruiters. So we organised that.
Then he went through to the next stage and had an interview with the hiring manager, and the Auslan interpreters were there, and he was successful in terms of getting that role. Though I should mention he had actually applied for another graduate role at which he was not successful. This was actually the second role he had applied for.
Once he came on board with the organisation, I got in contact with him, and also his manager. So it was very much a sort of a discussion amongst the three of us to put in place some strategies that we thought would work well for him in terms of helping him connect to the organisation.
So we actually have a buddy network at IBM where we have people who have a disability, who are very happy to buddy up with new employees who have a disability, usually the same kind of disability, to help them sort of become familiar with some of the tools and the equipment that they might find useful and help them settle into their role more easily.
We paired Brent up with a hearing impaired buddy. Through that we introduced Brent to live remote captioning like we have today. It's not something he used. He always had an Auslan interpreter. Now what he is doing is using the Auslan interpreting, but also live remote captioning for different meetings, depending on what is required.
In addition to that, we also spoke to Brent's manager, and with Brent it was decided that it would be beneficial if his whole team actually had some deafness awareness training because the team had not worked with anyone who had a hearing impairment before, and so they were - his colleagues were a bit uncertain as to what was acceptable in terms of trying to get his attention, and just best ways to communicate with him. So we organised that through Vicdeaf down in Victoria, and that was something that, you know, the team went through.
Like any other employee, Brent did our two-day orientation, and had Auslan interpreters there for the program. We try to make sure that the employees with disabilities are not treated differently. They have the same opportunities that all our other employees have available to them. It's just that in some instances, like Brent, he may need an interpreter or to have captioning support.
SUZANNE COLBERT: Can you tell us the role that Brent went into?
ROS REIDY: It was an IT role in the delivery area. He had studied computer studies.
SUZANNE COLBERT: Thank you. That's a nice concrete example of how someone who needed things done differently could be accommodated.
Perhaps, John, you may have an example that you could share with us as well.
JOHN NORTON: Sure. And there are some similarities in terms of the case that I thought of in terms of your briefing question, Suzanne Colbert. This candidate was in a Department that I worked in former to the Public Service Commission, the Social Policy Department called FaHSCIA. We love an acronym. It's Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, I think.
This candidate had a law degree, and if you - similarly, if you look at the success factors, because I think they put in probably six applications in this round after they graduated. Why they were successful? I think at FaHSCIA there was a couple of things we can pick out. One was being clear about their disability as part of their application.
So the Public Service will make all those reasonable adjustments required, as Ros mentioned, as long as they are aware what needs to be made. That's one thing to think of in part of your application. Similarly, there was Auslan interviewers, most of the large departments run assessment centres, which can be a series of testing regimes. That is even more important, I guess, that we are forewarned so those adjustments can be made so you can compete on a level playing field as much as possible in those sorts of environments.
I think the other thing that this person - how they differentiate themselves - a point that Suzanne Colbert made earlier - was they had done their homework as well, on the Department. And so when you are assessing applications from graduates, it's easy to pick out the generic ones that have been sent to every organisation, I think, and the ones that stand out are the ones that talk a little about your business and what you as an individual have in terms of your own personal characteristics to offer the business, and how that might apply. I think that was done quite well in this situation as well.
In terms of support, once the sort of recruitment process was over, it was a bit similar to Ros's example. We matched this person up with a mentor, someone a little more senior in the organisation who could sort of guide them across the sort of complexities, and sort of the alleyways within a large department, if you like.
There was three rotations. One was in the legal area. In the first 12 months, they did a post-grad qual in public re-examination as well, and ended up coming back to the legal team as their home employing area at the end of the 12 months.
Just looking at my notes of what was critical for this person. We had a disability network with other employees with disability, and that was a good support for them to know other people in the agency. I think the rest was probably quite similar to Ros's, yes.
SUZANNE COLBERT: Thank you, John. Ann, I know that you have got - you have got more than one fantastic story, but just to help it come alive for students about what you can expect from those organisations who are working hard at developing the level playing fields.
ANN PITKEATHLY: Okay. Perhaps to give the story of one of our interns from last year's intake. We had a policy internship advertised through Australian Network on Disability. We had fairly limited numbers of applicants, which was a little disappointing, but one particular applicant had studied business following an accident.
She had also had an outstanding workers compensation claim and that scared off a lot of employers, because that was still outstanding, and it meant that her overuse syndrome that she did have was not able to - the reasonable adjustments around that were not able to be funded by external schemes simply because there was an outstanding Workers Comp situation still ongoing.
However, Tatiana came to us with a Bachelor of Business that she had studied. She had a long career in accounts, and that had to some degree contributed to her overuse syndrome from all the keying in. She had decided that - she had young children and didn't want to see mum - to have them see mum not working, but she wanted to contribute, so she got herself back to uni, studied a Bachelor of Business and applied for numerous jobs, but couldn't get to the interview stage.
What she ended up doing was going on and studying her masters. Luckily in that period she also applied for the internship and she came across our desks, and we did interview her. And one of the unique things, I think, that Tatiana brought was she had her basic degree, but she had this wealth of knowledge and experience in the accounting area, and she had also done a really interesting project that she was starting as part of her Masters Degree. She was studying stakeholder management, something very topical in the public sector a year ago.
So the short version, I guess, Tatiana came on to us, came to us as a 12-week, 2-days a week placement. She was able to identify that she wanted to limit the number of days that she was coming into the organisation, until she had an opportunity to test it out and find out how she might react to travel, to interaction in the work team, and also to how much data entry might be required in the role, how much she had computer work.
So she has varied herself from two to three days sometimes, around her university studies, so she's continued with her Masters' studies, and after the first placement of 12 weeks, she was performing so well and she was active in asking us, "Is there an opportunity to extend? Is there somewhere else that I can experience policy?", and, of course, in a public sector entity, there is always somewhere you can experience policy, so from her initial placement in Corporate Planning, she moved on to a licensing policy role - again, a cornerstone of our business.
And when that placement had also started to wind up at the end of a 12 week period, she then approached us again and said, "I'm really enjoying this, is there something more I can experience, where could I go next?", and that - being proactive, I think, was a big key. She was coming to us, she wasn't waiting for us to remind us her placement was about to end. As a result, Tatiana moved through the first two placements, and then we introduced a new branch, the Stakeholder Management Branch - ding - a unique thing she did as part of her Masters Degree came into the fore at that point in time, and we were able to have her apply for a position in the Stakeholder Management Branch which was newly created.
Her application didn't get through, it was a pretty lousy first application for a Public Service entity. We found out her young daughter had been in hospital all that weekend and she struggled in that application. There was enough in the core of the application for us to say, "The interest is there, the drive is there", and we moved Tatiana into the Stakeholder Branch as an intern.
10 months on she's applied for one of the jobs, and she has won, as merit selection, that position, increasing her salary by 100% virtually over night, and she's negotiated, having won the position - has negotiated to do that three days a week at the moment, and four days from November. She's still able to control how much she can interact in the workplace and that sort of thing.
It was a really great win for her, and myself and her manager to see her win that position.
SUZANNE COLBERT: They are really good stories. Before we wrap up, I want to offer you the opportunity - it's not often you'll have a chance to ask questions to employers that might relate to the direction you want to go in your career.
Are there any questions while we have the three organisations that have worked so hard to create level playing fields that you feel will help you navigate your pathway forward?
QUESTION: I have a question for, John. My name is Jeff Maddox, a Disability Officer here At Uni NSW. I was reading in the newspaper about changes to the Disability Support Pension, which will make it more difficult to get, and a lot of the disability support organisations are in favour of the changes, but they are pointing out that the proportion of public servants with disabilities has halved over a period of years - you mentioned 3%, and it used to be over 6%. That was in the 1980s.
So I wonder if there's any comment you can make about that, and why that might have changed and what the possibilities are for it to increase again.
JOHN NORTON: Thanks for the opportunity. It's a good question, and I referred to the decline - not as sharply as that - in my introduction.
Look, I think there are a few contributing factors to that decline. One is that over that period - there's other stark figures in that period as well. The Public Service in '99 was sitting on 101,000 employees. We'd been through three years of radical job cuts, you might recall, after the Howard Government came in in '96.
From '99 we have grown by 50,000. We are sitting at 151,000 employees. And in real terms we have dropped by 500 people with disabilities in absolute terms. And so in percentage terms we are at 5% at '99 and a bit higher in the mid '80s. We are now 3%.
The other factor in that probably - that is worthy of note is the increase for the status of our employees, so we are at 17% of those we didn't have any status for in '99. We didn't know if they had disability or not. It's now over 30%. So one third of our work force we are not sure about.
When we run a confidential random sample survey, we get it up to about 7% of people that disclose. That is better, but we'd like to see it, you know, closely aligned to the percentage of people with disability of the working age population, which is about 14.8%, I think, if I have the figures right. According to the Bureau of Stats.
We are part way there. Some of the things - HR systems are failing us. The 3% comes from all of the Departments, based on what their HR is telling us. Some systems don't prompt for disclosure automatically, and others don't go back and ask again. What we say is good practice in agencies with a better disclosure rate - they prompt at the beginning and regularly go back to ask the question again.
It does vary across the Departments. Unfortunately some Departments are not faring well. Defence is one - I shouldn't name them - but do well in other areas of support. There's variations around how the data is captured and supported. We don't have a lot of power there in terms of getting agencies to invest in their systems to improve that.
One of the other factors is, over that period also, the most junior levels of the Public Service - there was a lot of contracting out of labour. I'm not for a moment suggesting that all people with disability would fit into the junior roles. When you look at the pyramid, the lower level classifications, there's a lot of positions disappearing in that outsourcing agenda. That is starting to turn around.
We are working with Suzanne Colbert and other places on how we might start to shape jobs and come back to looking at the whole workforce and people with specific capabilities, where they may fit into particular roles.
So it's a fairly complex equation, and it's not where we'd like to be. The sorts of things we are doing to try to improve that - what we are trying to do is remove the barriers we see for employer demand, if you like. Some of that is attitudinal, and Ros mentioned that as well. So sort of raising awareness and education particularly for hiring managers.
So we have done a review of our leadership development products, and we are - where we can, we are inserting new content around the business case for the employment of people with disability, because while there's a good moral case, I think everyone gets that, there is increasingly an economic argument around a tightening labour market, and the Warfer(?) talent - the three of us are saying, "Come and work for us, we want the best and brightest in our organisations contributing to what we have to offer."
So on the economic argument side, shrinking, tightening labour market, and here is a pool of talent that is not recognised perhaps, or hasn't been tapped into as much as it could have been.
SUZANNE COLBERT: John, one of the things that I think I have noticed, and it's happening in some of the larger Departments and some of them actually have got proposals to counteract this, but it's very hard. If you need to have this done differently to participate in a bulk hire, where a Department is recruiting 600 people, and it has to be done within a week, it's a bit like herding cattle into an assessment centre, and you are put through a battery of tests, and you come out the other end.
So if you need to have things done differently, that is not the way to apply for a role, because it's just not going to work for you. As much as possible, if you need to have things done differently, you need to let the employer know and be, you know, apply your judgment about the organisation that you are considering wanting to work for.
Have a good look at their website. Speak to somebody; be, as Graham said, proactive about calling someone up and saying, "I'd really like to ask you a few questions about your organisation". That's absolutely fine. And all the organisation will think is, "This is someone who is interested in us, but they want to know more about us", and that helps it, them, become more focussed on their capacity to make those individual adjustments as well as you not putting in, perhaps, two days work filling out selection criteria for a recruitment process that was - that would always be a challenge for you.
In the one minute remaining, I want to ask John and Ros to give us their one hot tip for students, to make that transition from study to employment. John?
JOHN NORTON: One hot tip. In less than a minute. That's tough. I'd pick the differentiation angle. Think about what you as an individual are passionate about, what you bring to the organisation. Do your homework on the research, find the agency offering the alignment with your passion, do your homework.
The Internet is fantastic. You can get on, Google it. Every job has a contact officer. Make the phone call, talk to them, they may refer you to someone else. Do that inquiry and make sure you get the alignment, and make sure you're pitching yourself in a way that makes you the best candidate for the role.
SUZANNE COLBERT: Thanks, John. Ann.
ANN PITKEATHLY: I'd certainly agree with the - you know, find the unique strength you bring to a role. I think I would add make sure you are objective in applying to the job. Many of you will open your resume with an objective statement. Make sure it's reasonable, feasible. Sometimes by narrowing it down - it might be your absolute passion, but may be something that an employer can't see you doing straight out of uni.
So they need to see that there is that capacity in you to fulfil that objective. Just be a little aware of the words you use around some of those objectives, and make sure that they are reasonable, feasible, but inspiring for an employer to read.
SUZANNE COLBERT: Thanks, Ann. Rosalind Reidy, your hot tip.
ROS REIDY: Tailor your CV to the role. Don't send out a stock-standard one. That's what the employer is looking for. Research the organisation. There's information on the web. Go on and look at the organisation so you come into the interview really well prepared; and as Ann and John were saying, you can sell to the hirer what you are going to bring that's different to that organisation.
And the last thing I would say is be enthusiastic. Enthusiasm is just something that every recruiter looks for and just wants to bottle. It's just so invaluable. Be enthusiastic, prepared, do your research and tailor that CV to the job.
SUZANNE COLBERT: Thank you. Enthusiasm is absolutely contagious, and every manager wants to have their workplace filled with people who are enthusiastic about the mission and the business of that organisation. So as much as you can bring that and be genuine about that, don't apply for a role that barely lights your fire because the most important thing that you can do in your first role out of uni is to create success and create results that will be the foundation of your future career, where you can share with lots of your employers and really make the difference as Graeme suggested.
Thank you. Thank you to the panel.
APPLAUSE
RITA KUSEVSKIS-HAYES: Yes, here is the action plan everybody. So have a good thing about what you can take away from this session. I think I would like to say a thank you to Suzanne Colbert for bringing out a really indepth discussion covering so many facets of employment life, and applying for jobs, but also I'd love to thank, as well, Rosalind Reidy, and John Norton and Ann Pitkeathly, for giving their honest experience and feedback they have provided.
They will be around for morning tea. Yes, I see everyone about to sit up. We are about to have a caffeine and sugar hit and a walk and get fresh air. Everyone is looking tired.
After morning tea, which is on until 11:30, we'll break up into groups where you get to talk and throw around a few ideas, ask lots of questions. So now is the time to make sure that you have a great morning tea. Network with as many people as you can, and Graeme Innes had to leave, he had another appointment he didn't know about, he apologises. I am sure we can get on his blog, Facebook or Twitter him. I think he'll laugh about that.
Where we are heading off to is per the program. Everyone has a print copy of the program in their bags. There was one online. Anybody still needs print materials or USBs with any of the electronic material, it's on the registration desk. If you get lost during the day, come back to the registration desk, people will help you out. We are about to go for a walk across the walkway and have morning tea at the Sam Cracknell Pavillion, which has lifts, it has stairs, and it has lots of nice food.
Because there's a few people who didn't turn up, have second and third helpings, and after that we'll come back to the workshops, there'll be one group stationed here, and two upstairs. It's up to you, they are all the same. They have a range of different presenters who will be there. They are listed up on the slide.
Basically when you come back from morning tea at 11:30, you can come into this room if you want the Auslan interpreters or the captioning, otherwise head upstairs for an intimate environment. After that, surprisingly, we have lunch. We'll sit around and talk, have lunch at 12.45.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Will all four groups run?
RITA KUSEVSKIS-HAYES: Yes. If you can position yourself in the room, if one room has one person, I don't want them to feel intimidated or threatened by having three or four facilitators. We'll work out the space upstairs. Volunteers will stand along the walkway to help you to Sam Cracknell Pavillion and back, but do have a look through your goody bag, check out the program, the times are there, and presenters who have come along, or facilitators, if you haven't picked up, there are envelopes at the registration desk and certificates of appreciation.
Now it's time to eat, and the next time we are back in here is after lunch.
JOHN NORTON: Can I identify two of my colleagues.
RITA KUSEVSKIS-HAYES: John.
JOHN NORTON: I will be here during morning tea. I need to leave after. I forgot to mention while I was on stage, I have two colleagues here for the rest of the day, Lucy and Eileen. You can talk to them after morning tea if you have questions that come to mind after I have gone.
RITA KUSEVSKIS-HAYES: Thank you, John. Make sure you talk to and grab as many people as you can. Okay, I'll see you after lunch.