The ABC in Wide Bay have reported on the Endeavour timberyard in Maryborough, Queensland, which employs 43 people with a disability. The yard produces over 800,000 wooden stakes for the mines and construction industries, with people with disability running all the machinery and driving the forklifts. It is one of 28 sites that Endevour run nationally to give people with disability the skills to keep them in employment. 

In the television report, journalist Pat Heagney interviews Kirsten Drier, a person with autism, who has worked for the facility for ten years and is now training others in the operation of the machinery. Endeavour Senior Business Manager Scott Reed says, “It’s about providing the opportunity for our employees to go as far as they want to go, in their own time.”  

The website report quotes State Manager of NDS in Queensland Jason McKey: "There is certainly some stigma surrounding employing people with disability Australia-wide. A lot of it is basically ignorance on the part of people not realising the terrific potential that they're missing out on by employing people with disability."

You can read the full story and watch the video on the ABC news site.