In a keynote address at a Disability Employment Reform event in Sydney on 23 May, Minister Rishworth gave extensive detail on the new DES program and associated budget initiatives. The Minister’s address highlighted her commitment to reforming DES through the removal of barriers and ensuring that service providers strive for excellence, deliver quality services, adopt best practice and focus on continuous improvement.

The Minister also emphasised that the new DES Quality Framework would ensure that DES participants received services that better reflected their needs, with the KPI for service quality given equal importance with the other two DES KPIs, efficiency and effectiveness.