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Store chain admits it does not know how many disabled people it employs after row over commissioner's petition http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/02/myer-defends-its-record-disability Myer asked the attorney general to investigate whether the disability discrimination commissioner was acting outside his mandate. Photograph: WILLIAM WEST/AFP/Getty Images Australia’s largest department store group, Myer, has defended its record on disability inclusion but also conceded that it is unaware of the exact number of disabled people it employs, following a heated public debate that has seen Australia’s disability discrimination commissioner call on the company to improve its record. Graeme Innes, the disability discrimination commissioner, launched a petition in May calling on Myer to commit to increasing the number of disabled people it employed to 10% of the entire workforce by 2015. The petition, which now has 35,000 signatures, followed controversial comments from the chief executive of Myer, Bernie Brookes, when he claimed that the increased Medicare levy to fund the National Disability Insurance Scheme would hinder sales at Myer stores. A spokeswoman for the company, which employs over 12,000 people, said it was proud of its record on diversity issues. She said Myer employed a “significant number of people with a disability” and drew attention to their diversity policy, which “explicitly includes disability in its definition, as well as gender, age, ethnicity, cultural background and language”. She said that Myer supported 70 community organisations, a number of which were involved in “assisting people with a disability”, although they were unable to provide a specific number. Under the Disability Discrimination Act there is no requirement for companies to disclose or record the number of employees with a disability, or for them to set disability targets. But the act also allows for companies to sign up to a “disability action plan” where employers register public targets to combat disability discrimination. Myer have not registered a scheme. But Suzanne Colbert, chief executive of the Australian Network on Disability (AND), the country’s foremost disability consultancy group, said the majority of its member companies asked employees about their disabilities in an “appropriate and sensitive way” in order to better improve their record on inclusion. AND’s members include high-profile retailers such as Woolworths and McDonald’s, but Myer is not a member. Colbert said all AND members were “light years ahead of Myer” in terms of disability provision, for both staff members and customers. She added that AND had supplied Myer with a recent report on how to welcome disabled customers, but had heard nothing back from the company. She said: “Myer need to be expert retailers. They can’t – and neither should the community expect them to – understand the demographics of our community. The reason we have a network of employers on disability is so that those organisations can work together to build their competence and confidence in welcoming people with disability as customers and employees.” The Australian Human Rights Commission president, Gillian Triggs, was forced to defend Innes’s petition on Monday evening following news that Myer had asked the attorney general to investigate whether the disability discrimination commissioner was acting outside of his mandate as a government official by launching the campaign. Speaking on Lateline, Triggs described the decision to go to the attorney general as “very unfortunate”. She said: "We attempted to work with Myer to see how we could turn an unfortunate remark into something that was more positive. "The notion of, broadly speaking, a target of 10% of disabled people within a workforce is a very common workplace strategy." The shadow attorney general, George Brandis, has also weighed into the debate, saying Innes acted inappropriately. “It is not an appropriate use of the advocacy function of the Human Rights Commission to pursue what appears to be a vendetta against an individual company or to seek to inflict reputational harm upon it," he told the Australian.