Non-profit The Disability Trust has been identified as the preferred buyer to take over disability employment provider Bedford, in an agreement that the federal health minister says “secures the jobs of hundreds and hundreds of South Australians who live with a disability”.<\/p>\n
The state and federal governments have been in talks over the weekend with The Disability Trust as well as major creditor National Australia Bank for a deal that is “subject to support from creditors”.<\/p>\n
SA Premier Peter Malinauskas made the announcement to hundreds of cheering Bedford clients at the organisation’s Panorama site on Monday morning.<\/p>\n
“This morning I am very pleased to be able to announce that we have secured a new buyer for Bedford,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Most importantly, every single employee here at Bedford is going to keep their job.”<\/p>\n
Earlier this morning, Mr Malinauskas told ABC Radio Adelaide that a piece of land at the Panorama site, jointly owned by the state government and Bedford, would be handed to the new provider.<\/p>\n
“My view is if government isn’t willing to hand over land at a moment like this, then when would we?” he said.<\/p>\n
“I think the necessity here of reaching a long-term solution was paramount.”<\/p>\n
Federal health minister Mark Butler today said the Commonwealth has put an additional $13.2 million on the table, after providing $4.4 million in October to keep Bedford afloat<\/a>.<\/p>\n “This is the best deal possible for everyone concerned. It’s come at significant expense,” he told ABC Radio Adelaide.<\/p>\n “This is a long-term solution, if it’s supported by creditors and I’m very confident it will be.”<\/p>\n Bedford avoided entering voluntary administration in July<\/a> when the SA government offered a $15 million lifeline in exchange for of one of the organisation’s supported accommodation sites.<\/a><\/p>\n According to its website, Bedford is the second-largest employer of people with disabilities in the nation, and has 22 sites across Adelaide and regional South Australia.<\/p>\n Loading<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Non-profit The Disability Trust has been identified as the preferred buyer to take over disability employment provider Bedford,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,19301,99,166635,180,20731,29955,117979,24805,37165,39493],"class_list":["post-289229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bedford-group","tag-business","tag-disability-employment-provider","tag-jobs","tag-mark-butler","tag-mcgrathnicol","tag-national-australia-bank","tag-peter-malinauskas","tag-support-package","tag-voluntary-administration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}