Mable CEO Peter Scutt defended the care and disability worker platform he co-founded as the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety resumed on Monday.
Senior Counsel Assisting Peter Gray QC raised questions on online worker platforms, arguing without regulation there’s no compulsion for these platforms to follow best practice.
Mr Scutt disagreed, insisting it made sense from a business point of view.
“I think it’s also the right thing to be doing for a business. We think of our business as a for profit, for purpose business. And unless we actually deliver on the purpose, we don’t have a sustainable business and so having sensible safeguards in place that protect both customers of the platform, the workers and the consumers, you don’t have a long-term future if you’re not thinking about that.”
When asked by the Senior Counsel Assisting whether digital platforms should be regulated, Mr Scutt recommended a “proportionate approach”.
“They potentially could be regulated to ensure that workers offering services via those platforms meet some of the regulatory requirements of those workers,” he said.
“And that’s essentially the approach we would take in the NDIS space in any case without it being formalised, that’s the approach we take in aged care without it being formalised.”
