Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today, I will speak about the issue of grandparents raising their grandchildren. This is not the first time that I have spoken about the issue and the circumstances of grandparents in this situation, but last week I met with Sue Baile of Wanslea, and we spoke about it. Wanslea provide services to families and children, and they have a program called Grandcare.

It is an unfortunate fact that in Cowan—and in fact everywhere around the country—for a range of reasons many grandparents are now the full-time carers of their grandchildren. The reasons may be that the grandchildren have been orphaned, but the reason I hear of most is drugs. The parents are no longer capable or sadly, in many cases, willing to fulfil their responsibilities as parents. When Sue and I spoke about this, she told me that it is common in Western Australia for the grandparents to contact the Department for Child Protection if they are concerned about the safety and welfare of their grandchildren. What then happens is that the priority for action by DCP is immediate danger. Grandparents are obviously very sensitive to the increasing impact on their grandchildren of the neglect that comes from a home ravaged by the scourge of illicit drugs, whereas DCP's priorities are about life-threatening danger and, of course, the evil of sexual abuse. This then means that grandparents are likely to intervene themselves by taking their grandchildren rather than waiting for DCP to act.

Once the grandparent or grandparents take the grandchildren, DCP does not prioritise them, as the grandchildren are not in the situation of concern anymore. It means that they are not officially made foster parents and cannot get the same foster parent payments that official foster parents receive via DCP. As Sue Baile told me, it is also the case that often the family tax benefits for the child remain with the parents rather than going with the child to the grandparent looking after the child. I am told that the reason for this is that in some cases the grandparents do not want to risk full estrangement from their own children. In some communities, there is also a risk that asking Centrelink for the FTB will make the parents violent.

This is a difficult situation for grandparents in a financial sense—significantly greater and unplanned costs, but with no or little government support. Grandparents in this situation are at risk of some social isolation from their peers. For most grandparents, the visiting of the grandchildren is not a seven-day-a-week experience. Sue told me that grandparents permanently looking after their grandchildren are not included by their peers as much in social occasions.

After my meeting with Sue, I immediately wrote to the state minister, Helen Morton, and acknowledged that the state government has instituted the Grandparent Support Scheme, which offers the opportunity for grandparents to be recognised as being a full-time carer and to receive a payment. This is good news. But it does seem that if they are full-time carers then they are the foster parents too and should receive the fortnightly foster parent payment. It would also then be appropriate that the person recognised as the foster parent should receive the family tax benefits for the children or child that they are looking after.

It is my view that there is a need for state-federal coordination to ensure that recognition as the grandparent at the state level will result in the obligatory transfer of the FTB to the grandparent. This will go some way to assist grandparents in the challenges that this role currently presents to them.

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