Judi Moylan (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On Monday I had the opportunity to address the House for five minutes on the report on carers, Who cares …? I am pleased to have time to continue to address important issues which arose in the course of the inquiry. At the outset, I want to acknowledge the work of the chair of the committee, the member for Canberra, and all members of the committee for their commitment to improving the lives of carers. I particularly want to thank the secretariat and the secretary of the committee, Alison Clegg, and the assistant secretary, James Catchpole, who had to sift through the tsunami of submissions that came in as a result of this inquiry. They came in from all over the country.

None of us on that committee were left in any doubt that too many carers feel desperate, depressed and isolated. For the last year the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family, Community, Housing and Youth has travelled to many parts of Australia, teleconferenced, and pored over the 1,300 submissions, mostly received from individual carers. We were both privileged and saddened to hear the heart-wrenching stories from carers who found the courage to share the day-to-day challenges of caring with members of the committee.

Each carer had a very personal story to tell, a very different story to tell. Some people are caring for ageing parents, others are caring for children, siblings or friends, and some—indeed, a surprising number—are children caring for parents. However, all are united in their common concerns that not enough is being done by government to support them. Indeed, I would add to that that not enough is being done by government or the community to support them because the sense of isolation that is felt by these people is indeed very real. They want to be recognised, valued and supported, and they deserve to be recognised, valued and supported.

The 50 recommendations made in our report Who cares …? reveals the essence of what carers want, and our response cannot finish there. Like the other members of the committee, I await the government’s response with the hope that these recommendations are given the weight they deserve. While time restrictions on this debate do not allow me to talk to each of the 50 recommendations, they can be loosely grouped along the following lines. First, a very common thread in the evidence before the committee was that carers want to be recognised and they want a value placed on the service that they give. I do not think that that is unrealistic or unfair in any sense. The second common point was that a single government entity, a single service entry point for carers, would make their lives so much less complicated. Many of the people who care for family members or friends who have illnesses and have conditions that are very complex require also very complex care needs. Very often carers are defeated by having to go through layers of bureaucracy in order to receive the care and the help that they need in their caring role.

The third area is program delivery improvement so that the short supply and uneven distribution of services, particularly in regional and remote areas and particularly recognising the needs of Indigenous people, can be addressed. The fourth area is adequacy of case management and care coordination. It would be perhaps a greater recognition of the complexity that confronts many carers to have a proper case management system and an appropriate care coordination approach. The fifth area is advocacy services. They need to be improved and expanded. It is not just those being cared for who require advocacy; very often those who are caring also require advocacy services.

A number of factors fall under the sixth area, legal issues. This includes the examination of privacy provisions, particularly for carers of people with mental health problems. One of the failings that seemed to be apparent in the evidence that came before us was that quite often the medical profession, particularly psychiatrists and sometimes psychologists, fail to keep the primary carer in the loop. Changing medications for some people with mental disability without advising a carer can place them in an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation. These are people who, when their medications are altered, can become suicidal. This is a very serious matter and there are concerns that privacy provisions prevent psychiatrists and other mental health professionals from dealing with the person with the primary responsibility for the care of an individual with a mental illness. They are not taken into the management plan, and this does put the lives of people with mental illness at risk. It is something that should be addressed, I think, as a matter of urgency and priority.

The seventh area was the restructuring of financial support to reflect different levels of care: increase the base rate of carer payment, reduce disincentives for carers to earn and examine the adequacy of assistance for aids. It is a very costly business to care for some people in some circumstances. Particularly where they need wheelchairs, the cost is very high and the subsidy available to people to provide a wheelchair is very low in comparison. These are not the kinds of people who sometimes can be involved in full-time work earning the sort of money that would help them raise the capital to purchase a wheelchair or, indeed, adapt a motor vehicle or a home so that a person with a disability can live independently.

The eighth area was around workforce issues, including building capacity within the care sector and staff retention within that sector—again, a very important area that needs to be addressed. The ninth area was systems management, including reviewing Centrelink’s data capture and management system, so that carers do not fill out multiple forms, and training Centrelink staff to provide specialised care. The filling out of forms defeats many carers and they give up in the end. Often these cases are very sensitive. It would appear from evidence that was given that, no matter how hard Centrelink staff may try—and I acknowledge the work they do and the pressure they are often under—they are not given sufficient training to be able to offer the kind of specialised advice that carers frequently need.

As the need for care and the costs grow, I believe there is also a need to examine a national disability insurance scheme. A submission from MS Australia noted that, while more work is needed in the design of such a scheme:

A disability insurance scheme with a capacity to fund rehabilitation and lifetime care is a necessity for Australia’s health system from both a financing and service delivery perspective.

As I noted in the additional comments I made to the report, adequate funding for respite during working hours to enable carers to have greater workforce participation along with affordable, available day care and respite facilities is a necessity for working carers. Why is it in this country that there is an expectation that families with children will have access to affordable, high-quality childcare centres, and yet parents who are caring for children with profound disabilities find it difficult to get a placement in the small number of facilities that are available in order for them to be able to take their place in the workforce? No wonder they feel isolated, no wonder they feel undervalued, no wonder they feel desperate, because when they cannot access work, there is a whole flow-on effect. Try living on this carer payment. Try living on a disability pension. I challenge everyone in this House to think about just how difficult it is. And yet these people have no option sometimes but to stay at home and care because there is nowhere to put their child or the person who they care for. There is nowhere to place them during the day with appropriate care.

For this group of people, that also means it is almost impossible to have any superannuation savings. So in old age the carers become the poor and marginalised in our community because there simply is not any superannuation for them to draw on. They are totally at the mercy of the old age pension. Again, I ask everyone in this House to think about how difficult it is to live on that pension. I know that there are limits to what we can do, but we need to have a safety net. In many ways it is a nominal safety net, but nevertheless it provides a great deal of hardship for many people in this country.

For ageing carers, accommodation options are critical. Commonly these carers ask, ‘Who will look after my son or daughter if something happens to me, if I get sick or if I die?’ A dramatic increase in funding needs to be directed to this purpose, and I would beg the government to find, from the $6.4 billion social housing budget, money to support these parents in Australia who are continuing in their old age to care for a dependant. These dependants, who have serious disabilities, could be in their 50s with a parent aged anywhere from 65 through to 80-plus. These carers still do not know what is going to happen to the person they care for when they get sick or when they pass away. It is a great source of anxiety for this category of carer. I table a document from such a parent, because I think it illuminates the frustration and the sheer anxiety that is caused from not addressing this particular issue.

The frustration in dealing with the complex system of assistance was explained to me in one submission from a carer who said:

Although services are available to carers, trying to access these services is akin to being in an ever increasing maze with illegible signposts so that the carer never really knows where to go or which direction to take.

The report asks the question: who cares? If we are to answer ‘we care’, then we need to confront the issues facing carers head on and match the rhetoric with reality and exercise our political will to ensure a better future for carers. The recommendations made in this report will make a difference to the lives of carers now and into the future, and inaction is simply unacceptable. The government response to this report must send an unequivocal message that we care.

Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a member of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family, Community, Housing and Youth, I am very pleased to be able to speak today on this report on better support for carers, Who cares …?. This report has taken almost 12 months. The committee received a large number of submissions, over 1,300, but the most interesting thing about that is that around 1,200 were actually from individual carers, from people who had taken the time to tell us their personal stories. We also heard directly, as we went around the country, from around 250 witnesses, including in my home state of Tasmania. Indeed, a personal friend of mine was one of the witnesses giving evidence about the role she plays in caring for her son with a disability.

This report highlights the role carers play in detail. Just as importantly, it highlights the juggling they do and stress they are under as they go about their daily lives. Our carers, the people we spoke to in preparing this report, are our spouses, parents, grandparents, children, siblings and sometimes our friends or neighbours. Their stories were a sobering reminder of the difficult lives carers live, some of them being thrust into their caring role without notice, and some even without wanting it. Their stories were quite distressing, for them and for everyone in the room who heard them. But we needed to hear them to fully understand.

It is estimated by the ABS that around 2.5 million or 13 per cent of Australians identify themselves as carers, and one in five of these is a primary carer. That is around half a million Australians who provide the main daily care for someone, day in day out—someone doing such tasks as dressing or feeding the person that they care for. As I have said, around 91 per cent of them are actually related to the person they care for. As we all live longer lives and the population ages and the population grows, the number of carers required in Australia is only going to increase. As the report notes, research from the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling, or NATSEM, estimates there will be a 160 per cent increase in the number of people over 65 needing care. From this it is clear we need to act, and we need to properly understand the current situation.

The really big issue in the report that we heard as we listened to evidence and that we read in the submissions was the lack of respite care and certainly the ability in many cases for people only to be able to access respite care if they are in a dire emergency—if they have been coping and coping and coping until it gets to the point where they cannot cope any longer. For many of them this was the only time they actually got access to respite care. This, for me, was very telling. When I say respite care, I am talking about outside home care, but we also heard about the lack of in-home care available. Obviously when you are caring for someone on a day-to-day basis, sometimes it is too exhausting to get the person you are caring for out of the home, or it is just not possible to move them outside of the home, so this in-home respite care is also as critical as outside respite care.

As the previous speaker mentioned, another big issue for carers is the lack of recognition for their role and the contribution that carers make in our society. I think most people, if we asked them about carers, would generally say that, yes, they know they play a vital role, but I do not think many people fully appreciate just how difficult it can be to be a carer. The physical and emotional and social impacts of caring on the wellbeing of not just the carer but also their families, their siblings and their relatives are significant. They can become unwell or get depressed, or they can feel social isolation due to their inability to socialise with their friends and do what we would consider ordinary daily activities such as exercising or going outside for a walk in the park.

Also apparent was the lack of assistance for carers to develop the range of skills they need to actually provide the care they are currently providing. For many carers there is no training or support on how to do some of the caring things that they are required to do for the person for whom they are caring. The financial stress was another important issue raised. Many carers and their families have financial stresses as a direct result of their caring role. We heard that this does vary greatly, depending on the level and type of disability of the person being cared for. We have heard from previous speakers about the maze of services that carers access, and the problems with accessing necessary and relevant information on the support and services available to carers. This extends in many cases to even knowing what sort of support is actually available for them to access.

The other thing that we noted was that there was a great dissatisfaction with existing community care and how it is provided. It appears that the systems do vary greatly from state to state and even from region to region. There also appears to be a large amount of unmet need in relation to community care and the cost of accessing some of the services is prohibitive for carers.

One of the other issues is the lack of choice for carers in relation to participation in the workforce and/or education, and we heard that there are shortages of respite or alternative care and daily programs for the care receiver and often inflexible workplace practices which mean that people are unable to leave work to perform their caring role. There is also much frustration around the amount of paperwork and assessments that carers endure.

This will give you a bit more of a picture: consider a carer at home caring for somebody 24 hours a day. While they are doing that they are expected to access all their services, know what services are there, know how to access them, try to go to work, try to have a normal relationship with other people, access the paperwork and assessments required by Centrelink and other such services and deal with the financial stress of caring for the person they are caring for. It is no wonder these people are really having a tough time out there. That is why the mental health and the health and wellbeing of carers are something that we need to address.

The report looks at around 50 recommendations, and I believe that these recommendations, if implemented, would address some of the issues we have raised. Some of the things include improving research and data, because there does not appear to be enough research and data to provide accurate information on what is really happening out there, and certainly the identification of people as carers is not as high as it probably should and could be. The other thing we looked at was the need for a national carer recognition framework which would look at a national strategy to assist carers and also some legislation to protect carers’ rights.

There were some recommendations in relation to additional financial support, including some acknowledgement of the level of financial costs associated with the specific caring role carers undertake as well as the specific needs of the person they are caring for. There are some recommendations in relation to changes in the assessment processes with Centrelink. As we heard, Centrelink do the best they can in terms of the guidelines they are working with but there is no doubt that, if you have got a profoundly disabled child whose condition is not going to improve, filling in the same form three, four or five times is not serving anybody. Providing support for carers to remain in the workforce and/or education or to re-enter the workforce or education after their caring role was also part of the recommendations.

The other thing I want to touch on before I finish is what the government has actually done so far in supporting carers. We have, during the time this inquiry was being undertaken, already provided some support for carers. Last year there was a one-off payment of $1,000 provided to those receiving carer payment and those on carer allowance were provided with $600 assistance for each person they cared for. In this year’s budget the Rudd government has introduced a $600 payment and carer supplement for all carer payment recipients, and this is a payment that we have now legislated for each and every year. It is in recognition of the additional costs of caring. I think that is a great step forward.

We have also provided for those on carer allowance an extra $600 a year for each person they are caring for—again legislated for in each and every year. We have also had some recent legislation, which I spoke on in this place: the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Improved Support for Carers) Bill, which makes improvements for those seeking assistance with caring for a child with a profound disability. That addresses some of the things I was talking about before regarding paperwork.

What we really need to look at now is where we go from here. There are many recommendations in the report that I have been unable to touch on today. I urge all those interested in providing better support for carers to read the report and the recommendations. I am sure that the Rudd government will respond to the report, as I know that Minister Macklin, who referred to the inquiry to the committee, is very supportive.

In conclusion, I want to put on record that I think carers are really important in our society. This report certainly opened my eyes to just how difficult their situation is. They do need greater choice, support and flexibility. They need respite, inside or outside their home. They need a helping hand from government and from society so that they can engage with all levels of our community. I want to thank the committee secretariat and the chair of the committee for their support and for the valuable assistance they have provided over the last 12 months. The hope of the committee is that this is the beginning of a better understanding of the caring role and its importance to all in our society. I have been proud to be involved in this report and its recommendations and the work we have achieved over the 12 months.

Brett Raguse (Forde, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to add to the words of the previous speaker, the member for Franklin, who, as a member of the committee, had a huge role to play in looking at the data and information that we collected during the inquiry. In rising to speak on the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family, Community, Housing and Youth report Who cares …?, I should say that I regard myself as being privileged to be a member of that committee during its inquiry into the issues of carers. For someone like me, who, as an elected representative, has a lot of involvement with the community, until you start to dig into the issues surrounding carers in our community and until you have heard their stories you do not really understand exactly what people are dealing with day by day as carers. I would like to acknowledge the contributions of the chair of our committee, the member for Canberra, and the deputy chair, the member for Pearce, who spoke earlier today. From her role in the previous government, she certainly had a wider view and a much closer understanding of the issues affecting carers. Her participation in the inquiry added a lot to our understanding as new members.

We understand that carers have a tough job. If you are caring for a family member, it is even tougher. Many people who care for their children do it voluntarily. There are also a substantial number of people who care for many other family members or friends of family. Last week, the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs visited my electorate to speak to pensioners and carers about changes in the budget. I will talk briefly about some of the recommendations as we go through, and I will look at some of the early responses that we as a government have made to this report. The Rudd government have made a commitment to carers that we will review the current system. This report is certainly a first step in doing that.

The report speaks about many of the issues that concern people day by day. There are about 50 recommendations that I urge those who may not have the time to go through the detail of the report to read. The recommendations inform the reader about some of the issues that underlie them. I know that for both sides of the House this report will be a very good source of information and reference document for future years. It will also inform the budgetary decisions that need to be made on how we can provide better support.

This morning I want to share with the chamber a couple of the recommendations. Recommendation 2 says:

That the Australian Government, through the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and the Department of Health and Ageing support a national community education campaign to promote a better understanding of the role and needs of carers, and an appreciation of the contribution that carers make to society.

The recommendation goes on to say:

The campaign should also include components to promote increased awareness of their role among ‘hidden’ carers who may not readily self-identify and to address the concerns of carers who may be reluctant to disclose their role to others.

Carers wear many hats. Some are mothers. Some have full-time or part-time work. Some are young people who are still at high school. As a member of the committee it was a privilege to hear the evidence given by those different groups and to be able to share the very personal details of those who gave evidence at the roundtables. A tissue box was well used amongst not only people giving evidence but also members of the committee. To hear some of the heart-rending stories was quite amazing. For me, to be a participant and hear those stories firsthand was very, very important.

A carer is not a typical person. The recommendation for an awareness campaign to promote the differing roles of carers and their needs to a wider audience would be welcome by carers and carer groups. When you find yourself in a caring role it is not something you necessarily publicise to the outside world. There are a whole range of issues surrounding that, including the privacy of the person being cared for and the emotional torment those being cared for and those who are giving their care have to deal with. There are also the financial constraints that people find themselves dealing with in the role of being a carer.

The frustration was clear from the carers that people really do not understand. The presentation of this report is one step, but certainly as elected members our role is to go back to our communities and raise these issues when we are talking to various groups. All groups one way or another are affected by the caring role that people provide. If we talk about groups like Parliamentary Friends of People with a Disability, within all those groups there are people who find themselves in a caring role. It is a much wider issue than certainly I as an elected representative understood until I was involved in this committee.

The problem, of course, is that until we can get a report like this tabled, which we are doing, and get people more informed with that campaign to make other people in our community more aware of the role that carers provide, which is very important, carers need immediate support. In that context, recommendation 18 is also worth noting. Recommendation 18 says:

That the Australian government significantly increase the base rate of carer payments.

The budget this year was in fact able to recognise that as an immediate issue. We were able as a government to provide the increase in the budget. The Rudd government is committed to providing support for carers, as they are the unsung heroes. The government acted very quickly on that particular recommendation. In the budget the Treasurer announced an annual supplement of $600 for carer payment recipients. Recipients of the carer allowance will also receive $600 per person that they are caring for. Carers Australia CEO Joan Hughes said the $600 per year supplement for those receiving carer payment and the $600 per year in carer allowances per eligible recipient were ‘very welcome’, because their status was assured in future budgets. Joan Hughes said:

Planning for the future will be a little bit easier now they know they will get this supplement each year.

This payment and the increases in carer payments for both the singles and couples will go some way to helping those carers on Centrelink payments better manage their finances.

In Australia there are approximately 380,000 young carers under the age of 26. Out of these it is estimated that 170,600 are under the age of 18. We heard evidence directly from some as young as 15 providing direct care to a family member or loved one. Currently, 433,000 people receive carer payments, but we know that there are many who do not receive payments. This legislation is about being able to reach out to those who have not previously been able to receive payment because of the loophole. The commitment we have made in the budget is to help identify those people who should be carer payment recipients.

One of the interesting things in the evidence given by many at the hearings was their lack of understanding of what the government could provide to them. Many have found themselves in the role of carer suddenly, sometimes overnight. Through an accident or a medical emergency, they find themselves directly in a caring role. There are support mechanisms and many carer organisations—too many to mention them all—like Carers Australia and Carers Queensland who provide some of that on-the-ground support. As elected representatives our role back in our communities—across both sides of the House—is to not only let people self-identify as carers but also provide them an understanding of how the government can provide support to them. In my electorate of Forde we have identified nearly 3,500 carers. They are those who are identified and probably receiving at this stage some form of benefit. But we do know that there are some people who do not even know that the role they perform every day is a caring one. Education directed to those people and those who support them is also very important.

There are a number of people in my electorate whom I would like to recognise and acknowledge for their work in the area of disabilities, because disabilities obviously make up a major part of the caring responsibility. I would like to mention Roger Taufel, a man who has concerns for his disabled son. It was identified in the report that people like Roger are very much aware of what happens when they get to the point of not being able to care for their children. When they pass on, what then? One of the discussions in the report was about supported accommodation. It is probably a future role for the committee to hopefully investigate issues along the lines of how we may provide better supported accommodation for those young people who find themselves in nursing homes and how we can find a comfortable situation for families where the parents and the carers are getting too old—a comfortable situation not only for the carers but also for the person who is being cared for. Roger Taufel is pushing hard with a proposal and what I believe may be a model for that sort of approach. It is something the government should hear more about.

On a previous occasion, I mentioned Graham Popple in this House and his caring role for his wife. For some eight years, Graham has cared for his wife, whose debilitating disease is worsening. Graham had to give up his work and a whole lot of other commitments to support his wife. Graham does it in a way that is not only providing support for his wife but also educating the community about the role that carers have to play. I certainly commend Graham for the work that he does—not only for his direct caring role but also for the way he is informing the rest of the community.

Helen Steinhardt heads up the Gold Coast autism group. Autism is one area of an identified disability. Groups like the autism groups deal daily with a whole range of other issues and this report identifies some of the concerns and issues that we have to deal with. Wendy McFazden, who is part of the Logan autistic spectrum disorder group, has two children for whom she has direct responsibility and care. This support group helps with issues surrounding the family dynamics when you have young people with autism and helps ensure that the children who have this disability have an education and some reasonable future.

There is an emerging group that should be recognised. The caring role goes in many directions, and there is a particular group that identifies itself as the council for grandparents and kin carers. There are lots of responsibilities that are taken on by grandparents, and they are not necessarily recognised or given any rights while playing a direct caring role. While our report does not specifically make recommendations on this issue, it is a group that needs to be acknowledged and recognised. Today I would like to mention Maree Lubach and Tracey Douglas for their work in providing support for grandparents and the group they are calling the kin carers. They certainly have issues that need to be raised and taken to a higher level. In fact, they are planning a national congress in November this year to bring together the many people who are in some way affected by their role as carers to grandchildren.

We have called the report Who cares…? It does pose that question. As I mentioned earlier, I encourage people to at least have a look at the recommendations, which will inform them about the range of issues that we need to deal with. I would like to thank the committee secretariat, who put in a huge effort. This inquiry went on for a period approaching a year, and while I know that is not necessarily unusual for inquiries, the number of submissions—1,200 submissions—that were provided to the committee meant a major amount of detail that had to be sifted through and worked through by the secretariat and, from that, the recommendations had to be made.

The committee secretariat staff put in a major effort to provide support to the committee. About 1,000 of the 1,200 submissions were personal submissions. The stories that we heard directly from the people who gave evidence at the inquiry certainly reflected the 1,000 personal submissions that were made—heart-wrenching stories from those who find themselves in a caring role. I recommend to the members in the chamber today that they look at the submissions. Another member of the committee is sitting across from us today. I am sure that his comments today will add to the discussion and the recommendations that I have spoken about. It was a great privilege to be a part of the committee. I commend the report to the House.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a fairly recent member of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family, Community, Housing and Youth, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on the Who Cares …? report. We do not show enough appreciation for the work that carers perform—and I have said that in this place before. This report seeks to reverse that attitude, as many similar reports have done in the past. I do not think we can ever give enough recognition to carers and I do not think we can ever do enough in this place for carers. I say that not as a criticism but as a simple point of fact. They make a sacrifice for those they love. If we as a society had to pay for the care and attention provided by carers, we would never be able to afford it. So for that we are always in their debt.

This report picks up on an issue that was raised at the inquiry—that is, that many carers believe it is not possible for anyone to truly understand what being a carer entails unless they are a carer or have been a carer. I think that is very true. We can do all we can to try and understand what they do, but unless we have walked in their shoes I do not think we will ever be able to fully appreciate it. Nevertheless, we should do what we can to ensure that our policy responses reflect a better level of understanding—and this inquiry has provided the committee with a greater degree of insight, I believe, into what it means to be a carer.

The terms of reference for this inquiry were very broad and addressed a number of very important matters concerning carers. Two of the key themes that were drawn from the inquiry were the need for improved recognition of carers and the need for improved support for carers. As a society, we do not do enough to support their work. Many carers gave evidence at the inquiry. Most stated that they feel that their role is not fully understood or appreciated by governments or, indeed, the wider community.

The report provides a series of recommendations—50 in total. The great theme of these recommendations is the need to improve the level of recognition. I will run through some of the recommendations now. Recommendation 5 proposes the creation of a new national office for carers and the nomination, most significantly, of a lead minister who would be responsible for overseeing the development of nationally coordinated carer legislation. I would be the last person in this place to advocate greater bureaucracy and the creation of new offices. In many cases, when we see that happen it does not necessarily lead to greater outcomes. But one of the frustrations that came through in the inquiry process was about the lack of a single point that takes responsibility for the plight of carers and how things are coordinated.

Carers have to deal with government across a broad range of portfolios, including health and family and community services. It does not matter which area it is, carers are always interfacing with some level of government—particularly the federal government but also at the state and local level. They need a champion who is in a position to, first and foremost, look after their needs and ensure that all arms of government work together to ensure that the support they require is provided as seamlessly as possible. In the committee process I was very pleased to underline this point: someone, at the end of the day, has to be appointed as the person with responsibility for carers’ issues; otherwise, we will constantly have issues being shifted between departments and ministers and jurisdictions. That is not good enough.

At the end of the day, if we believe as a parliament that carers need recognition, then we need to have someone representing the executive of government who takes responsibility for them and the support that they provide and, indeed, is an advocate for them in the course of the proceedings of the executive—and also in this place.

Another recommendation that addresses the issue of recognition is recommendation 28. Here it is requested:

That the Minister for Families Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs direct the Department of Families Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs to investigate the benefits of introducing a national carer card for recipients of Carer Payment and Carer Allowance …

A card of this nature would allow carers to be identified for access to discounts and other benefits which retailers and other service providers may want to provide. That could support carers.

This is important. Being card-carrying carers is, I think, a good way of these people being identified in our community. I think there is a strong level of support, sympathy and empathy for carers and, as that grows, I would not be surprised if those outside the government sector might look to provide encouragement, support and recognition. If there were a nationally recognised carers card then that would provide, I think, a catalyst for our broader community to recognise carers.

You can see it: the day at the movies; the day of free entry to national parks; riding on the buses; or whatever else there might be. There is an opportunity for everyone to get involved in recognising carers. A carers card would enable us to get over the hurdles of: ‘Who is a carer?’ and ‘Who is entitled?’ and ‘Who is eligible?’ and so I strongly support the idea.

The demands on carers associated with their caring roles often tend to preclude them from being involved in paid employment. This leads to many struggling to meet the costs of everyday expenses such as housing and food—and sometimes the costs associated with the care-giving itself, such as medicines and other healthcare costs. It is not just the government that can do things about this. There are community organisations which already do—and, indeed, the private sector and others can play a role directly, outside the realm of government, in providing support for carers. This would facilitate that process.

A consequence of limited participation in paid employment is that a large number of carers do not have the opportunity to save for their future through contributions to superannuation schemes. As parliamentarians, we and the government can provide better support to carers to partially compensate them for the hard work they do. Specific recommendations addressing this issue of support include recommendation 13, which proposes:

That the Minister for Health and Ageing review arrangements for systemic carer advocacy provided through Carers Australia and the network of state and territory Carer Associations.

Recommendation 15 proposes:

That the Attorney-General promote national consistency and mutual recognition governing enduring powers of attorney and advanced care directives to the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General.

Constituents from my electorate of Cook have told me that they have experienced difficulty looking after the health needs of elderly patients when using powers of attorney from other states. Replacement of Medicare cards is just one example. Carers need greater national recognition, and that means that laws that impact on carers which may vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction need to be harmonised and there needs to be mutual recognition. This makes it not the carers’ problem but the problem of those who make the laws. It is our problem that we cannot have mutual recognition of these laws for carers. It is not their problem.

They are trying to care for those they are trying to care for, so we need to make this process far more simple for them. We need to ensure that they are not spending, as is the case for many constituents in my electorate, hours upon hours upon hours of writing letters, getting forms filled out and doing all these things simply to have their power of attorney recognised—a power of attorney which has been established in another jurisdiction—to ensure that they can do something on behalf of the person they are seeking to care for.

So I welcome the recommendations and I encourage the Attorney-General to press ahead—to actually get on with this job of getting that agreement between attorneys-general around the country to ensure that we can get this harmonisation in place.

Recommendation 23 provides for the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs to carry out a survey to measure the financial costs of households that care for people with disabilities. The committee found that many carers face not only limited opportunity to earn an income but also significant out-of-pocket expenses associated with their caring role. It was acknowledged that the additional cost of disability and caring increases the financial stress placed upon carers and their families, who are already disadvantaged by their constrained income. It is simply about understanding what these costs are. We all know that there is additional cost, but how much is that additional cost and what level of burden is it putting on people? I personally cannot imagine the emotional, let alone the physical, burden of being in one of those full-time caring roles. I have not had that direct experience. I know plenty of people who have experienced that, and they have shared their stories with me. But I have not personally been in that position, and so I cannot imagine what it is like. But to add to that experience a level of financial burden can be the straw that breaks the camel’s back—that breaks the spirit. At the end of the day, we are human beings; we have limits. We have an ability to go so far. So we should ensure that we do everything that we can so that these people are not put in the position of being at breaking point because of these issues. A good place to start is to understand just how great that stress is.

Recommendation 33 of the report addresses the dire need for more capital funding of respite carer services. While services for carers and people with disabilities tend to receive funding for operational purposes—which is welcome, and there can always be more provided should circumstances allow it—there is also a very severe shortage of funds for capital purposes, particularly when they relate to the provision of respite beds and respite facilities. There is an absolute paucity of such facilities in my own electorate. While funding may come for operational purposes, it is only as good as the beds that are there to support those operational services. There are many opportunities to pursue this. It does not always have to be just the government providing this funding directly.

There are, I think, massive opportunities out there in our communities to enhance the level of partnership between the private sector and the not-for-profit sector. We have to get smart about this. It is not just a simple process of writing cheques. I think we can look at far more innovative ways of encouraging and engaging the not-for-profit sector and the private sector to become more equipped in dealing with these challenges. Hopefully, that would see a greater provision of respite care places and beds and facilities throughout our communities, which would give these carers and those whom they care for much-needed respite. The committee found the shortage of local, timely and appropriate respite services to be one of the key issues facing carers. A lack of those services can be connected to the shortage of funding for capital works associated with respite service providers.

This report is titled Who cares …? And I thinks it is well titled. Who cares …? poses that question to our community in terms of our own responsibility and in terms of developing an appreciation and an understanding of how to engage with the issue. But it is also a statement about those who are caring. We know through this inquiry which we have been involved in who these people are and the great work that they do. If there is one thematic message that has come out this inquiry, I think it is being able to recognise in very practical ways the journey that carers are on—a journey that life’s circumstances have placed them on. It is not a journey that they have been in a position to choose.

It has been a journey that they have had to walk, and I think they walk it with great distinction. They walk it with great integrity. They walk it with great sacrifice and with great love. And when we put those characteristics together, we appropriately talk in this place sometimes about those types of qualities in relation to people who have served in our armed forces—and so we should. But these soldiers, these heroes who live in our own communities also exemplify a level of self-sacrifice and self-denial on a daily basis in order to serve those around them. I think that is very much the essence of the Australian character. I am very pleased to associate myself with this report and with the inquiry, and I hope it encourages further debate on this issue, but, more importantly, that it encourages further action.

Mal Washer (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.