Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) National Carers Week runs from 11 to 17 October 2015 to recognise and celebrate the outstanding contribution unpaid carers make to our nation;

(b) carers in Australia make an enormous contribution to our communities and our national economy;

(c) in 2015, it is estimated that nearly 2.9 million Australians will provide more than 1.9 billion hours of informal and unpaid care; and

(d) the replacement value of informal care would be $60.3 billion, equivalent to 3.8 per cent of gross domestic product and 60 per cent of the health and social work industry budget; and

(2) congratulates Carers Australia for its strong advocacy and support for those providing care and support to family members and friends who have a disability, mental illness, chronic condition, terminal illness and alcohol or other drug issue, or who are frail aged.

As co-convenor of the Parliamentary Friends of Carers group, it is my pleasure today to move the motion before the House recognising National Carers Week. The member for Boothby and I, in partnership with Carers Australia, formed the parliamentary friendship group to help raise awareness of the important role carers play in our community and to bring further profile to the challenges faced by carers and those they care for. National Carers Week gives us an opportunity to stop and reflect on the enormous contribution that unpaid carers make to local communities across Australia and the significance of that contribution to our national economy.

Carers Australia's latest report into the caring economy, launched here in Parliament House last August, put some clear markers down to demonstrate the immense support unpaid carers provide in Australia. The report, researched and prepared by Deloitte Access Economics, estimates the total value of informal care, or unpaid care, being provided in Australia today and examines the implications of demographic trends and projections of informal care into the future.

The research found that in 2015 nearly 2.9 million people are providing informal care, with more than 800,000 of these informal carers being primary carers—that is, people who provide the majority of an individual's care. While these numbers are impressive, in absolute terms there are approximately 10,000 fewer carers in 2015 than there were in 2010, which was identified as being primarily due to a declining propensity to care. I will come back to the challenges that this trend causes for the future later in my contribution to this motion. The report also found that the majority of those who do provide care are women and predominantly fall within the age range of 25 to 65 years of age. This demographic assessment of care in Australia helps to inform the economics of informal care. Deloitte has estimated that carers will provide an astounding 1.9 billion hours of care in 2015, with the replacement value of informal care being estimated at $60.3 billion. That is equivalent to nearly four per cent of Australia's GDP.

As referenced earlier, the forecasts undertaken as the final part of the research do, however, point to significant challenges ahead of us as our population grows older and our propensity to care decreases. In the next 10 years the demand for informal care is set to significantly outstrip its supply. Over the decade to 2025 the carer gap—that is, the gap between the supply of informal carers and the need for informal carers—increases in each year, and the carer ratio—that is, the supply of carers divided by the demand for carers—is decreasing in each year. A major contributing factor to this carer gap is the trend decrease in propensity to care, which is likely to be influenced by many factors, including Australia's disproportionately ageing population; our changes to societal structures such as smaller family sizes, higher divorce rates, rising childlessness and the increase of single-person households; the rising rates of female participation in the labour force; changes in intergenerational attitudes and perceptions around caring; economic pressures on families to have at least two incomes to meet rising cost-of-living pressures; and the growing duration and complexity of caregiving as a result of extended life expectancy. These trends present significant challenges for policymakers in Australia if we are to address this widening carer gap.

The report goes on to flag some of the key areas that we really need to work on as policymakers in Australia. The important thing is that we really face those challenges square on. As policymakers and legislators in this place, if we are serious about redressing that carer gap then they are the issues we really need to tackle right here and right now.

I congratulate Carers Australia for their really strong advocacy and support for those providing care and support to family members and friends who have a disability, mental illness, chronic condition, terminal illness, or alcohol or other drug issues, or are frail aged. Their work is vital in helping us to shape a more inclusive Australia.

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second that motion. I thank the member for Newcastle for bringing this motion to the chamber, as it is National Carers Week, a week in which we pay tribute to the valuable contribution our carers make to Australia. As a nation, we owe them so much, but their work so often goes without appropriate recognition. This week is a chance to give them the acknowledgement they so richly deserve.

In 2015, as the member for Newcastle noted, it is estimated that nearly 2.9 million Australians will provide informal and unpaid care. That is approximately one in eight Australians. Most Australians will know of at least one other person who cares for a family member or a friend. With advances in medical technology, Australians are living longer. This is a good thing, but, as we are living longer, more of us are living with the chronic diseases that can come with age. With the ageing of the Australian population, there will be an increasing need for more carers and for more support for existing carers.

Providing informal and unpaid care is providing a service to our nation. Carers Australia estimates the replacement value of informal care in Australia is a staggering $60.3 billion. That would be the cost to government if we had to pay for the quality and quantity of care provided by the informal care sector. That is the equivalent of 3.8 per cent of Australia's gross domestic product. Despite the value they provide to Australia, being a carer can be a thankless task. For many, being a carer is a 24-hour a day seven-day a week job, and a job that can last for years or even a lifetime. Caring for a loved one is often emotionally draining, and many carers are elderly and in need of care themselves.

Carers Australia has led the charge for recognition that sometimes carers need support to take a break. Taking a break is the key activity for National Carers Week 2015. A full events calendar is planned for cities and towns across Australia. In Brisbane, for example, the Queensland branch of Carers Australia hosted a movie screening last Saturday aimed at young carers. Tomorrow morning, the Brisbane Convention Exhibition Centre will host a Carers Queensland forum entitled 'Standing Beside You'. The forum promises a day of celebration, fun, recognition, information and connection. It is aimed at family and friends who provide support and care for someone living with mental health issues. In Ipswich tomorrow, Carers Queensland is running a National Carers Week 2015 festival with a sausage sizzle, morning tea, activities, prizes and giveaways.

Another great initiative of National Carers Week this year is the ability to make a pledge on their website to help build a carer-friendly Australia. No financial contribution is required, but this is a positive way for all Australians to show how much we value and support our carers. Organisers are aiming for 20,000 pledges by the end of the week. Thousands of pledges have been received already, including many from people in my electorate of Ryan, whose names are listed on the online pledge wall. I encourage everyone to go to the website and pledge their support. I also take this opportunity pay tribute to the many carers and carer organisations in my electorate—groups such as Jubilee Community Care in Indooroopilly, which provide a range of home care packages to assist residents with varying care needs to help them to stay at home and, importantly, to stay independent.

It is always comforting to know that in Australia we have so many who are willing to step forward in times of adversity and provide care for friends and loved ones. This week is all about them. If you know somebody who is a carer, take some time this week to thank them for the work they do. Go online and sign up to the carers pledge or, if you can, maybe offer to help them so that they can take a break and have some time to themselves. When it comes to caring for Australians in need, we are all in this together. I thank the member for Newcastle for moving this motion and I commend it to the House.

Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too thank the member for Newcastle for bringing this motion before us and reminding us of the important role carers play in our community. The role they play often involves great personal sacrifice. People who provide care—whether it be occasional care or full-time care—to people with disabilities or to people with long-term illnesses are putting their community, or that other person, above themselves. In our ageing community, caring for the elderly is progressively becoming more important, whether it is caring for one's own parents specifically or caring for elderly people more generally. It is symptomatic of an ageing community, but nevertheless something of great importance to the community at large.

Carers make a huge sacrifice, often putting their own lives on hold and often unable to undertake paid employment simply because they dedicate themselves to providing care to loved ones, either on a temporary or permanent basis, who cannot care for themselves. There are many categories of carers in our community. Regrettably, some of their activities go unnoticed other than by family members and people who have direct knowledge of the household. There are now, as I understand it, 2.8 million people across Australia who provide unpaid care and support to family members, friends and people with disabilities, mental illnesses, chronic conditions or terminal illness, as well as to drug and alcohol impacted people or, more generally, to people who are just frail. There is no doubt they are the unsung heroes in our community. It is only right that their service, their hard work, should be recognised. More importantly, it should be valued.

Not only is the personalised in-home care—and sometimes that care is almost 24-hour care—these people provide something which people need, it also provides great relief to the economic strains on our health industry and our economy generally. Through the member for Newcastle, I learnt that informal care at the moment is worth $60.3 billion, which is the equivalent of 3.8 per cent of our GDP or 60 per cent of our health and social work industry budget. That is an extraordinary amount that they are contributing to the community by looking after people. Caring for Australians with an illness or a disability should be a shared responsibility between the carer, family, community and government. I have often said, when talking about disabilities, that our generation will, I believe, be judged on how we look after the most vulnerable members of our community. Caring creates opportunities for all to lead healthy, successful and productive lives—and that should be the hallmark of what it is to be a prosperous nation and an inclusive society.

Due to the high costs associated with looking after loved ones with an illness or a disability, many families choose to settle in areas with lower living costs and with lower land values, including in my area in the south-west of Sydney. It is because of that that, in my electorate of Fowler, we have a disproportionately high number of people living with disability. Taking just one disability as an example, more than half of all New South Wales families living with autism live within a 25-kilometre radius of the Liverpool CBD. As of the last census, there were more than 13,000 people in my electorate who were reported to be providing unpaid assistance or care to persons with a disability. This is something that we as a society should not only be proud of—that people are out there to help—and we should acknowledge the work that they do, but, on behalf of a very grateful community, we also should thank them for what they contribute, not only the person they are giving care to but to our community itself. This is a positive reflection of our society.

Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Newcastle for this motion, a motion which I, as the federal member for Petrie, and I think all coalition members wholeheartedly agree with—and so thank you for this motion. The words 'noble', 'brave' and 'selfless' come to mind when I think of carers—those three words do pop into my mind. Carers provide unpaid care and support to people right around this nation: people with a disability; people with a mental illness; people with a chronic condition, perhaps terminal; children that are palliative; children that are dying; alcohol or drug related issues; and those who are frail of age—aged care.

There are close to three million carers around Australia who provide formal care, as the member for Fowler mentioned a moment ago. They are an integral part of our health system and I want to thank every single one of them for what they do. Thank you, our nation is better for the efforts you put in day in, day out. As was mentioned a moment ago, we know that they contribute, in a financial sense, to something like over $60 billion equivalent in unpaid work, almost 3.8 per cent of our GDP. For this, we do thank you. I was talking to a friend of mine this morning, Fiona, who has lost a child and is still a carer for one of her sons, she mentioned some of the challenges that she has been through and that others have been through. These include financial costs, and we know as a government and as a nation that we do provide some carers' payments, but they are very small—it is pretty well unpaid— and so the financial costs on families are significant. These carers cannot work full-time and they are not able to earn a full-time wage because they are busy caring for people in their lives.

There is strain on family members. The emotional work that goes into caring for people is significant and that can affect carers' spouses—it might be their husbands or their wives—and so relationships can suffer. If you are caring for a child, there might be other siblings who do not get as much attention and those siblings can suffer as well. Friends and family can also sometimes move away because, as a carer, you are engrossed in what you are doing and you need that support. As single people, we often mix with single people; as married people with children we often mix with other married people with children; and carers often get together and often talk and are able to counsel one another, because sometimes friends and families are not able to do that. There are financial costs, there are relationship costs with spouses, siblings, family and friends, and then, of course, there is getting respite. When you are 24/7, seven days a week carer—perhaps apart from when they are sleeping—and respite is needed and it is not always available.

Things have changed. Thirty years ago, if you had autism, you would perhaps end up in an institution. Today the family will care for that child in their best interests. I think we are seeing much better results and, once again, I thank every carer that does this. On the positive side, carers experience quality relationship time with the person who they are caring for. I believe, as does the federal member for Petrie, that life is about relationships and that is one positive benefit for some carers that they get build a deep relationship with the person they are caring for and understand that person's life better than anyone else. In relation to respite, I would like to acknowledge the federal government's contribution to Hummingbird House in Queensland, which is currently being constructed. It will be the first respite house in Queensland, where children who are palliative will be able to go with their families and actually get some respite, and that is a good thing. Perhaps when the NDIS has rolled out as well there will be more opportunities for respite around the country. I know that has strong bipartisan support from the coalition and Labor, and that is a great thing.

So, carers, know that we are with you on both sides of the House here. This is a special week. I do want to acknowledge this week Carers Australia and to thank that national body for the work they are doing and the representation they provide to carers, and Carers Queensland as well, for what they do. The Australian government works closely with Carers Australia to ensure that carers get the support and opportunities they need, and I thank you again for raising this motion.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to congratulate the member for Newcastle on bringing this motion on National Carers week to the parliament. She co-convenes Parliamentary Friends of Carers within the parliament here. I know that she is passionate about providing support to carers and making sure that carers' voices are heard, not only in this parliament but throughout Australia. She has a very high profile when it comes to speaking up for carers in her electorate.

Carers Week is between the 11th and the 17th of this month. It is an opportunity to recognise and celebrate the role carers play in our society. The speech I heard from the member for Petrie also encompassed many of the issues that are really important to carers, and I congratulate him on supporting this motion and the commitments he made in his speech.

Carers provide enormous support. It can be 24-hour care that is provided by carers. They provide unpaid child care. Being a carer is often a thankless and a hard job. It can be very emotional. You cannot separate yourself from the person you are caring for and the issues that require them to have a carer. Not only is it often very hard work, but it can also be an emotional rollercoaster. It can have a terrible impact on the person who is a carer. They need support.

For instance, if you have a daughter who is caring for her mother who has dementia, it is actually a turnabout in the role. The mother cared for the daughter when she was young, and now the daughter is providing the role that the mother had. Or there is the situation of a husband and a wife. For lots of older Australians it was always the role of the husband to be that strong carer and take care of everything, and it may have turned around so that the wife has to handle the finances and do many of the jobs that her husband previously did.

Touching on a child with a disability, this is one of the greatest strains that a marriage or a relationship can have. So many relationships break down when there is a child with a disability. The NDIS will provide that extra support. It has started doing it in the Hunter, where we have been fortunate to have one of the trial sites. It will do it when it goes to Queensland and other areas. It will provide those carers with the support that they have struggled for.

Where you have a carer who has health issues themselves, it makes it very, very difficult. I have a young woman who comes into my office who is in an electric wheelchair. She has a tumour. She does remarkable work in the office. But her mother had to have a knee replacement, and there were all the extra supports that needed to be put in place to care for her daughter while she was in hospital. The statistics show that there are 2.7 million unpaid carers in Australia. More than 770 carers are primary carers, 300,000 carers are under the age of 24 and 150,000 are under the age of 18. That is an enormous responsibility for young people. At a time when they are just discovering who they are as people, they are being put into this role of having to care and support someone whom they love dearly.

In addition, I note that Deloittes conducted a study which revealed that the replacement value of care provided by Australian unpaid carers has increased to $60.3 billion per year. That is over $1 billion each week. So we really do need to value our carers, provide them more support and recognition and do everything we can to see that they are looked after. (Time expired)

Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Newcastle for moving this motion today. National Carers Week is a time to recognise and celebrate the outstanding contribution that Australia's 2.7 million unpaid carers make to our nation. Carers make an enormous contribution to our communities as well as to our national economy. If all carers decided to stop performing their caring role, it would cost the country $60.3 billion per year to replace that support—that is over $1 billion per week or 3.8 per cent of our gross domestic product.

My home state of Tasmania is paying tribute to carers during this special week of recognition in a variety of ways. Our iconic Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra has organised a celebratory closed rehearsal of the orchestra today from 2 pm, which is dedicated to carers. Other events include morning teas for Men's Caring Friends Support groups in Southern Tasmania, and the state education department has asked all Tasmanian schools to get involved by hosting an event to celebrate and show appreciation of young carers in schools.

Young carers in particular contribute so much to our community, yet they often experience social isolation, poor physical and mental health and difficulties with participating in education and employment. Australia's 2.7 million carers represent 12 per cent of our population—that is an enormous section of the community who are taking care of someone else and who are largely unpaid for their efforts. It means that we probably all know someone who is caring for someone else. I think of my good mate Jane Wardlaw, who, by virtue of her muscular dystrophy, spends her life in a wheelchair. Without carers, both paid and unpaid, it would not be worth contemplating what her circumstances might be.

Indeed, over 1.5 million carers are of working age but cannot work because of their responsibilities. On average, carers spend about 40 hours a week providing care. It is estimated that carers of someone who has a mental illness spend on average 104 hours per week in their caring role. In my electorate of Lyons, there are 4,277 people receiving a carer allowance and another 2.295 people are receiving a carer allowance payment. But that masks the people who do not receive anything, particularly grandparents who are looking after grandchildren.

I note Ara Cresswell, who is in the gallery here today, and thank her for the work that she does on behalf of Carers Australia. I acknowledge the former Prime Minister, the member Warringah, Tony Abbott, and the work that he has done over an extended period of time in raising money on behalf of carers. Over $500,000 was raised this year alone. I also acknowledge Janine Arnold, the CEO of Carers Tasmania, and board members Jenny Branch-Allen and particularly Ellen Holmes from Molesworth in my electorate. Ellen is also a carer for her brother and her mother.

In the time I have left, I would like to read a poem by Philip Rush, who regularly contributes to the ABC Country Hour in Tasmania on a Friday. I think he says it best:

There are thousands upon thousands of carers in our State,

And I've had the privilege of meeting quite a few of them of late.

Some are only children, pre-teenage girls and boys,

But almost every carer seems to do their task with joy.

There are many in their eighties, as is a friend of mine,

In only thirty months or so he'll be turning eighty-nine!

He does the cooking and the cleaning and the caring for his wife,

His care's the most important role he carries out in life!

Its the same for many thousands who daily spend their hours

Cooking dinners, dressing partners, making beds and giving showers.

The carer's role is never-ending, seven days of every week,

But it's done In love and caring, no rewards they ever seek!

They're often hidden from the public, care quietly on their own;

You rarely hear a carer complain or sigh or moan!

You ask me how I know it; how I know these things I've said,

Well, I'm a carer also to the lady that I wed.

Back in the nineteen sixties, and she needs a bit of care,

Her head is quite undamaged, but her body's past repair!

A back that can't be mended, and her legs that struggle, too,

And many other problems which I won't repeat to you.

She cannot drive; it's hard to walk—a wheelchair's what we use

When going out, or to the shops, whatever we might choose.

She swims an hour each Wednesday, two hours of Aquarobics, too,

On a Monday and a Friday, that's all that she can do

To exercise her body, her commitment's great to see,

Since her health is so precarious, she's said good-bye to me

Three times when In the hospital since nineteen ninety-eight,

But she's survived these obstacles, her tenacity Is great!

So I'm chief cook and cleaner, but I don't do that as well

As Yvonne used to do it, as anyone could tell!

But my cooking skills are better, which doesn't mean that much,

Yet apple sponge and birthday cakes, and casseroles and such

Are now upon the menu which I manage now and then,

And I'm sure it's similar history for many carers who are men!

I could go on for ever, but I'll finish with this line,

All you carers who are listening, you're close to being divine!

Thank you.