Ross Hart (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today we have before us in this House the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Payments for Carers) Bill 2018. This bill introduces a family income test of $250,000 a year for the carer allowance and the carer allowance (child) healthcare card from September 2018. To be eligible for carer allowance, applicants must be giving additional daily care to someone who either has a disability or severe illness. Carer allowance and its predecessor payments have never been means-tested. This makes these payments unusual within the framework of the Australian social security system.

At the time of the introduction of the allowance, those opposite claimed that exempting carer allowance from a means and income test was reflective of their commitment to Australian carers. The language used by the government at that time was unequivocal and unambiguous. The government claimed:

We will always have an ongoing commitment to people in this particular role.

Nevertheless, the Abbott government's National Commission of Audit recommended applying an income limit to carer allowance of $150,000 a year. That measure, if it had been adopted, would have affected 35,000 carers. Perhaps we can assume that the introduction of income testing on this particular payment is indicative of a shift in this government's priorities.

We know that caring can add substantially to usual household costs. The proposed income limit in this legislation is fixed and will not be indexed. Consequentially, its real value will decline, and any wage rises will see more families exceeding that static income limit over time. Indeed, it is estimated that, in 2018-19, some 6,500 current carer allowance recipients and 400 healthcare card holders will be affected. This represents about one per cent of all carer allowance recipients and around 2.4 per cent of carer allowance (child) health care only holders.

Carer allowance is a fortnightly supplementary payment of $127.10 to assist people who provide daily care to someone who is sick, frail, aged or who has a disability. It is a payment to help meet the costs of caring. The carer allowance (child) health care card can be given to children who have a medical condition or disability that requires extra care of at least 14 per hours per week but not enough to provide their carer with eligibility for the carer allowance. Carers Australia is supportive of means-testing the carer allowance on the basis that the savings generated by this measure are directed towards funding for a new integrated care support services model. Ara Creswell, the CEO of Carers Australia, stated:

We appreciate that when people have become accustomed to receiving a benefit, they can feel aggrieved when it is taken away. However, the income threshold is very generous compared to other pensions and allowances, reflecting the Government’s recognition that caring can add substantially to the usual costs of maintaining a household.

Australian carers are meant to be able to benefit from the increased supports provided by the integrated carer support services from July this year. Instead, the ability for carers to access the new services through the Carer Gateway has been delayed until October 2018. The establishment of a network of regional delivery partners to help carers access a range of local services has also been delayed until September 2019.

For months, Labor has been calling on the government to provide further details about what precisely these supports will be and when they'll be available given the linkage between the means-testing introduced under this legislation and the Carers Gateway's introduction. Given the importance of providing support to carers, if the government were serious about supporting carers, they could have and should have done the hard work to have this program ready to roll out well before this change, instead of forcing Australia's hardworking, unpaid carers to await the government's convenience.

It's very important for us to remind the House that Australia's 2.8 million unpaid careers work tirelessly every day to care for children with additional needs, to care for sick or elderly family members and people with a disability. In my electorate of Bass, there are more than 1,600 carers doing their best for people under their care. I often receive representations from my constituents about the work of carers, who are often unrecognised or feel that they are unrecognised.

These changes will also disproportionately affect women. Women are more likely to be carers. They are more likely to give up work in order to care and more likely to be the secondary income earner in a higher-income family. Women are more than twice as likely to provide primary care to a person with a disability. My constituent Marjory is one such woman. Marjory has cared for her daughter Karen for 51 years. I really cannot begin to imagine the burden and the responsibility which is contemplated by caring for another for more than 50 years. Now in her 80s, Marjory is concerned that she will not be able to continue to care for her daughter one day. The sense of anxiety associated with both contemplating your own mortality and the limitation upon your ability to care for a loved one should be obvious to all. Marjory is particularly concerned as to what will happen to her daughter when she is no longer here. This is the kind of mental pressure that Australian carers have to contend with on a daily basis. I'm acutely aware of the invaluable contributions carers make to our community. We should all be aware of the burden they assume.

Whilst I've previously said that a carer is more likely to be female, there are many carers who are young in age, looking after parents or siblings who are affected by a disability or illness. It was only in the 1990s that the concept of a young carer began to be recognised. It's interesting to note, in that context, that a study was undertaken about 10 years ago which analysed some of the costs associated with caring, irrespective of whether someone was a young carer or fell within the usual definitions. This report, called Young carers in Australia: understanding the advantages and disadvantages of their care giving, was published some years before the NDIS was even contemplated. It observed:

These costs include direct costs with respect to expenditure and costs to physical and mental health; and opportunity costs, concerned with possible disruption to education, training, labour force participation, income earning, and participation in social and friendship networks. The key question surrounds how the costs of providing care should be shared among individuals, within families and across society at large. Moreover, what is the most appropriate balance between formal and informal care, and to what extent will informal care be assisted by formal support?

The Australian Bureau of Statistics most recently undertook a survey of disability, ageing and carers in 2015. There were, at that time, approximately 2.7 million unpaid carers in Australia. This represents a most extraordinary resource. But, like all resources, that resource should not be squandered; nor should it be taken for granted. Deloitte Access Economics estimates the value of these unpaid carers to the Australian economy was $60.3 billion. There are some more statistics. Around 856,000 carers—that is, 32 per cent—are primary carers, those who provide the most informal assistance to another individual. The replacement value of that unpaid care provided in 2015 was about $1 billion per week. The median weekly income of primary carers aged 15 to 64 was 42 per cent below that of non-carers. More than two-thirds of primary carers are female. The average age of a primary carer is 55, and 272,000 carers are under the age of 25, which equates to about one in 10. Almost all primary carers—that is, 96 per cent—care for a family member. More than half—55 per cent—of primary carers provide care for at least 20 hours per week. Fifty-six per cent of primary carers aged 15 to 64 participate in the workforce, compared to 80 per cent of non-carers. It is estimated, as I've said previously, that carers provided an extraordinary 1.9 billion hours of unpaid care in 2015.

There are many personal stories in addition to the story of Marjory that I've recounted to the House. I'd like to finish by reading you a letter that was shared with my office for publication in our local paper just this week from one of my constituents, Mr William Ovenell. This letter, in my view, underscores the sense of frustration in our community associated with this government's priorities—indeed, their expressed priorities. Mr Ovenell writes in his letter:

There is quite desperation from some family carers of aged disabled people at home, that so little has been done about the financial burden they suffer.

These people have made a massive contribution. Their dedication continues to save the government billions.

Family carers receive about $60 a week, 36 cents an hour for their seven days, 24 hours work—

their devotion—

There is a need for a substantial increase to their payment.

The government approved providers ... can receive about $50,000 plus out of pocket fees from clients for a level 4 for between about 10 and 14 hours service.

The case management can eat up to 30 to 50 per cent of the package, thereby reducing the front line services and equipment.

Some improvement would allow home carers to nominate themselves as providers and receive funding for services rendered.

This would increase the hours of front-line services.

Mr Ovenell continues:

It's disappointing the Prime Minister ... and Treasurer ... have not in the budget recognised one of their responsibilities includes an ability to distinguish between those in urgent need, than being domineered by wealthy elites who have more than they will ever need.

I share Mr Ovenell's disappointment. This government has demonstrated its priority. It's handing out, indeed today, tax cuts which include tax cuts prospectively more than six years in the future to people who are on the highest incomes. It's also handing out an $80 billion tax cut to big business and the big banks, even whilst we have people like William Ovenell trying to provide for their loved ones at a rate of approximately 60c per hour.

I would urge those on the other side to carefully reconsider their priorities, just as Mr Ovenell suggests. It's not, in my view, the case that the government should run their persistent line that we should only pay for things like the NDIS, that we should only pay for Medicare and that we should only pay for public education if we have a sound economy and the budget is in a sound state, because that ignores the fact that the government can and do make choices as to how they address the budget. The most significant failing of this government is the fact that, today, they have sought to bind—although they can't do so—a future government with respect to taxation cuts which are going to cost the budget of Australia billions of dollars every year, far more than is currently spent on either the NDIS or supporting carers. In my mind, that is an unconscionable choice.

Similarly, this government should not put it to the Australian community that it's a case of choosing between properly funding Medicare and ensuring that the federal government meets the increase in cost, which should be shared equally between the states and the federal government. It shouldn't put to the Australian community that it's a choice between tax cuts and paying for properly funding public education. It shouldn't put to the Australian community that there's a choice between properly funding technical and further education or having tax cuts. I know that in northern Tasmania people value public health and they value public education. They understand the importance of TAFE. They understand the importance of ensuring that our public institutions are properly funded. This legislation deals with, in particular, the carer allowance and means-testing the carer allowance. I would not like to see this government use the means-testing of the carer allowance as an opportunity to means-test further benefits for carers.

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bass and admire his ability to talk over those at the table. The question is that this bill is now read a second time. I call the member for Macarthur.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Payments for Carers) Bill 2018. In doing so, I want to briefly speak about the invaluable role that carers play in my electorate of Macarthur and, indeed, right across our nation and the pressures on them. In my role as the member for Macarthur and throughout my fairly long career as a paediatrician in the local area, I meet with carers every day from my community. They come from all different backgrounds: some caring for elderly partners, some caring for their grandchildren and others caring for their very disabled children with special needs. Each and every one of them deserve our accolades. They have a single characteristic in common, and that's selflessness.

I have longstanding relationships with local families who act as carers for their relatives, often across multiple generations, and it never ceases to amaze me just how unique and giving these people are. They are the kinds of people from my community who I'm immensely proud and privileged to represent and who I'm driven to deliver better outcomes for every day. Our carers play an invaluable role in our society, and we must do more to assist them. Far too often I will be approached in my office by a Macarthur local, often known to me, who's having issues obtaining or accessing their existing carers benefits at Centrelink. Typically, a call from my office will bring resolution. However, people should not be forced into this situation, to have to go to their local member of parliament to obtain a social security benefit that they have every right to.

We as a society owe these people a debt of gratitude. Yet, under this government, people are made to feel as though they cannot access government assistance without resorting to seeing their local politician. Far too many wives, husbands, daughters, sons, foster parents, grandparents and friends have come to me overwhelmed by the system and often distraught, because they are made to feel subhuman when dealing with the Department of Human Services. That is a great Australian shame. That is not a standard that I accept. We are in desperate need of a shift in attitude towards social security in this country.

I apologise for feeling very emotional about this, but this is lived experience for me. These are families that I have come to love and, indeed, they have been very supportive of me. Part of my job as a paediatrician causes me to see children with some of the most severe disabilities one could imagine: children with cerebral palsy, children with chromosomal and genetic conditions, children with intractable epilepsy, children with cancer, children with severe intellectual disability and children with severe congenital malformations such as spina bifida. These children are no less loved by their families than others, and it's very important that we provide improved services such as respite care, early intervention and other supports to show that we as a society will help these families get by.

I have very often been forced into the position of having to apply to support organisations—most recently, for a child with something called congenital lymphedema, for compression garments, which are not covered by Medicare—to help people live their daily lives. I've often been forced to go to other organisations to provide things like respite care, housing et cetera. We shouldn't have to be in that position for these most disadvantaged children and their carers. Life is not all about aspiration and reaping the rewards of that aspiration. Some things happen because of bad luck and by chance. Having a child with a severe disability is part of that. My unwavering belief is that we as a society should be saying to these families, 'We're part of your journey and we'll support you.'

Having a child, for example, with intractable epilepsy imposes enormous stresses and burdens on the family in terms of costs for things like medications. Some children with some of the worst genetic forms of epilepsy may be on five or six different medications. It's very expensive. I recently met a family with a child, Mia, with Dravet syndrome, a very rare form of epilepsy. They actually sold their house so that they could move closer to our local hospital so that when the child was in status epilepticus, which is continuing, uncontrolled seizures, it would take less time to transport them to the emergency department for emergency treatment. So there are enormous costs involved with having a child with a disability like this.

It would be remiss of me if I didn't mention this government's latest attack on Human Services. Many carers attempting to access a benefit for the first time are made to wait while their claim is processed, and this process is taking far too long. If someone is entitled to a benefit, it should be given to them. They shouldn't have to wait weeks or even months to get that benefit. It seems quite apparent to me that the government's decision to cut over 1,200 jobs from Centrelink is only going to exacerbate this issue. Surely this is unacceptable. Local residents should not have their calls continuing to go unanswered. This is not appropriate, yet every Centrelink agency around the country has thousands of calls that go unanswered every week. If there are 1,200 fewer staff at Centrelink to respond to and process claims, of course the quality of service will be reduced.

Labor will be supporting this bill because it does seem that the vast majority of Australian carers will be able to access more support. But there are no guarantees in this, and I for one will hold this government to account. Payments of this nature are not—

Opposition Member:

An opposition member interjecting—

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I never get angry; sometimes I get upset, though. Payments of this nature have not previously been income tested, and this bill now aims to implement a fixed family income test of $250,000 a year. To the majority of families in my community, $250,000 is a relatively high family income. In fact, the median income for residents in my electorate of Macarthur is under $50,000, and 21 per cent of families have a family income of less than $21,000. Based on data from the latter part of 2017, roughly 6½ thousand Macarthur locals are in receipt of the carer allowance. Of those 6½ thousand, an additional 230 receive the associated healthcare card and just over 3,000 are able to get the carer payment.

It goes without saying—but I think we need to point out the fact—that being a carer is very expensive. Being a carer often means one partner giving up their job. It's costly in terms of monetary value but also in terms of social capital. It means maybe never going on a holiday. If you have a child who's wheelchair-dependent with cerebral palsy or a congenital abnormality like spina bifida, it's sometimes very difficult, even in this modern world, to travel far, and many accommodation areas are not geared up to cater for children with severe disabilities. It's also important to understand that the carer allowance is not a huge amount of money. As we speak, it's about $127 a fortnight. That doesn't go very far when you're looking after a child who may be incontinent. The larger nappies are extremely expensive, running into hundreds of dollars a month, and often they're not subsidised.

The healthcare card is also provided for children who have a severe medical condition or a disability, and that can be very useful because many of these children are on large numbers of medications—for epilepsy; sometimes for muscle spasms, in the case of cerebral palsy; sometimes, for gastrointestinal disorders, some children require special feeds and special formulas—and this is very expensive, and the healthcare card is an enormous help.

These changes to the carer allowance will affect a very small number of people—in fact, less than one per cent of carer allowance recipients and healthcare card holders—and this is why we are agreeing to this bill. However, it is clear to me that we do need to do more. The amount that carers contribute to our society runs into billions of dollars. They play a vital role in providing care for people who may well otherwise require hospital or nursing-home care.

Based on a recent Australian Bureau of Statistics survey, it is estimated that about 2.7 million Australians are performing the role of carer and go pretty much unpaid. The carer's part in our society is invaluable. The replacement value of carers in our society has been estimated to run at close to $60 billion. Statistics have already been mentioned about the number of hours of unpaid care provided by carers, and it would be almost impossible for our medical or social support services to cope if a significant number of our carers stopped caring. We know they won't, because caring is in their nature. I've been blessed in my career to meet some really wonderful carers who have looked after their child or relative selflessly for many, many years.

That's why I was so pleased with the rollout of the NDIS. One issue that was always a constant worry for parents who have a child with a severe disability, as they got older and may become less able to look after their severely disabled child, was where the certainty of care was going to come from. That's a really huge issue that the NDIS, which had bipartisan support, has addressed. The relief for these families is almost palpable. To know a child—for example, a child with Down syndrome—is going to be able to be cared for once their parents are gone is amazing. Whilst we have criticised some factors in the NDIS rollout, this has certainly made a huge difference to many of the families I see, and I am very grateful for it.

I want to see, however, more investment in supporting carers. We need to have a better respite care system. It's physically exhausting sometimes to look after a child, adolescent or adult with some of the more severe forms of disability. Things like lifting them, bathing them, showering them and feeding them are very physically tiring, and many of the carers I see have orthopaedic injuries, back injuries or arthritis from the constant trauma of looking after people with severe disabilities. The love that they give their disabled relative only goes so far. The physical demands are very difficult. We need to be doing more to support them. Respite care is an issue, certainly, as is home modification. I've seen parents spend hundreds of thousands of dollars modifying their homes to deal with a wheelchair-dependent relative. We need to be providing better services to help people do things like physically modify their homes or even get a bit of a break every now and again so they can go on holidays. Some of the families I see haven't been on a holiday in 30 years, which really is something that we should be helping with.

We in Labor will certainly hold the government to account to make sure these changes are reflected in improved payments and improved resources for carers. As I've mentioned, waiting times for some of these benefits are really a major issue, and I would encourage the government to do what it can to reduce the waiting times for Centrelink benefits and, in particular, make communication with Centrelink much better for some of the very stressed families that I see. The government owes it to Australian carers to be diligent in providing support and services. If the government intended to be serious in its duty to support carers, it would have brought this program forward many months ago. Instead it opted to force Australia's hardworking unpaid carers to wait in the dark, concerned about what was going to happen.

I remain very concerned that little is known about the new integrated carer support services. The fact that commencement has been pushed back suggests to me the government also knows very little about it. We owe it to our carers. I owe it to the carers of the patients I've looked after for many years. They are selfless and have not been particularly demanding, and yet they do a job that many would fail at. (Time expired)

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank all members for their contribution to the second reading stage of the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Payments for Carers) Bill 2018. Welfare is of course, as has been noted in this chamber many times, a massive area of taxpayer funded expenditure, presently representing about 35 per cent of the Australian government's total expenses. In the 2017-18 financial year, the government expected to spend $8.5 billion on payments for carers and that would include $5.4 billion on carer payment, $1.7 billion on carer allowance for those caring for an adult and almost $600 million for those caring for a child. Carers, as all of the speakers have acknowledged and detailed, play a crucial role and make significant contributions to those they care for and, in so doing, for the Australian community at large. The government is obviously therefore aware of the need to balance welfare spending with the provision of support services to ensure that both remain sustainable into the future.

This bill introduces an income test for carer allowance and the carer allowance (child) health care card only from 20 September 2018. Carer allowance is currently not subject to an income test, meaning that people who do not require financial assistance can nevertheless still be eligible for the payment. That fact differs from the majority of social security payments in Australia, which are income and asset tested in order to target the payments to the people most in need of the financial safety net. Introducing the income test for carer allowance is consistent with the government's overall priority and policies of strengthening the coherence and sustainability of the welfare system and it allows funding to be directed to new services for carers without growing existing welfare expenditure. So setting a generous $250,000 income threshold targets financial assistance to those most in need whilst recognising the immense contribution carers make to our community.

Around 99 per cent of recipients will have no change at all to their payment. The one per cent of recipients who would be affected by the income test evidently have family incomes in excess of $250,000. The fortnightly carer allowance payments that would be foregone would have a very small percentage impact on the household income for families above that threshold. These carers would continue to remain eligible for carer support services and can also access the Medicare safety net for assistance with medical costs. The savings from this measure of $85.6 million will be invested in new early intervention support services for carers.

The national peak body for carers, Carers Australia, have worked with the government over a two-year period, and I would like to thank them for that good work, some of which I was a part of. They've worked with the government over a two-year period to design a new and improved model to deliver carer support services.

The government is introducing new carer support services as part of the Integrated Carer Support Service, forming the third and final stage of the 2015-16 budget commitment to develop an integrated plan for carer support services. The introduction of the Integrated Carer Support Service represents the biggest reform for carers in over a decade. The new service system will focus on early intervention as opposed to the current crisis-driven approach and the reforms are the result of an extensive two-year consultative process with carers and with the sector as a whole.

Given the growing demand for carers and the pressure of the caring role which may render carers vulnerable, it's crucial to ensure that payments and support services for carers continue to be provided into the future. Introducing what is, in effect, a generous income test threshold for carer allowance will help achieve these goals by targeting financial assistance to those most in need and align carer allowance with other income tested payments. Importantly, it provides capacity to fund services for carers without growing existing welfare expenditure, thereby yielding positive outcomes for carers now and into the future. For all those reasons, I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.