Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

To pick up where Senator Bartlett left off, I cannot but help thinking—and I cannot blame carers or the people they care for—that this is an extremely mean-spirited amendment to the Family Assistance, Social Security and Veterans’ Affairs Legislation Amendment (2005 Budget and Other Measures) Bill 2006. We are not talking about a lot of money per person here—1,900 bucks. Let us look at some of the things that that sort of money would help pay for. It would help pay for supporting the person being cared for. It would help offset the costs of diagnosis, which in many cases are huge for families. It would help pay for transport, pharmaceuticals and nappies. It would also help pay for necessary modification to homes, because, when a person acquires a disability, in many cases modifications have to be made to their homes. So those people and the carers for these people can acquire huge costs in many cases.

So, we are not talking about a huge amount of money per person or per carer. I think the Access Economics report has probably been quoted a lot during this debate, but when you look at the value of the care that carers contribute to Australia annually—a $30.5 billion contribution to our community—I think that carers are justified in believing that this is mean spirited. I must admit I certainly believe it is unfair and I believe it is mean spirited.

The Greens are supporting these amendments believing they go some way to addressing our concerns but, as people would be aware from our amendments circulated, we oppose schedule 6 and we do not believe it should go ahead. But if this particular notion does go ahead we at least think discretion should be built in, so we are supporting the opposition’s amendments because I think that we have a responsibility to provide support for carers. As has been pointed out, this allowance is to just offset marginally the costs that carers incur looking after the people that they love and care for. You see that in many, many cases carers are in the lower economic areas and that they had to give up full-time work—sometimes they give up full-time work and take part-time work or they take work with less responsibility in order for them to provide care.

If you look at the submissions that came into the hearings, all the carers groups—all of them—raised concerns about this and oppose this. They were not consulted and I also believe it is disingenuous if anybody from government tries to put the point that groups were consulted. They were told about the changes and because the amendments in this bill, as we know, include some positive things people were, of course, supportive of the positive things—and then afterwards they saw the thorns hidden when they did more reading.

As I said, we in the community need to be supporting our carers, giving them as much financial support as we can and not causing them unnecessary angst as this would. As has also been articulated today, there are many reasons why carers do not immediately apply for carers allowance. In some cases it is because they think they can struggle on without support. They do not want to acknowledge that there is a crisis in process and it is only when they actually come to the crisis point that they look around for what support they can get. Here, as a community, we are going to be saying, ‘Sorry, bad luck. You missed the cut-off date, you missed 12 weeks. That’s just tough,’ because we are an uncaring society.

In this society we are supposed to be going for economic growth because then we will have a better society. What sort of society actually cuts off funding for carers after 12 weeks and says, ‘Sorry, you’ve missed out’? It used to be 52 weeks or 26 weeks—depending on whether you are looking after an adult or a child—but now we are saying, ‘Bad luck, we’ve decided to cut it to 12 weeks. You’ve missed out. If the person you care for acquired the disability a little while ago, well, you would’ve been due back pay up to 52 weeks but, because the person you’re looking after acquired the disability after 1 July, well, it’s bad luck. You’ll only get 12 weeks. Bad luck, you can’t modify your home. Bad luck, you can’t buy those pharmaceuticals or support the person that you’re caring for.’

I think it sends a really bad message to the people who are looking after the most vulnerable in society, because that is what they are doing: they are looking after people who need help, who cannot look after themselves, and they are providing that care at great expense to themselves—at great expense both financially and, as we have heard on many occasions, to their own wellbeing. They are often the people that also become sick and then worry when they cannot look after the people that they are caring for.

If you look at the submissions we received during the hearings, look particularly at one from Carers Australia. They point out that they believe that these amendments:

... will further disadvantage and marginalise carers. The 2003 ABS Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers indicates that carers are over-represented in the lower household income quintiles. These carers were identified as being at particular risk of low wellbeing in the Australian University Wellbeing Index Survey 2005. 

I put to you that they are going to be at an even greater risk of low wellbeing due to these types of amendments.

It is extremely disappointing that we even have to consider such amendments. As I said, in a time when we are supposed to be in significant economic growth we are penny pinching; we are penny pinching at the expense of the people who can least afford it and are most vulnerable, and I do not think it is a sign of a caring and decent society. We are not providing these people with a decent life. I think that they deserve that and they deserve all the support that we can give them, so we are supporting these amendments. But the Greens will be moving an amendment later to actually strike out schedule 6 and to not reduce the potential back pay at all—but we do support these amendments.