Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Kemp, Minister representing the Minister for Human Services. Is the minister aware of reports in the Sydney Morning Herald that last weekend the parents of a four-year-old boy with cancer and a congenital heart malformation were denied eligibility for carer payment because the child did not meet the government’s medical criteria? Isn’t the boy so ill that he is undergoing chemotherapy? Hasn’t a senior Centrelink official noted that the case highlights a need to change the assessment criteria for carer payment? What action has been taken to assist the family? And can the minister give a commitment that the criteria will be changed to provide support for parents who have no choice but to stay at home to care for seriously ill children?