Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Families and Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Askew, for your follow-up question. Since July this year, we have put in place a new digital IT platform for digital counselling and online services through the very important Carers Gateway. However, we do recognise that there are still a number of people out there who either can't or prefer not to access this kind of information through savvy IT services. Instead, they prefer to get their information in person. With carers, we want to continue to make sure that they can access face-to-face and phone support for services through the existing carers program under the new Integrated Carer Support Service. This new gateway provides services in carer support, planning, coaching, counselling, financial support and the like. Once again, Australians know that you can only provide these sorts of services if you have a strong economy, because a strong economy allows us to afford to put these things in place.