Tammy Tyrrell (Tasmania, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When parents can't care for their children, grandparents, aunts, uncles or even family members often step up to provide a safe and secure place for these children. I have met with kinship carers, and what they do is incredible. Something else incredible is that so many of these carers do it without any extra financial support. I have been working on a solution for this along with colleagues here and in the other place, through the Parliamentary Friends of Grandparent and Kinship Carers group. We recognise kinship care is an issue where political colours are not relevant.

One simple solution is a stat dec that can be used whenever these people need to prove their carer status—like Medicare, school administration or times when the child needs permission for an extracurricular activity. But we can do more. We have been looking at tweaking the legislation to recognise and define kinship care. Earlier this month, a constituent came into my office to tell me there were newborns who were about to be put into foster care but the carers were not able to claim parental leave because the newborns were not their biological children. We all know a newborn needs a different level of care to an older child, so when the carers took leave from their jobs, they had to appeal to their employers to help them out. The employers were able to give them some extra leave, but not the same level most new parents could access.

This situation highlights a gap in our foster care system. It also shows even bigger gaps when it comes to the rights of kinship carers. Foster carers can access childcare subsidies and income support, but what about kinship carers? They are doing the same thing as foster carers, so why can't they be recognised for that? Kinship care is hard and rewarding, and we need to support these people for stepping up and caring, not penalise them.