Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) National Carers Week runs from 11 to 17 October 2015 to recognise and celebrate the outstanding contribution unpaid carers make to our nation;

(b) carers in Australia make an enormous contribution to our communities and our national economy;

(c) in 2015, it is estimated that nearly 2.9 million Australians will provide more than 1.9 billion hours of informal and unpaid care; and

(d) the replacement value of informal care would be $60.3 billion, equivalent to 3.8 per cent of gross domestic product and 60 per cent of the health and social work industry budget; and

(2) congratulates Carers Australia for its strong advocacy and support for those providing care and support to family members and friends who have a disability, mental illness, chronic condition, terminal illness and alcohol or other drug issue, or who are frail aged.

As co-convenor of the Parliamentary Friends of Carers group, it is my pleasure today to move the motion before the House recognising National Carers Week. The member for Boothby and I, in partnership with Carers Australia, formed the parliamentary friendship group to help raise awareness of the important role carers play in our community and to bring further profile to the challenges faced by carers and those they care for. National Carers Week gives us an opportunity to stop and reflect on the enormous contribution that unpaid carers make to local communities across Australia and the significance of that contribution to our national economy.

Carers Australia's latest report into the caring economy, launched here in Parliament House last August, put some clear markers down to demonstrate the immense support unpaid carers provide in Australia. The report, researched and prepared by Deloitte Access Economics, estimates the total value of informal care, or unpaid care, being provided in Australia today and examines the implications of demographic trends and projections of informal care into the future.

The research found that in 2015 nearly 2.9 million people are providing informal care, with more than 800,000 of these informal carers being primary carers—that is, people who provide the majority of an individual's care. While these numbers are impressive, in absolute terms there are approximately 10,000 fewer carers in 2015 than there were in 2010, which was identified as being primarily due to a declining propensity to care. I will come back to the challenges that this trend causes for the future later in my contribution to this motion. The report also found that the majority of those who do provide care are women and predominantly fall within the age range of 25 to 65 years of age. This demographic assessment of care in Australia helps to inform the economics of informal care. Deloitte has estimated that carers will provide an astounding 1.9 billion hours of care in 2015, with the replacement value of informal care being estimated at $60.3 billion. That is equivalent to nearly four per cent of Australia's GDP.

As referenced earlier, the forecasts undertaken as the final part of the research do, however, point to significant challenges ahead of us as our population grows older and our propensity to care decreases. In the next 10 years the demand for informal care is set to significantly outstrip its supply. Over the decade to 2025 the carer gap—that is, the gap between the supply of informal carers and the need for informal carers—increases in each year, and the carer ratio—that is, the supply of carers divided by the demand for carers—is decreasing in each year. A major contributing factor to this carer gap is the trend decrease in propensity to care, which is likely to be influenced by many factors, including Australia's disproportionately ageing population; our changes to societal structures such as smaller family sizes, higher divorce rates, rising childlessness and the increase of single-person households; the rising rates of female participation in the labour force; changes in intergenerational attitudes and perceptions around caring; economic pressures on families to have at least two incomes to meet rising cost-of-living pressures; and the growing duration and complexity of caregiving as a result of extended life expectancy. These trends present significant challenges for policymakers in Australia if we are to address this widening carer gap.

The report goes on to flag some of the key areas that we really need to work on as policymakers in Australia. The important thing is that we really face those challenges square on. As policymakers and legislators in this place, if we are serious about redressing that carer gap then they are the issues we really need to tackle right here and right now.

I congratulate Carers Australia for their really strong advocacy and support for those providing care and support to family members and friends who have a disability, mental illness, chronic condition, terminal illness, or alcohol or other drug issues, or are frail aged. Their work is vital in helping us to shape a more inclusive Australia.

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