Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak in support of the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Improved Support for Carers) Bill 2009. I do so for two reasons. Firstly, I wish to acknowledge and thank both the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and the Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children’s Services—who has just spoken on this bill—for their effort in bringing a much fairer deal for carers throughout Australia. I was just listening to the parliamentary secretary, and I have also spoken with him on other occasions in respect to this very issue, and I have to say that there is no question in my mind as to his sincerity and commitment towards supporting carers throughout Australia. I think that was eloquently reflected in his closing remarks.

Secondly, I want to acknowledge my personal appreciation and admiration for carers throughout the country. I say that having now spent several years being associated with carers, in different capacities, across a whole range of fronts. What I see them do, and what they have to endure day in and day out, is truly amazing. I do not wish to repeat the accolades just made by the parliamentary secretary but I certainly endorse the remarks he made about them. What he said is absolutely true.

I want to make another couple of points in respect of this bill. Firstly, the bill arose from a review by the Carer Payment (child) Review Taskforce, under Anthony Blunn, which was instigated by the previous government in March 2007. The Rudd government has looked at that review and has certainly accepted that carers need to be given a greater level of support. There is a secondary aspect to it, which is changing the focus of the definition of a carer. With respect to this, the qualification criteria for carer payment under this bill are, I believe, a lot fairer when it comes to whether or not a person is considered a carer. The qualification criteria will now be based on the level of care required rather than on rigid medical criteria. This has quite often been the subject of grievances in a whole range of cases where strict medical criteria are applied, whether it is to do with carers or in other medical situations where government support is provided.

The carer payment for a child can also now be accessed on a short-term or episodic basis. Again, this is something that needed to be changed and, I am pleased to see, is being changed. The bill contains more generous arrangements for carers of children who are in hospital. Carers can keep their carer payment or carer allowance while the child is in hospital. I heard the parliamentary secretary make reference to that very issue and he quite rightly makes the point that caring does not stop just because a person is in hospital, where they are getting additional care from the hospital that they are in. There will be a relaxation of qualification rules for a person caring for a child with a terminal illness. It is heartbreaking enough to be with a child who has a terminal illness without having to put up with bureaucratic red tape as to what your entitlements should or should not be. I also see that a person receiving the carer payment for a child will now automatically be eligible for a carer allowance. These are all necessary changes and I certainly welcome them.

I want to make an additional point with respect to carers. One thing that is not recognised well enough is that many of the carers within our community are what you would call ‘young carers’—people who themselves are only children. The latest available statistics suggest that one in six carers throughout the country is under 18 years of age. In my state of South Australia, there are some 14,800 carers under the age of 18. Another statistic is that 10,200 of them are under 15 years. Perhaps the most concerning statistic of all is that 600 of them are under nine years of age. These are children who are caring for other family members. I have been to some of these children’s homes and seen the level of care they have to provide to one of, and in some cases both, their parents. It is incredible to think that in a country like Australia we have nine-year-olds taking on such a huge responsibility. I am sure that they do it because they love their parents; nevertheless I think it is a somewhat sad reflection on our society that that level of responsibility has been placed on such young people.

The additional concern that arises from that is that only about four per cent of young carers aged between 15 and 25 are in some form of education. That compares with a figure of some 23 per cent for non-carers. This highlights that, whilst these young people are in fact caring for a parent, or maybe both parents, they are missing out on their own education. Essentially, they are missing out on preparing a future for their own lives.

I will make two other points with respect to this bill. The first is that, about two months ago, the parliamentary secretary came to my electorate of Makin and, with me, visited a number of high schools where there were children with disabilities. We visited Golden Grove High School, Tyndale high school and Modbury Special School. We also held a forum, which people with disabilities from all over the region came to. The thing that struck me was this: when you see people with a disability you start to empathise with their disability in a way that you could not if you had not heard their personal stories.

But what is often neglected and forgotten is that, along with those people with disabilities, there is at least one family member, and sometimes more, who is equally in a situation where their own life has to be drastically changed because of their total commitment to the person with a disability. So for every person with a disability someone else’s life is quite often equally affected, and affected 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And so you start to appreciate and understand exactly what it must be like to be a carer.

Only last week I visited Ross Smith Secondary School because at the forum there were a number of students in wheelchairs who studied there. I promised them I would visit them in their classrooms at the school, and so I did. While I was there speaking with the children—these are children in their teens—I also got to see firsthand the carers who are based at the school and the work that they do to support and assist these young people in wheelchairs. All I can say is that I have the utmost admiration for them, having seen what they do for them not only in the learning environment but also in supporting them in every other facet of their life, whether it is feeding them, helping them with their recreation or washing and bathing them and so on. You start to understand these people need this kind of care 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Who is doing it in most cases? A family member or, when they are at school, one of the carers. So you start to truly appreciate why we as a society need to do a lot more to support carers throughout our community and why measures such as these are so welcome.

The other matter I want to raise also relates to the plight of carers. Some six months ago a young lady by the name of Allison Dix came to see me in my electorate office. Allison is a mum of a couple of children who have autism. She came to see me because she too was in a situation where she had to care for her children 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But she was not concerned about herself; she was concerned about so many other parents who were in a similar situation to hers, who had to go through all of the experiences that she had to go through. She wanted to do something about personally reaching out and helping the other parents who found themselves in a similar situation to hers. Off her own bat she formed a group called the Rainbow Land Playtime Group. They went to the local council at Tea Tree Gully and found a community facility, the Sunnybrook Community House, and set up a playgroup where other parents of children with autism could come along and at least there would be a shared sense of understanding of what they were going through, but more importantly it would be some recreation and an escape for a few hours each week for those parents. Again this is a classic example of the admiration I have for carers. Here is a carer who has her own children to care for, but she is just as concerned about other parents in a similar situation. It is people like her who deserve the support of this parliament and our community broadly. That is all I wanted to say on this matter. I reiterate that I raise it purely to highlight my respect for carers. I also want to thank the minister and the parliamentary secretary for their work in taking the government a step forward in assisting carers throughout Australia. I commend this bill to the House.

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