Australian Association for Families of Children with Disability

The Federal House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family, Community, Housing and Youth is conducting an inquiry into better support for carers.

The Standing Committee will report on the role and contribution of carers, barriers to social and economic participation for carers, practical measures to better support carers, and strategies to assist carers to access the same range of opportunities and choices as the wider community.

For the purpose of the inquiry, carers are defined as ‘individuals providing unpaid support for others with ongoing needs due to a long-term medical condition, a mental illness, a disability or frailty'.

Parents and carers were encouraged to make a submission or attend one of the public hearings to be held in all capital cities and some rural centres. The inquiry is an opportunity to tell government about specific ideas, solutions, and program proposals you want to see put in place to better support carers.

Our input to the inquiry is outlined in our submission:

AAFCD Submission to Federal Inquiry into Better Support for Carers (632 PDF) and in the transcript from the public hearing held in Melbourne in August 2008.

For more information about the inquiry visit the Australian Parliament House website

Carer Payment (child) Review

The Australian Government has commissioned an Indpendent Taskforce to review the Centrelink payment, Carer Payment (child). Our former CEO Michael Gourlay was one of the members of the taskforce.

During 2007, a discussion paper was prepared to provide information about the review and to assist individuals and organisations who wished to have input. There was also a series of focus groups held around Australia in June and July 2007.

For a copy of the discussion paper and other information about the review visit the Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs website.

For more information phone 1800 739 456 or email CarerReview@facsia.gov.au

Other Advocacy

In a Federal Election year, our advocacy work tends focus on lobbying the two major parties (the Liberals and Labor) regarding their election policies.

In addition to being an election year, 2007 is also a crucial time for the re-negotiation of the five-year Commonwealth State Territory Disability Agreement (the CSTDA).

Our letter to the Prime Minister and Treasurer 23 May 2007 regarding the CSTDA focuses mainly on the issue of accommodation support for young adults with a disability.

This letter, and subsequent correspondence with the Ministers for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (Minister Brough and Community Services (Minister Scullion) raise a number of other policy areas of concern to us, including:

Early childhood intervention and emotional support for parents in the early years
Pre-school and school education
Aids and equipment
The National Disability Advocacy Program and what it currently does and doesn't provide for children with a disability and their families
Poverty and financial hardship facing many families of children with a disability
Centrelink payments, including Carer Payment, Carer Allowance and the recently announced Carer Adjustment Payment
Health and Medicare;
Home and Community Care (HACC)
Childcare and employment assistance for parents of children with a disability, including a particularly disadvantaged group of families with teenagers with a disability who have difficulty accessing out-of-school hours care
Taxation, superannuation and other policies (eg. Special Disability Trusts) to encourage family and community contributions to disability support
Whole of government approaches to ensure an appropriate sensitivity of disability issues is built into all government policy areas such as transport and communications
Opportunities to introduce a form of government sponsored 'no-fault' insurance

For more information about our work on these or any other advocacy issues for families of children with a disability, please contact us.