Page 511 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 23 February 2010
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My final words are to the carers in the ACT: I offer my respects and, more profoundly, my thanks for what they do for their loved ones and for our community.
MS BRESNAN (Brindabella) (3.52): I, too, thank Ms Porter for bringing on this matter of public importance today and I note the comments made by my colleague Ms Hunter on behalf of the Greens in regard to Carers ACT, young carers and kinship carers.
I would like to raise briefly issues relating to carers that were raised by the House of Representatives report last year Who cares? which is a report of the inquiry into better support for carers. It was quite a major report. They received thousands of submissions from carers across the country and held hearings. There was a lot of very compelling evidence provided to that particular inquiry.
The report notes:
Over the years, the shift from institutional care to care in the community has greatly increased reliance on informal care provided by family and friends … Emerging demographic and social trends are predicted to result in larger numbers of people requiring care and smaller numbers of people able and willing to provide it. Existing pressures on systems of support for carers which have been building over decades are therefore projected to increase.
As has already been discussed, areas like respite care and in-home assistance are incredibly important if we are to assist carers with the growing burden they are carrying and if we are to also avoid going back to the days of the institutions, which I am sure is something which no-one wants to see happen again.
The issue of flexibility was also raised through the House of Representatives report. It is often the case that funding guidelines are tight and that a lot more could be achieved for the carer and the person whom they care for if they were given greater ability to choose how to spend the funding assistance they receive. The issue of funding flexibility applies to both federal and ACT governments.
Complexity around funding and the issue of silos, which we do often hear about, is an issue also across government agencies in the ACT. While this remains and we have a lack of integrated services and a lack of flexibility, we will continue to have problems caused for carers, which will increase the difficulty in terms of their accessing services.
I would also like to note, as Mr Doszpot already has, that the Standing Committee on Health Community and Social Services is due to inquire into respite services. Respite is an ongoing concern for carers, and access to respite helps them to maintain their caring role and their own health, which often suffers as they typically put the person they care for first, before their own needs. This also points to the issue of isolation and social exclusion, which is also raised in the numerous reports and inquiries that have gone on into carers. Because they do obviously focus on the person they care for, all those other things outside of their lives do not get taken care of.
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