Page 3475 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 22 October 2014
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At the end of the day the real work is done by the carers themselves. I fully support the motion before us that acknowledges the commitment made by carers in the ACT and acknowledges the work of community organisations which assist carers in their valuable role. We as a community need Carers Week and the subsequent focus that it brings on this important issue to remind us of the powerful and vital work that is often invisible but never underestimated. And with that last thought in mind, I do appreciate the motion today which offers members of the Assembly the opportunity to recognise the very significant contribution of carers in our community. I fully support the motion.
MR WALL (Brindabella) (3.58): I am pleased to speak to Ms Lawder’s motion today and I commend her for bringing to the Assembly today recognition of the work of unpaid carers. Carers, in fact, do play a significant part in our community. They provide unpaid support and make a contribution to society that is all too often easily overlooked. In my role as the shadow minister for disability I have had the privilege of meeting with a huge number of unpaid carers and have managed to start to grasp an understanding of the extent of their commitment. The dedication and the work that they put in never cease to amaze me.
Often this commitment has been made over many years and the toll of putting someone else’s needs before their own does often take a toll on the carers themselves. Sometimes it is a physical toll; sometimes it is financial. Unpaid caring can also have an impact on other areas of their lives such as family relationships and often makes it difficult to maintain friendships and relationships outside the family unit as well.
One of the most common and consistent issues that I hear within the disability community, when talking to carers, generally comes from those carers that are reaching the later stages of their lives as they age and the concerns start to come up as to what will happen to the person that they have been caring for when they are no longer physically capable of doing so. It is a concern that is often raised and is an issue that I think presents itself not just in a disability space but across the community. It is an area in which a lot of work still remains to be done. We have seen attitudes from both government and service providers progressively change in this area and carers themselves have also seen many changes in their time as they have looked after their loved ones or extended family.
There have been many changes in these spaces and the changes ahead also continue to cause some concern and anxiety about what the future might hold. Carers that have perhaps been spending the best part of the last half century looking after a family member have seen substantial change in the language that we use to describe people with a disability, not to mention the therapies, the supports and the accommodation options that are available for them. There is one very important question that is consistently raised when I speak with carers, and that is, as I mentioned, “Who will look after my child when I am not here or when I am no longer physically able to provide the care I now provide?”
I think it is important also to make a note of the economic contribution that carers make. The Productivity Commission, when it was doing its investigations into the
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