GreensBlog - the official blog of the Australian Greens Senators

I’m fresh back from a forum held in Melbourne by the Australian Association for Families of Children with a Disability (AAFCD). It was a great chance to talk to concerned members of what is a largely ignored section of the community. Speaking and answering questions alongside myself were Annette Ellis MP from the ALP, Minister for Family & Community Services Mal Brough from the Liberal Party, Democrats Senator Lynn Allison and Junelle Rhodes from the Carers Alliance party.

The Australian Greens believe that all people have a right to independence, self-determination and choice in their lives. We believe that everyone should be given the opportunity to participate in all aspects of the social, political, economic and cultural life of our society, regardless of differing abilities, and we believe that all people have the right to be informed participants in the decisions that impact upon their health and well-being.

This is why we continue to advocate to give people living with a disability, their families and carers a greater opportunity to actively participate in policy development, service planning and delivery.

I took the opportunity of this event to highlight the ongooing problems with the Commonwealth State and Territories Disability Agreement (CSTDA) and the extent to which disability services around Australia are underfunded - particularly supported accomodation, equipment and training.

The CSTDA process has been marked by a continuing blame-game between the Commonwealth and the States (and Territories) that still continues. Most recently Mal Brough ignored the findings of the recent Senate inquiry into the CSTDA (of which I was an active participant) and refused to sign the agreement when it was due in July. Instead he took a divide and rule approach by offering more money through individual state agreements (ie bilateral rather than multilateral) … which were very much on the Commonwealths terms and priorities rather than those agreed through the CSTDA framework. Predictably, many of the states refused to sign, allowing Brough to shift the blame and claim much-needed disabilities services were being held up by recalcitrant states.

If you are interested in these issues I’d recommend that you look into the report of the Senate Inquiry into the CSTDA, as it was a unanimous report whose recommendations has been widely supported by disability advocacy and carers groups. This is the kind of important work done within the Senate that largely goes on behind the scenes - as unfortunately politicians working together to tackle an important issue for the common good doesn’t make for exciting news. In addition to recommending more funding, the report tackles the issues of whole of life planning, the need for a national disability strategy, development of indicators of unmet need, flexible funding options including individualised funding, housing, supported accommodation and early intervention … the list goes on.

The issue of whole of life planning is a particularly important one. For example many of the activities and services that are accessible to a child with a disability are no longer available when they turn 18. At 18 they or their families start an application process to find new services, accommodation, respite etc.

A range of similar problems also occur for people with a disability when they hit another age threshold at the other end of their life, and move from being disability care to aged care. Suddenly the categories are different, existing access to services, equipment or respite changes, either ending or having to be re-negotiated. Similar problems also exist if families are moving between jurisdictions (eg states) and often people lose access to all their services and have to go back to the end of the waiting list for hard won support. The families and carers of people with a disability often find that themselves humiliated by the un-thinking form-filling culture of the bureaucracy, where a blind person can be posted a printed letter (that they can’t read) asking them if they are still blind and requiring them to undergo another assessment to see if they still have their disability.

People with a disability, their families and carers are some of the most hard-working and disadvantaged groups in Australian society. Families and carers of those living with a disability put in long hours looking after their loved ones and their health, well-being and working lives suffer as a result.

Skimping on supporting people with a disability and their carers ultimately ends up costing us as a society, through lost productivity and increased long-term health-care costs. We’ve seen recent research by Professor Bob Cummins of Deakin University that found most carers are clinically depressed, which results in tying up community health resources and reducing workplace productivity. The mental health of younger carers is particularly affected because they have a greater sense of missing out on life’s possibilities and become more despairing about their future prospects.

Funding for people living with a disability and their carers is urgently needed, neither the Government nor the ALP would commit to increasing funding to the level needed. Yet both are offering a massive $34 billion tax package - tax cuts which could fund community services and resources.

Carers take on huge workloads and tackle massive impediments in their efforts to be independent and to look after their families and themselves. Where is the support for these people who are taking on what would otherwise be taken on by the community? Where are their incentives? Little is in place for people with disabilities who want to hold down a job, to have their own home and to live as independently as they can.

In New South Wales, there are an estimated 8,000 people with unmet needs for accommodation support. In Victoria, approximately 4,478 people are listed as in need of accommodation support. In Queensland, 5,117 people are listed as requiring accommodation support-an unmet need. It is almost a race to the bottom-in other words, who has the biggest crisis? The carers have to tell their stories so intensely, as in this race to the bottom the person who has the worst case wins, which is not a satisfactory situation to put carers in.

It’s high time both major parties took heed of the huge public interest in carers and the people with a disability. This is particularly evident in factors such as Campaign Enable, an action plan to mobilise people living with disabilities being coordinated by the Australia Fair lobby group. The campaigners have identified a list of key marginal seats where the number of people receiving the disability support pension is much greater than the number of votes needed to swing the seat.

I would hope such figures would shock the Government into action on carers, but it has done nothing to shift them from their pedestal. The ALP hasn’t even given it enough thought to bother coming up with a policy. It’s clear that carers and the disabled are being ignored by both major parties, and are being forced into a great mobilisation towards democracy.