Chapter 2: Community Engagement
The Taskforce developed a discussion paper and conducted a public submission process, and other consultative activities, to help establish the range of concerns held in the community about access to Carer Payment (child). The Taskforce was very appreciative of the time and effort carers took to share their experiences and of the detail they provided, which helped the Taskforce to understand the impact of the caring role and access to payments. The concerns raised were a major focus for the Taskforce and were of enormous value to the review.
Review process
The Taskforce engaged with the community and key stakeholders in a number of ways. Commencing on 26 May 2007, advertisements seeking submissions were placed nationally in around 450 metropolitan and rural newspapers. A discussion paper was distributed to more than 300 interested parties in June 2007. Letters enclosing a submission template were mailed to people who were in receipt of Carer Payment (child) and Carer Allowance (child) asking about their experiences as carers and any views they had on eligibility for Carer Payment (child).
The Taskforce commissioned a series of focus group sessions across Australia with representatives of stakeholder organisations and with as many self-selected carers as was practicable, given the Taskforce’s time and resource constraints. A summary of the consultation activities is at Appendix B.
The Taskforce received more than 4,000 submissions, the majority of which were from individual carers. Organisations provided 23 submissions.
Themes arising from consultations
The major issues raised during the consultations fell into eight main categories:
- impact of the caring role on carers and their families, and the level of care required beyond that of a usual parenting role;
- eligibility criteria and assessment processes for access to Carer Payment and Carer Allowance, and the fact that these processes do not recognise the scope of the care provided;
- complexity of the application process and the role of health professionals in verifying claims for payment;
- inadequacies in the service delivery system in helping carers to access information and assistance;
- lack of recognition of different care arrangements, such as shared care, short-term and episodic care, and multiple caring responsibilities;
- the financial costs of disability and the costs of caring, including the opportunity cost of not participating in the workforce;
- the relationship between carer payments and other social security payments, and the lack of a smooth transition between child and adult carer payments; and
- issues relating to education and school participation for children with severe disability or medical conditions, and the broader carer support system.
This report addresses issues raised by carers and other interested parties during the consultation phase that fell within the scope of the Taskforce’s terms of reference; however, a number of matters did not fall within the scope of the terms of reference. While this report does not deal directly with all these matters, the Taskforce has included some findings and recommendations on matters strictly outside its terms of reference where the issues were considered to be of importance to the review.
A summary of themes raised appears in the Report on the Consultations, which has been produced as a separate document. The report was commissioned to provide an analysis of the submissions received and transcripts from focus groups and targeted consultations. An extract from the report on the major themes appears at Appendix C.