The Cost of Caring is Financially, Physically and Emotionally Bankrupting and Killing Carers!

With national enquiries into the Aged Care and NDIS systems, and the most recent Legislative overhauls, program changes and budget adjustments, Family, Kinship and Friend Carers across Australia are finding themselves being crushed by the ensuing added responsibilities, workplace, financial, and mental health pressures.

As formal services are cancelled, withdrawn, or much harder to avail of, the federal government’s ‘fall-back option’ of over-burdening informal support networks is having a catastrophic effect on Carers, pushing many to their physical, emotional and financial breaking points.

Slashed budgets mean Paid Support Workers are no longer funded to provide essential care for clients, and respite periods for Carers.

Surging gap fees are causing many to re-evaluate their care priorities; “do I eat today, or pay for a personal hygiene service?”

Workforce participation is compromised and can’t be maintained because Carers are getting haphazard and fewer hours, thus impacting disposal incomes, superannuation forecasts, career progression and lifetime earnings.

Heightened financial strain caused primarily by the gross inadequacy of income support (with Carer Allowance (CA) at a ridiculous $0.48 an hour, and Carer Payment (CP) at just $3.68 an hour), coupled with cost-of-living pressures, increasing inflation, service exclusions and out-of-pocket expenses where there previously were none, is in fact killing people.

As psychological distress goes unnoticed, mental health issues are going unchecked, Carer burnout is becoming more evident – a stark reality, with family breakdowns more frequent, and suicide becoming a solution for many who would rather end their lives than admit defeat or seek help.

Carer Payment (CP) – and more so Carer Allowance (CA) - have not kept pace with the gravity and realities of the cost to care and support a Family, Kinship or Friend Carer in this day-and-age.

What Carers financially receive from the federal government by way of Carer Allowance (CA) is grossly inadequate to sustain and encourage Carers to continue to saddle the burden of caring in its entirety.

Albeit the Carer Allowance totals $4,227.60 a year, it’s not even enough to keep a car on the road; in fact, for a Carer to maintain a vehicle costs on average $6,561.90 a year, leaving the Carer personally out-of-pocket over $2,334.30 a year, adding more household stress (see Table ).

You never know when you might find yourself a Carer, or in need of one, so please disseminate this Petition far-and-wide.