Ms MAY (4:51 PM) —Help is at hand for carers. I am delighted to support the Assistance for Carers Legislation Amendment Bill 1999 which will provide a boost for many people in my electorate who spend so much of their time and energy caring for others. In announcing its staying at home package in April 1998 to allow more elderly Australians to stay in their own homes, the Howard government gave a reassurance that it would look after carers. The package aimed at ensuring that staying at home and receiving community care is a real option for those older Australians who choose to do so.

The bulk of this package involves improved services to older people living at home and their carers, including community care packages, respite care, continence management and assessment. The bill gives effect to a number of measures aimed at improving assistance to carers, including the measures announced in the staying at home package. The bill is an indication that the government is listening to the needs of those people who care for people of all ages.

The bill brings into effect a series of measures aimed at improving assistance to carers from 1 July 1999 and introduces a new social security payment—the carer allowance—which combines two existing payments—the child disability allowance for carers of a child up to 16 years of age, and the domiciliary nursing care benefit for carers of adults 16 years of age or more.

In June 1998, Australia-wide, there were 101,377 children and students receiving the carers disability allowance. In the 1997-98 program, 45,675 carers were assisted to care for 46,124 people under the domiciliary nursing care benefit. Under the government's changes, people who now receive the current child disability allowance or the domiciliary nursing care benefit will continue to receive the same amount of money.

A major benefit of these changes is that the eligibility criteria for the carer allowance for carers of adults will be liberalised to achieve a net increase of 14,000 recipients. This will mean that more Australians will be rewarded by the Howard government for their efforts in caring for individuals who have a disability, are frail aged or chronically ill. It is good news for the people of my electorate that a new category of people eligible for a carer payment has been created, taking into account those who are caring for an adult with a level of disability that is not sufficient to qualify their carer for income support.

The carer allowance will not be subject to any income or assets test and will not be taxable. In addition, it will provide a simpler and more consistent system of income supplement for carers of people of all ages with disabilities.The creation of the carer allowance simplifies carer repayments and brings them all into the one department. Combining the child disability allowance and the domiciliary nursing care benefit into one payment delivered through Centrelink will provide carers with a streamlined and simple payment system. In addition, carers will need to deal with only one organisation and fill out one form to arrange their carer payments, making this process easier for carers.

Within my electorate, I have more than 300 carers registered with Centrelink to receive social security payments. From feedback received from carers, I am well aware that currently a person cannot qualify for a carer payment where they are caring for an adult who has a disability but that disability does not satisfy the definition of `severely handicapped person'.

In cases where an adult has a child, and that adult's carer also cares for the child because the adult's disability means that the adult cannot care for the child himself or herself, the carer may be caring for the adult and child and be unable to work full time. It is good news for the people of my electorate that these changes announced by the government take situations like this into account. The changes extend the carer's qualification for carer payment to persons who are caring for an adult with a disability and that adult's child under 16. The aim is to provide assistance for people who are not only caring full time for the adult with a disability but looking after the child as well.

Like everybody, carers need a break. A major boost will be that, when a person being cared for has a terminal illness or is expected to return home after hospital treatment, the carer will continue to qualify for the carer payment or allowance while the person being cared for is in hospital for up to 63 days a year. Previously, carers could not claim child disability allowance, domiciliary nursing care benefit or carer payment when the person they were caring for was hospitalised.

The new adult assessment tool to be introduced with these changes will be used when assessing eligibility for carers allowance. This new tool will assess the functional ability of the care recipient on a more consistent basis than in the past. It replaces a rather restrictive and, in general, an unsatisfactory requirement under the domiciliary nursing care benefit that the person being cared for must be in continuing need of nursing home care. In the past, this has had the effect of discriminating between people with similar care needs. It is the government's intention to fix this problem, with the introduction of the new assessment tool, by extending eligibility to more people with cognitive impairments such as dementia, intellectual disability and psychiatric illness.

The Howard government has a track record of implementing new positive changes to benefit carers. In every budget since the government came into office, we have introduced measures to improve the situation for carers in terms of income support, respite and access to information. The government has provided additional resources for carer respite centres, and has announced more assistance for ageing carers, and as well has increased the rate of the domiciliary nursing care benefit from $58.30 to $75.10 per fortnight from 1 July 1998.

This bill is further evidence of the coalition government's concern for and commitment to carers. I commend the bill to the House.