“The suite of election commitments to support carers announced by Labor today goes a long way to meeting a range of carers’ needs” said Ara Cresswell, CEO of Carers Australia.

Australia’s 2.7 million family and friend carers, especially those who provide a substantial amount of care, often do it very tough. They can face a huge range of personal challenges including high levels of stress, social isolation, the inability to combine work and care which impacts on both their quality of life and their financial security, and just the wear and tear which can be associated with caring on a daily basis, often over many years.

There are a number of areas of government policy which have a direct impact on the wellbeing and future prospects of these carers.

“Labor’s commitments address the need for adequate funding for special support services which carers need to help them to cope. We particularly welcome the addition of $22 million per year over three years on top of the funding announced in the Federal Budget to help ensure that the new national program for delivering a range of support services to carers will be adequate to meet their needs,” said Ms Cresswell.

“We are also pleased that the difficulties carers have engaging with Centrelink for income support have also been taken into account.”

“Importantly, a Labor Government would revive the National Carer Strategy which was discontinued in 2014.”