Mr Rudd: Don’t forget the ‘least of these’ on budget night
ANGLICARE Sydney CEO Peter Kell has called on the Australian Government to ensure that programs and policies to support the most vulnerable in our society are maintained or strengthened in next week’s budget.
“This year’s Federal budget needs to strike the correct balance between delivering on the ambitious reform agenda that the government was elected to undertake, whilst dealing with the ongoing fallout from the global financial crisis. It is the most difficult Federal budget a government has had to hand down in many years” says Mr Kell.
“Sections of Australian society that have never experienced hardship are beginning to do it tough – jobs are at risk or have been lost for many already.
“How much harder then is the impact of the downturn on those who were already doing it tough; the single parent families, migrants and refugees, those with a mental illness, those who are frail aged, sick or disabled and those family members who care for them?
“Investments in infrastructure, the financial stimulus packages and the guarantee of training places for young Australians are amongst a number of important measures designed to prevent people from falling through the cracks.
“But there are many Australians who have already fallen through the cracks, who can no longer afford to pay their rent or utilities, or even put food on their table.
“Over the last seven months, ANGLICARE Sydney has seen a marked increase in the number of families and individuals coming to our Community Care Centres for assistance.”
Specifically, ANGLICARE Sydney is looking to the Federal Government to:
• Provide additional funding for emergency relief services to assist families and individuals not only with their immediate needs such as paying for food and bills, but to provide case management to assist them in the medium-to-long term to deal with the multiple factors that have contributed to their situation;
• Funding and implementing the recommendations from the recent Inquiry into Better Support for Carers; and
• Maintain the Conditional Adjustment Payment (CAP) that provides an additional 1.75% funding each year to residential aged care providers to compensate for the inadequate indexation currently provided, and to also introduce this funding to community aged care service providers.
