Bills Digest no. 36 2007–08
Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs
Legislation Amendment (Child
Disability Assistance) Bill
2007
WARNING:
This Digest was prepared for debate. It reflects the legislation as
introduced and does not canvass subsequent amendments. This Digest
does not have any official legal status. Other sources should be
consulted to determine the subsequent official status of the
Bill.
CONTENTS
Passage history
Purpose
Background
Financial implications
Main provisions
Endnotes
Contact officer & copyright details
Passage history
Families,
Community Services and Indigenous Affairs Legislation Amendment
(Child Disability Assistance)
Bill 2007
Date introduced:
16 August 2007
House: House of Representatives
Portfolio: Families, Community Services and
Indigenous Affairs
Commencement:
1 October 2007 for the
bulk of the bill. See the table at item 2 for the few
exceptions.
Links: The
relevant links to the Bill, Explanatory Memorandum and
second reading speech can be accessed via BillsNet, which is at
http://www.aph.gov.au/bills/.
When Bills have been passed they can be found at ComLaw, which is
at http://www.comlaw.gov.au/.
To introduce a
payment called Child Disability Assistance.
Assistance to people caring for children with
disabilities has been provided by the Commonwealth since the
introduction of the Handicapped Child s Allowance in 1974. The
current version of this payment is the Carer Allowance (CA). A
chronology setting out the history of this type of assistance is
available on the Library website at:
http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/online/aged2.htm#handicappedchilds
In the 2004 Budget the Government provided for
a lump sum additional payment of $600 for the carers of each child
for whom CA was paid on Budget night. Since then this form of
assistance has been provided in every Commonwealth Budget including
the most recent 2007 Budget. The new Child Disability Assistance
payment proposed in this Bill converts this practise into a regular
feature of carer assistance.
This new payment was announced as part of a
package of measures to assist people with disabilities, their
families and carers on 28 June 2007. [1]
In June 2006, CA was paid to 106,622 carers
who cared for 125,593 children with disabilities. The children
cared have:
a functional impairment compared to the
appropriate development milestone for a child of the same age
without a disability and/or special care needs. [2]
They may have a physical, intellectual or
psychiatric disability or a medical condition that reduces the
level of their functional ability compared to the level appropriate
to their age in the areas of:
Certain disabilities automatically qualify a
carer to receive CA. Other children are assessed under a Child
Disability Assessment Tool (CDAT) to determine eligibility for
their carer.
People caring for children with disabilities
often face considerable extra expense in their efforts to manage
and treat the conditions their children live with. Medical expenses
alone can greatly exceed those usually faced for most children.
Early intervention therapies, respite care, appropriate educational
placements and physical aids can often place families in situations
where the optimal provision for their child is beyond their
resources.
Assistance in the form of cash through CA and
the proposed Child Disability Assistance can assist the parents of
a child with a disability in their role as the effective case
manager for their child. Other forms of assistance provided by the
Commonwealth can also assist them is this role. The Medical
Expenses Tax Rebate, the Medicare Safety Net, and the medicare
rebates for allied health professionals treating children with
chronic conditions all provide help with medical expenses. The
Medical Expenses Tax Rebate can also help with the costs of certain
private early intervention programs. The Child Care Inclusion and
Professional Support Program can assist with the provision of
workable child care during the pre-school and primary school years.
[3]
However all this assistance often goes only a
small way towards reducing the costs faced by parents struggling to
provide for the needs of their children with disabilities. Research
into the costs of caring undertaken in 2006 suggest that:
One-third of people providing primary care for
elderly or disabled people live in households whose income places
them in the poorest fifth of households in Australia. Carers are,
on average, $5,600 worse off each year than people with no care
responsibilities. Carers also pay a high price in terms of
restricted job opportunities and reduced income the labour force
participation rate for primary carers is only 39 per cent. [4]
The Child Disability Assistance proposed in
this Bill was not the only measure aimed at carers for children
with disabilities announced in the 2007.
A Carer Adjustment Payment (CAP) was also
announced. It would be an interim payment of $10,000 to assist
families caring for a child aged 0-6 years who has been recently
diagnosed with a serious disability or has contracted a severe
illness. It would assist with care during the initial adjustment
period. [5] The CAP
is only to be available during a two year period while a review of
the eligibility criteria for Carer Payment is conducted. This
review would examine its effectiveness in providing a safety net
for carers of children with a severe disability or medical
condition [6].
Additional funding was also provided for 3000
extra children to receive the Inclusion Support Subsidy that is
used to assist child care services provide care for children with
ongoing high support needs, mainly children with disabilities.
[7]
The financial impact of this measure is
expected to be $567 million over four years [8]. The actual impact will depend on the
number of carers eligible for the payment, because any carer
eligible for Carer Allowance for a child will be eligible for the
new payment.
Item 2 inserts new
part 2.19AA into the Social Security Act 1991. It
provides for payment of Child Disability Assistance to carers who
received an instalment of Carer Allowance for an eligible care
receiver that covered a period including 1 July of each year.
Item 3 specifies that the
first instalment to qualify a carer for payment will be the one
that includes 1 July 2007. However, the payment will be delayed
until October 2007 when the provisions of the bill commence
[9].
Items 9-13 provide for Child
Disability Assistance to be included amongst the payments subject
to the income management regime to be introduced by the Social
Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Welfare Payment Reform)
Act 2007. This is the legislation introduced to
provide for quarantining of certain welfare payments as part of a
response to the issue of child abuse in the Northern Territory. See
Bills
Digest no. 27 of 2007-08 for more detail.
Part 2 provides for Child
Disability Assistance to be excluded from the definition of
separate net income and taxable income under the Income Tax
Assessment Act 1936 and the Income Tax Assessment Act
1997.
Endnotes
[8]. See: Explanatory Memorandum.
[9]. See: Explanatory Memorandum, p. 5.
Dale Daniels
Social Policy Section
3 September 2007
Parliamentary Library
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