4.1
The task of combining work and care responsibilities is experienced differently between and across individuals and families, genders, abilities and social groups. Other factors, such as financial and income security and the nature of the surrounding community, can also impact on the lives of working carers.
4.2
The committee recognises there is a vast spectrum of experience when it comes to work and care. While acknowledging this variability in experience, the committee has received evidence and this chapter will focus on several groups with unique work and care circumstances, namely:
First Nations communities;
migrant and culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities.
4.3
This chapter outlines the evidence the committee has received on how these groups interact with Australia's current work and care system, the barriers facing people in these social groups to engage in both paid employment and respite, and the suggestions put forward for positive change.
Young carers
4.4
This section outlines the barriers faced by young carers and considers how inequalities experienced in the early stages of life contribute to long-term socio-economic disadvantage. Specifically, this section explores the ways in which patterns of care can impact educational attainment for young people by reducing opportunities for further education and employment.
Identifying young carers
4.5
Young carers are 'people up to 25 years old' who provide informal care. The caring responsibilities of young carers often go beyond what is usually expected of people at a young age. While current data likely fails to capture the true extent of young people with caring responsibilities in Australia, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has identified 59 100 individuals under 15 years of age as carers.
4.6
The ABS also estimates that 272 000 young people aged 15 to 24 years provide informal care to someone needing assistance, either due to disability or old age.
4.7
The committee was told, however, that the number of young carers is under‑reported in Australia. Dr Tania King and Ms Ludmila Fleitas Alfonzo articulated a range of factors exacerbating the under-identification of young carers and consequent lack of support provided to them. They stated:
Young carers are one of the most under-recognised and under-served groups in society – current service systems and polices do not adequately recognise or serve them. A key reason for this is identification - identifying young carers is challenging and complicated. Young carers often do not consider themselves to be carers because they don't see their actions and responsibilities as atypical. For this reason, many do not proactively seek or engage with formal services (Smyth et al., 2011). Often under‑identification can be attributed to a lack of awareness among some service providers and agencies, lack of awareness among potential gatekeepers such as teachers and health professionals, and stigma (Cass et al., 2011). Ethical considerations also further complicate the identification of young carers, with some evidence that young carers may be unwilling to self-identify due to fear of adverse intervention, such as removal of the young person (or the person being cared for) into other care arrangements (Cass et al., 2011).
4.8
Other submitters made the point that young carers are under-identified in the social security system as 'evidentiary data only appears to exist for those claiming some form of social security payment such as carer allowance' which doesn't include data on young carers.
4.9
Further, Children and Young People with Disability Australia (CYPDA) explained to the committee that the constrained definitions of carer in government policy falls short of accounting for the dynamic nature of the caring responsibilities that young people undertake, limiting their visibility in the support services system:
Where programs and funding, supports and services are built around the notion of the one carer and one career household, limitations are placed on the entire family system. For example, a family may share care responsibilities across grandparents, siblings, neighbours and paid supports during school term and may need to vary this approach during school holidays in the absence of accessible vacation care. Carer's allowance or payments are not flexible in this same way and vacation care and Child Care Subsidy, is connected to the child and family, rather than other informal supports. Ultimately families are balancing job security, caring responsibilities and family dynamics across multiple systems – education, health, NDIS [National Disability Insurance Scheme], etc with no support to navigate those systems or maintain the capacity of informal supports.
4.10
The committee was also told that the existing knowledge base that underpins the support and recognition of young carers is inadequate. When discussing the challenges that young carers experience, submitters and witnesses emphasised that effective support mechanisms in work and education settings should rely on data that is timely, comprehensive, consistent and comparable. Additionally, without understanding the experience of young carers, submitters stressed that institutions are constrained in their ability to understand the support needed, plan service delivery in partnership with young carers, allocate resources, and assess outcomes.
4.11
Mr Ian Clarke APM of the Albany Youth Support Association explained to the committee that young carers suffering from mental health challenges are also becoming increasingly complex to identify in formal settings such as schooling, clinical, and workplace environments. Mr Clarke noted that this is due to the fact that caring responsibilities for young people can include a range of circumstances, including:
… dysfunctional families where there is suffering from substance abuse, family violence and all those sorts of things, where a young person needs to step up and take an almost parental role. They don't have the toolbox. We know they lack the capability to do any of that sort of thing. In many cases that goes unseen by people. We certainly see that from the perspective of the youth because we're looking after those young people who present with a variety of different complex issues as we move forward.
4.12
The Centre for Disability Research and Policy echoed this observation, highlighting that a broader contextual understanding of a young carer's circumstances was required to identify and understand the mental health challenges resulting from caring responsibilities:
Young carers can experience poorer mental wellbeing than their peers, and that research is needed to identify suitable supports and resources to help to redress this issue. Furthermore, recognising that providing care can impact in positive and negative ways upon the physical and mental health of young carers, the stigma that is linked to a carer status can impede access to support services among these people.
4.13
Professor Patrick McGorry AO, Executive Director of Orygen, also noted the challenges that may arise from being an 'unseen' carer, resulting in a 'blind spot' in the support services system. He stated:
Young people providing care often do not refer to themselves as carers or seek appropriate support, so they're kind of a blind spot in our current system in many respects. The young carers experience their own mental health impacts. The national carers survey found that 73.8 per cent of young carers reported high or very high psychological distress, compared to 46 per cent of all other carers. Young carers report feeling alone and sleep deprived and often cope in unproductive ways with substance abuse or self-harm.
4.14
Dr King and Ms Alfonzo made the point that the challenges in identifying young carers and the resulting oversight in policy has significant implications for their educational, occupational, and economic outcomes:
Young carers are one particular population group that is commonly missed from considerations about unpaid care. This is a substantial oversight, because this caring has substantial implications for their health and wellbeing. While young carers are generally not combining caring and work, they are commonly combining care and schooling, and this care has significant implications for their educational, occupational and economic outcomes.
Improving data to inform service delivery and support
4.15
Submitters outlined that robust data on young carers will ensure that funding and service delivery is best allocated to maximise support. In effect, submitters explained that building a better understanding of the needs of young carers may raise awareness of the challenges they face in service provision, employment, and education settings.
4.16
Unless a holistic picture of young carers is captured, the committee heard that young carers may lack visibility in policy development. In discussing this issue, CYPDA posited that 'without high-quality data, there are limited opportunities to develop evidence-based approaches to protect children and young people and monitor existing and new interventions'.
4.17
CYPDA illustrated the importance of focussing on the experience of young carers and sharing this information across jurisdictions:
The lack of representation of children and young people in policy development is further compounded by the lack of any oversight of the departments and portfolios whose work directly impacts their lives. CYPDA argues that readily available data for this cohort is either non-existent or misrepresented. There should be a focus on transparency of information across systems and jurisdictions to ensure the experiences and outcomes of children and young people are adequately recognised.
4.18
Building on this approach, Professor Ian Hickie AM also called for continuous data collection to measure how caring roles are being accommodated in formal settings such as the workplace. Specifically, Professor Hickie recommended moving 'beyond the rhetoric of wellbeing to looking at which of those measures is most suitable for the nation but which can be applied at the individual industry or individual employer level'. He stated that one of the key issues is the need to:
… move to a more data informed approach as distinct from being driven by things like bad events, individual incidents, medico-legal and insurance type claims, which is really where most of the action has been, rather than continuous monitoring of the wellbeing of workforces that is then related to what is happening in those real workplaces and to those workers with multiple roles.
Young carers and school
4.19
Young carers face the challenge of undertaking their caring responsibilities within the constraints of education and workplace systems that are not designed for them.
4.20
The committee received evidence explaining that the barriers for young carers in the education system can lead to unemployment, poor health outcomes, social isolation, and disadvantage over their lives. In effect, young carers who have been unable to fully participate in education, which would prepare them for the workforce, often fail to achieve their full potential through no fault of their own.
4.21
Caring responsibilities have been shown to have a significant impact on young carers' ability to be at an educational and social level comparable to their non‑carer counterparts. The Department of Social Services reported that '60% of young carers aged up to 25 years old have not studied beyond high school, and on average current young carers were expected to be on income support in 43 years over their lifetime'.
4.22
According to Professor McGorry young carers have been reported to have:
… lower reading and numeracy NAPLAN [National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy] scores in year 9 compared to peers. Twenty‑eight per cent of young carers were at least once per week unable to attend school, and a further 39 per cent, due to caring responsibilities, were unable to attend school one to three times each month.
4.23
Submitters stressed that for young carers, educational attainment was an important predictor of their future health, employment and welfare prospects.
4.24
Mr Clarke explained to the committee that these issues derive from young carers being forced to balance several additional demands such as:
… taking on the parental role of looking after siblings [which is] forcing them to focus on what's happening inside the household, and they're not actually able to deal with the concept of growing up themselves. So they're disengaged from school and education, which then puts them on the back foot going forward into the workforce, going into their own lives, getting a family together and all those other aspects which impact on the general person's life as they grow up.
4.25
Professor McGorry recommended that formal education institutions provide targeted support and adopt more flexible practices to ensure that young people with caring responsibilities are assisted through higher education. Professor McGorry suggested that such practices might include:
… having more time and having other sources of support, flexibility and tolerance. … There are quite a few sympathetic teachers and lecturers within the universities, but then there are others who have a very hard line— they're probably old school and not very helpful at all.
4.26
The committee further heard that the structure of the education system precluded young carers from achieving desired educational outcomes, in turn setting them apart from their peers and resulting in a sense of social isolation.
4.27
Specifically, Ms Etta Palumbo, Chief Executive Officer of the Neurological Council of Western Australia, voiced concerns about the disadvantage that young carers experience in the schooling system and highlighted how young carers in such positions were penalised for undertaking caring responsibilities:
That makes it very difficult … when they are providing a significant amount of care and trying to get to school. Then they're truants and so forth or they're not performing at school, or they then go to work and find it very difficult as well.
4.28
Ms Palumbo remarked that many young carers, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, need support to navigate the increasingly complex school to employment pathway to avoid being left behind later in life. Ms Palumbo explained that:
The difference between me and a young person who is looking after someone is I have 53 years of experience to call upon, a great number of networks and an understanding of health conditions. A 16-, 17- or 18‑year old would have none of that, so there need to be support mechanisms in place and people who are watching out for young carers that can connect them to all of the things that they need as a carer who might be older. … your career prospects are going to be significantly impacted because you're just trying to figure out how to get to the next day.
4.29
Evidence to the committee highlighted that at the crucial juncture between school and work, the disadvantage that young carers experience can compound and result in long-term consequences such as limited:
workplace participation and job security;
career progression and promotion;
opportunities for further study or training;
a limited sense of belonging and wellbeing.
Young carers and work
4.30
The committee heard that when trying to enter the workforce, young carers are already at a significant disadvantage compared to their non-carer counterparts. Regardless of what stage they leave school, young carers enter the workforce on the back foot. This disadvantage may be further exacerbated by a lack of recognition of the skills gained from informal caring in work and education settings.
4.31
Carers Australia noted that transitioning from school to work is difficult for young carers as young people have limited qualifications or experience when entering the workforce.
4.32
Mr Sean Gardyne, Program Manager of Carers WA, conveyed to the committee that when transitioning from school to employment, many young carers experience low confidence due to gaps in their employment history. When discussing an employment program for young carers, Mr Gardyne stated that young carers often:
… turn up to the program feeling like they don't have much to contribute to the employment environment. Their confidence is really low, and, often, there are barriers to getting them into employment, such as not having many referees on their resume or trying to explain huge gaps in their employment. That can often be a factor with getting employment because people ask, 'What have you done during that time?' The caring role sometimes doesn't seem like a lot of preparation for stepping into some of the roles that they do, but there are a lot of transferable skills from the caring role, which is something that people often discover whilst actually doing the course.
4.33
Mr David Miltitz, Chief Executive Officer of Carers South Australia (SA), also noted that there is a large gap in support for young carers to develop the knowledge and skills that will prepare them for the labour force. Mr Miltitz stated that:
I think there is a gap in that transition between either your high school years and work or your higher education and work. I think there's a real gap in support. In South Australia, we find it far easier to engage young carers from, say, 12 to 16 [years]. Once young people get into high school, it is much harder to engage young carers in that 18-to-25-year age bracket … where people go from high school into work and then university into work placements. I think there's a gap there, and there could be plenty more work done.
4.34
Further, Mr Hugh Reilly, Executive General Manager of atWork Australia, argued for the need for change in workplace settings, stressing that a lack of tolerance for young people with caring responsibilities is a prevalent issue in the current labour market:
The situation with carers, especially with young people who are carers, is that we get a lot of feedback that employers don't necessarily always believe a young person when they say, 'I have to care for a family member.' They're seen more as unreliable, and there's a lot of social isolation there for a young person who has maybe been at home rather than already built up a lot of social connections before they left school.
Mental health challenges
4.35
Young carers experience a range of unique barriers in combining school, work and care. They have been reported to face significant challenges and poorer life outcomes than their non-caring counterparts. The reasons for this are complex and multifaceted. Poor life outcomes for young carers are not only influenced by patterns of care that may not be constant or predictable, but also by cumulative stressors, such as limited experience, support, education, mental health challenges, unemployability, and poverty.
4.36
Mr Clarke argued that punitive systems and the resulting disadvantage that young carers experience, exacerbated their vulnerability to socio-economic challenges relative to their non-carer counterparts, further entrenching inequality and the likelihood of falling into a cycle of poverty. Mr Clarke noted that the majority of young carers are:
… forced into a situation of high stress and high demand, often in a lower socioeconomic environment—I say often, but not exclusively—and that's where homelessness starts, with the disengagement and all the other aspects that come in to impact on that.
4.37
Overwhelmingly, evidence to the committee highlighted the emotional toll of the caring role on young carers. The committee was told that factor, intensified by financial hardship, a lack of respite, support, and social isolation, can exacerbate mental health challenges for young carers.
4.38
Professor McGorry stated that he had worked with a number of young carers who had presented with symptoms of psychological distress as a result of the insecurity they experience in their everyday lives:
… if you look at the causes of this worsening situation of mental health in young people, most of them boil down to issues of insecurity, whether it's financial, employment, climate change or any of the megatrends that are affecting society.
4.39
Similarly, Mr Clarke had also experienced the complexities of young people presenting with mental health issues as a result of caring. He explained that young people were:
… suffering their own mental health issues, disengaging from education and from the social environment around them and, of course, leading on to work. It's becoming increasingly common with young people. We see the complexities of young people presenting these days increasing substantially. We come to this particular hearing from the perspective of saying: the carer role is not just those people that are already in the workforce; it's the impact of the carer role for those right from a very early age that are doing that.
4.40
Mr Clarke continued that there were increased demands on organisations that provide mental services to young people, which was corroborated by mental health experts such as Professor McGorry and Professor Hickie.
4.41
For example, Mr Clarke posited that there were numerous factors that could be attributed to this rise, including limited employment prospects, social isolation and access to education. He explained that:
… It's isolation and it's disengagement from the general community and often, socially, from those younger people around them—their own cohort, if you like. There is additional mental health stress that's placed on those young people in trying to deal with those challenges that are presenting at home—whether it be violence or whether it be somebody that's very mentally unwell and displaying all sorts of different behaviours that would be very distressing to anybody—from a very, very young age.
…
So they're disengaged from school and education, which then puts them on the back foot going forward into the workforce, going into their own lives, getting a family together and all those other aspects which impact on the general person's life as they grow up. From our perspective, that's really what we see in that space as the impact of that enforced carer role.
4.42
More broadly, Mr Andrew Sharpe, Chief Executive Officer of the City of Albany, explained that mental health issues for young carers can exacerbate economic challenges in housing, unemployment, and health services as well as limit productivity. Mr Sharpe noted that these challenges have compounded, increasing the strain on local infrastructure and support services:
Particularly with young people, what we are seeing is a lot more homelessness—people who are dropping out of normal society or the pressures are getting too much and the family unit isn't available to provide that support. Even the agencies in town providing supported accommodation for younger people are at maximum capacity and, similar to childcare, there are big waiting lists.
4.43
Submitters further made clear that adverse mental health effects for young carers can be heightened due to caring responsibilities that are beyond their capacity and maturity, with Carers NSW saying that young carers commonly provide 'assistance which often exceeds community expectations of what a child or young person can and should be responsible for'.
4.44
Mental Health Carers Australia explained that:
Without adequate support, children and young people in a mental health carer role can face 'lifelong effects on cognitive and social development, learning and education, work opportunities, finances' and overall health.
4.45
While it is not the case that all young carers experience mental health challenges, submitters reported that young people who require support commonly experience issues in accessing services and obtaining wrap‑around care. In particular, witnesses highlighted the under-identification of young carers and stigma as key barriers.
Stigma and isolation
4.46
Along with poor mental health, stigma emerged as a prevalent theme throughout the inquiry when the topic of young carers was raised. Witnesses noted that stigma around young carers and mental health contributed to separation from support networks and a reduced capacity to engage in the community due to caring, which often exacerbates the vulnerability of young people.
4.47
Witnesses also discussed how reducing stigma around caring would increase the willingness of young people to seek help early; be open about the challenges around caring responsibilities; and build understanding in schools, workplaces, and remote/regional communities.
4.48
In particular, Mr Sharpe, identified stigma as one of the key barriers that has led to poor outcomes for young carers in regional and remote areas. Mr Sharpe explained that:
… there is a stigma attached to that [caring]. A lot of people don't like to share the dilemmas that they are going through in their lives. I think we probably all suffer from that to some degree. If we've got something going on, we like to take care of it ourselves, get it fixed and move on. But in this world we live in today, it's really about having a bit of courage to come forward and say that you're going through a difficulty—whether that's a young person or someone who's in the workplace.
4.49
Some witnesses told the committee that young carers living in rural and remote areas were concerned about being recognised when accessing support services. Witnesses also told the committee that they were aware of young carers who had travelled to different towns to avoid being identified. In these areas, Mr Ian Clarke stressed that social connections made through support groups are extremely valuable, particularly in a caring situation that is otherwise isolating and demanding:
One of our guys is a FIFO [fly-in fly-out worker] who works on a platform for Shell, and when he's home he's in and out of the youth centre on a constant basis, both employed and as a volunteer. But he's a great mentor, particularly for the young men coming in. He rounds them up and brings them in, and it's very positive from their perspective.
4.50
Mr David Miltitz discussed the importance of starting to destigmatise caring in the education system through the fostering of social connections between carers and non-carers. Mr Miltitz explained:
Carers, young carers in particular, have a want, generally, an emotional and behavioural need, to help people and they have got that innate ability to do that but so do other people. You don't have to be a young carer to do that, so we're trying to destigmatise the young carer component, and bring a broader section of young people together who want to have social impact with like-minded ways of operating and then provide that external support from us, as an organisation, into the school, and to build a carer champion within the staffing group. I would love that impact to be systemic but at the moment it's purely that understanding and personal connection with the schools that has the biggest impact.
4.51
Mr Dennis Wellington, Mayor of the City of Albany, explained that closer collaboration between disparate service providers also assists with identifying young carers who are isolated and in need of support:
We had a problem two years ago where we had three kids—one 17 and two of 12—all kill themselves in the same week. They all shot themselves with the family gun, two of them while Mum and Dad were at home. At that time, I called a meeting of all the mental health agencies, and we found that there were eight different agencies in town looking for that and four of them had never met the others. They now have a committee that meets every month, does cross pollination et cetera. The disparate services like that don't seem to be working in that regard, so mental health in younger people is a particular a problem, as is accommodation for the kids.
4.52
Mr Clarke continued that in addition to forming social connections to combat the stigma around receiving support, young carers greatly benefit from a holistic approach and wrap-around care. He stated:
There's no one service provision that can be done individually. There are a number of people who do that. The way our youth workers operate is they have a case management system, which is basically a holistic approach to the care of that young person. It might be you are a mental health provider, a medical practitioner or a dentist. It could be getting the drivers licence and going to Centrelink. All those sorts of things require a multitude of people having input with specialist skills, but the youth worker is providing the wraparound service around that young person. I suppose in answer to what you're asking: absolutely it's a collaboration. You can't do anything individually.
Young carer-centred reform
4.53
Along with better data and information on the number and experiences of young carers, the committee received several suggestions on what could be done to better support young carers in navigating the education to employment pathway, including vocational support, career advice, and adjustments such as flexible schedules and assessments.
4.54
For example, Professor Hickie contended that the committee should consider targeted support mechanisms to uplift education, training, and skills development to address the disadvantage experienced by young carers. He stated that younger carers:
… need to be supported in their education, training and skills so they become more skilled workers over time and don't miss out because of the caring roles that they're also doing at the same time.
4.55
To increase the recognition of young carers and shift cultural conventions in these spaces, Professor Hickie recommended that formal credentialling for caring skills or a recognised prior learning qualification would alleviate some disadvantage for young carers. In discussing the formal caring industry as an example, Professor Hickie suggested that:
… the recognition of prior learning is actually a critical factor. We have many people with years of experience in the caring professions who receive no credit for it. Tying that into formal credentialling is a key issue which could be achieved. That would bring people back in and reward them for what they've done, and also encourage them in further skill development right across the lifespan. And we are desperate for workers in all of those areas to receive more recognition for what they've done but then also to combine that with new knowledge.
4.56
Similarly, Carers Australia called for more support for young carers navigating the school to employment pathway, in recognition of the fact that the transition into the workforce becomes more difficult the older a person becomes. Speaking of carers more broadly in post-school years, Carers Australia made the point that:
Carers who have contributed the most hours and years of care are least likely to be able to transition with any ease to the job market when their full-time caring role changes, as they often have a severely attenuated and interrupted work history and no current referees. In many cases their previous qualifications or experience no longer meets current standards or expectations.
4.57
The Independent Education Union also supported changes to policy frameworks to enable children and young people to access education by creating flexible options. It argued:
Given the diverse and complex nature of caring responsibilities, it is essential that legislative and policy frameworks enable individual families to access a variety of formal care options, in ways that support them to engage with paid work. There can be no single, prescriptive solution that will meet the needs of all individuals and families. It is however, possible to design and enact legislative and policy frameworks that support the provision of dynamic and flexible options within the formal education and care sector.
4.58
In particular, witnesses highlighted the importance of investing in tiered models of service delivery to provide young people with access to holistic support mechanisms. To this end, Professor McGorry stated that effective multidisciplinary support mechanisms require reliable funding and adequate staffing.
4.59
Finally, describing a 'significant public health crisis around mental health' in Australia, which is centred around young people, Professor McGorry highlighted the immediate need for mental health support. He made the point that rather than being a substantial cost to the public, investing in the mental health of young people is extremely cost effective, paying for itself several times over through reduced numbers of young people missing out on education, employment and training. In addition, as Professor McGorry indicated, investing in the mental health of young carers, has a secondary effect on 'reducing the need for people to be cared for in the home by families'.
First Nations communities
4.60
It was put to the committee that increased engagement of First Nations people in the provision of culturally‑appropriate Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) and in supporting First Nations people into paid employment—including caring roles—would help First Nations people better combine work and care responsibilities.
4.61
One of the more immediate priority challenges identified in the committee's Interim Report related to the importance of ECEC for First Nations communities, with a lack of long-term funding for culturally appropriate ECEC in regional, remote, and some urban areas recognised as having a detrimental impact on First Nations children.
4.62
In its Interim Report, the committee noted the Australian Government's then‑recent announcement regarding increased access to subsidised care of at least 36 hours per fortnight for First Nations children. The committee takes this as an acknowledgement on the part of the Australian Government of the need for positive action.
4.63
The committee also received compelling evidence which showed that:
quality, culturally appropriate, community managed, and trauma-informed ECEC is a vital means of improving the lives of First Nations children (by assisting their parents into study and work, and interrupting intergenerational trauma); and
the activity tests associated with subsidised childcare have a disproportionate negative impact on First Nations families and parents (and holds them back from work and study).
4.64
As a result of these findings, the committee, in its Interim Report, recommended 'an immediate increase in long-term funding to First Nations ECEC, and removal of the activity tests for First Nations people to receive childcare subsidies'.
4.65
Over recent months, the committee has heard further evidence about the unique circumstances facing First Nations people in providing informal care and engaging with ECEC and employment.
4.66
For example, the submission of the Department of Social Services and Services Australia noted that First Nations people are more likely to live in rural areas, report lower health outcomes and experience greater socio-economic disadvantage, which in turn creates a need for additional informal care.
4.67
The Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC) indicated that while Aboriginal children aged from zero to 14 years are twice as likely to have a disability as non-Indigenous children, they have limited access to culturally appropriate assessment and early intervention services. The committee was told that assessments conducted by mainstream service providers are less likely to be conducted using a trauma-informed cultural focus. It was also noted that families seeking support for developmental delay or disability often face the additional barriers of language, workforce issues, racist service providers and socio-economic disadvantage.
4.68
It was noted that in First Nations communities—including both remote and urban communities—institutions that are used and trusted by the community are often those which are Aboriginal-controlled, and these tend to be health services. There are also some communities which 'have a slightly more problematic relationship with the education system' as children transition to school. It is often a system that is not viewed as culturally safe, and one that community members may have had less than positive experiences with. This makes community engagement that much more challenging.
4.69
The committee was also told that there is increasing recognition that it is no longer appropriate to assume that a mainstream ECEC response is going to deliver positive outcomes. It was argued that specific strategies are needed for First Nations communities, and that:
Universal means everyone, so, if it doesn't work for those communities, it's not a universal system.
Access to early childhood education and care
4.70
Access to ECEC for First Nations families was raised as a priority issue by several organisations. In evidence, SNAICC recognised that the goals of ECEC focus both on workforce participation and supporting children, but SNAICC told the committee that a lack of access to ECEC negatively impacts First Nations families' ability to participate in the workforce.
Need for a new funding model
4.71
SNAICC argued that quality, culturally appropriate ECEC is vital, particularly as it supports the growth and development of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, who should have:
… a base entitlement of 30 hours per week culturally safe, quality early education from ages zero to five, which enables our children to meet their full potential. This will be an improvement in the availability, affordability and navigability of ECEC which will enable workforce participation.
4.72
SNAICC was also in support of the development of additional ECEC services in areas of high Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations, in order to address the 'thin markets for culturally safe ECEC provision'.
4.73
SNAICC provides culturally safe, wrap-around, holistic services which are designed to meet the complex needs of vulnerable First Nations children, but SNAICC suggested that the current ECEC funding model was simply not adequate for this.
4.74
SNAICC explained that despite subsidies—which target lower- and middle-income families—the current funding model does not support ECEC providers to set up in regional, remote and disadvantaged metropolitan areas. It was also noted that even those services which manage to operate within the current funding constraints still find themselves facing major staff shortages, which makes it difficult (or impossible) to expand their services.
4.75
As was noted in the Interim Report, the committee was told that the reasons for staff shortages vary, but include the:
… low status of the profession, inadequate investment in the professional development of ECEC educators and teachers, low pay and lack of equity and pay and conditions between the ECEC workers and teachers, and lack of clear pathways for career progression.
4.76
SNAICC stressed that for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ECEC centres, which require the cultural skills for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff, the situation is even worse, for a variety of reasons, including:
… institutional barriers in education; university entrance requirements of English, maths and numeracy without options of transition programs; uneven, inadequate or culturally unsafe support from further and higher education institutions; lack of familiarity with technologies used for blended or online learning; and lack of role models for tertiary study in home communities.
4.77
SNAICC's National Workforce Adviser, Ms Miranda Edwards, discussed the impact the lack of childcare has on families, drawing on a case study from Ti Tree in the Northern Territory:
There are fewer ECEC services in the regional and remote areas where there are more children and families existing on or below the poverty line. Where there are fewer ECEC services there are fewer women with children under five years of age in the workforce. The activity test impacts childcare affordability and workforce participation. Families with unpredictable incomes, casual work or short-term contracts can't take on more work without stable childcare but can't book an ongoing or stable childcare place without the guarantee of a wage shift to pay for it. It's a vicious cycle. Families can apply for the additional childcare subsidy for vulnerable children, but this is stigmatising and culturally unsafe, renewing the trauma created by forced child removal, as it requires families to label their child as vulnerable. This implies that the family should be under the scrutiny of child protective services.
Wrap-around services
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SNAICC stressed the importance of integrated, wrap-around services, and observed that families using SNAICC services are frequently impacted by a higher level of caring responsibility. This includes situations where children and parents are disabled, and where there are high kinship caring responsibilities, including for children in contact with child protection and out‑of‑home care services.
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The Yappera Children's Service Cooperative (Yappera), a not-for-profit Aboriginal community-controlled organisation, told the committee that it provides both long day care and kindergarten for First Nations children and applies wrap-around and holistic support models, which means they are also responsive to family and community needs. Yappera's programs include art, music and dance, bush kinder and school readiness programs and activities. In addition, they provide onsite specialist services for families, which include audiology, optometry, dental checks, immunisations, speech therapy and maternal and child health. They also run family and community wellness programs and activities, and host a variety of family and community events.
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While stressing how vital the provision of holistic, wrap-around services and support is, the representatives of both Yappera and Bubup Wilam Aboriginal Child and Family Centre (Bubup Wilam), also stressed just how difficult these services are to fund. It was noted that organisations have to be resourceful in finding funding for extra programs, requiring a considerable amount of extra work for staff, outside the scope of their normal duties as educators. Staff also work with families to build up trusting relationships and build on that trust to link families to services when they are seen as requiring extra support. Staff share cultural knowledge, and cultural expertise, and share that with peer staff. They also develop cultural support plans for every Aboriginal child enrolled in their service—a task also outside the scope of their nominal roles.
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Regardless of the additional funds, resources and work required, these organisations remain committed to putting in wrap-around supports to support both children and families.
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In evidence, Ms Stacey Brown, Chief Executive Officer of Yappera, stated that:
The work that Lisa [Thorpe] and I also do is around putting in wraparound supports, so using our resources, our dollars and our support in the organisation to minimise the risk of child protection intervention for families. It's all of those additional wraparound supports that we're doing, and in some instances, it's the work of child protection, which we are presenting on tomorrow at the Yoorrook Justice Commission, talking about particular case studies where we are using our own resources – and this is a lot of time and money – just to support our families and keep kids in community and keep kids with family.
First Nations workforce participation
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Ms Lisa Thorpe, Chief Executive Officer of Bubup Wilam, noted that it has recently focussed on workforce development, and in particular, valuing its Aboriginal workforce. Ms Thorpe told the committee that this has its own challenges:
There is a huge difference between how an Aboriginal person will come in and work in a space where they are looking after their own community's children and breaking into the workforce, which has been held by teachers, by educators, teaching at a higher level. The ability to share the knowledge has been really difficult, and, because of the people holding the job positions, Aboriginal people have not been able to grow. So Aboriginal people are sitting at the bottom of the ladder, working in an early years centre.
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Mr Chris Twomey from the Western Australian Council of Social Service told the committee of several benefits to developing an Aboriginal community services workforce. He argued that employing people with knowledge and insight, and 'people who are culturally secure and trusted delivering services to local people' means that those accessing the services feel as though they are receiving the support required. At the same time, this approach builds the local economy, by ensuring that jobs are going to locals and 'you're not having FIFO or drive-in drive-out services being delivered'.
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Mr Twomey continued that this also means a service gets:
… the benefit of that person being embedded in the community, and a lot of their knowledge and insight is being shared by family and it's being reflected on the boards of local organisations or whatever they're doing. So, for the investment that you put into developing more local services, you actually get more impact.
Supporting First Nations staff
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Witnesses such as Ms Thorpe made it clear that in the ECEC sector, First Nations staff have an additional layer of responsibility, central to which is accountability to the community:
You're always in the spotlight of being accountable to your community, to your family. Children come into your families or your community families and you have an extra layer of burden of responsibility – maybe not a burden but an extra layer of responsibility that they have a care factor about because they're Aboriginal children. It's not written anywhere. In the expectations of the Aboriginal workforce there is also an unwritten rule about how we look after our children, and the whole process and the pressures of when issues of a potential risk or something might happen to a young Aboriginal worker in that space.
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It was also noted that a lot of young workers are also supporting their own families, or their nieces and nephews—particularly during their early working years. Ms Thorpe told the committee that First Nations staff carry a huge additional, underlying load, particularly as everything her organisation does is 'about the growth of Aboriginal children, their identity, their cultural business and the strengths they grow' which largely is left up to the Aboriginal staff to do. The committee was told that:
Everyone's qualified the same as a cert [certificate] III diploma or kindergarten teacher, but the cultural load they carry just by being Aboriginal people and the stuff that happens, the work on the ground, is left up to them. So there's a lot of unwritten law.
Access to care services and support
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The committee was told that First Nations people from regional and remote areas can have difficulty in accessing the care and support services they need, with direct impacts on their ability to either care or work.
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For example, Ms Fiona Hunt of Basic Rights Queensland noted that First Nations elders must frequently leave Country to access aged-care services, which means leaving their family and friends behind.
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The Albany Community Foundation (ACF) also provided evidence about the limited access to services in Albany and the experiences First Nations people have in attempting to engage with community supports. Ms Bianca Blake of the ACF indicated that, generally speaking, the organisation sees 'less help‑
seeking from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people', adding that the lack of resources across the community is a primary problem:
But I don't necessarily think that's because there's less of a need. Actually, from what I've seen in the community, there's a higher need in that space … We have no crisis accommodation. We have next to no respite facilities, no transitional housing facilities. … in looking at other regions such as South West and metro in terms of support services, there's just nothing here for people. The same goes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. There is such a shortage of support services here, which makes it really hard. There's nowhere to turn for support.
Disabled workers
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Disabled workers are a cohort of workers particularly vulnerable to low pay and insecure work.
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The committee heard that 53 per cent of working-age disabled people are engaged in the workforce, compared with 84 per cent of people without disability. Working-age disabled people are twice as likely to be unemployed as those who are not disabled, and are more likely to have difficulty finding work and to be unemployed for longer.
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Around 20 000 disabled people are employed in Australian Disability Enterprises (ADEs), working at least eight hours per week. According to the Department of Social Services:
ADEs offer similar working conditions to other employers and an opportunity for people with disability to contribute and connect to their local community. ADEs provide a wide range of employment opportunities including packaging, assembly, production, recycling, screen-printing, plant nursery, garden maintenance and landscaping, cleaning services, laundry services and food services.
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However, concerns were raised to the committee regarding ADEs, with particular focus on the pay and working conditions provided by them. In this regard, Inclusion Australia told the committee that:
Australian Disability Enterprises, which are more accurately described as sheltered workshops, are disguised as a form of care provided to the families of people with high support needs, providing them with respite from their caring duties.
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In its submission to the inquiry, Inclusion Australia was adamant that 'ADEs should not be used as an alternative to appropriate care' and argued for the implementation and resourcing of a five-year transition plan away from ADEs to open employment, in conjunction with disabled people.
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The National Ethnic Disability Alliance (NEDA) submitting that people working in ADEs work all day to earn as little as $2.30 or $2.40 an hour.
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The Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability examined the ADEs as part of its inquiry and was also informed that disabled people working in ADEs are paid as low as $2.37 per hour.
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Mr Dwayne Cranfield, Chief Executive Officer of NEDA argued in favour of a phasing out of ADEs or a more appropriate form of employment for disabled people.
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NEDA and Inclusion Australia agreed that efforts should be directed to a co‑designed, fully resourced transition plan to move workers in ADEs to open and self-employment. Inclusion Australia further noted that:
The plan, co-designed with people with an intellectual disability and their families, will mean people with an intellectual disability can have more choices and options about the kinds of work they could do, with the right support. It should include services, specialist DES [disability employment services] providers, the NDIA [National Disability Insurance Scheme Agency] and the government.
Migrant and CALD carers
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Hundreds of languages other than English are spoken in Australian homes, including dozens of First Nations languages. Within these communities, there are many people from migrant and culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds who combine work with informal care.
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This section outlines the unique challenges that migrant and CALD people face in combining their work and care responsibilities. These challenges exert substantial costs on carers over their lives and compound the inequalities associated with providing informal care.
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Evidence to the inquiry highlighted the specific challenges that migrant and CALD carers face in balancing work and care, including:
structural employment barriers that prevent access to quality jobs;
limited access to family and childcare supports;
experiences of exploitation in the workplace; and the
conditions in frontline jobs in Australia's care economy.
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The committee heard that Australia's migration settings contribute to these challenges by exacerbating the vulnerability of migrants during employment and by making it harder for them to give and receive care.
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The Victorian Council of Social Services (VCOSS) also pointed to the intersectionality of issues facing CALD people. VCOSS suggested that women from CALD backgrounds, for example, have low rates of reporting or identification as carers, and therefore are underrepresented in carer support services. In addition, the 'systemic barriers, racism and attitudinal barriers made it difficult for CALD families' to access ECEC, and migrant, refugee and multicultural women have experienced disproportionate social and economic impacts from the pandemic.
Structural barriers to employment
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Migrant and CALD carers who work, or seek work, face significant structural barriers to their employment. Migrants often struggle to gain recognition of their skills and qualifications in Australia, particularly if they were gained in primarily non-English speaking countries. Speaking English as a second language (ESL) can also be a significant barrier to employment.
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As Mr Twomey summarised in evidence:
We've got quite a lot of skilled migrants and humanitarian migrants who simply can't get recognition of their skills and qualifications. There's also a group there who have a whole pile of skills and qualifications, but the barrier is more around language. That doesn't directly affect their ability to do it, but, if we put the effort into providing some kind of training and support there around taking down language barriers, they could contribute a lot more.
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Australian Bureau of Statistics' data shows that recent migrants who experienced difficulties finding their first local job indicated that this was most often due to: a lack of local work experience or references; a lack of local contacts or networks; and/or language barries. This is despite 69 per cent of migrants holding non-school qualifications prior to arriving in Australia.
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The committee received evidence of other employment barriers including migrant workers, particularly women, struggling to access training and childcare, or not having a driver's license needed for certain entry-level opportunities.
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Witnesses told the committee that the structural barriers to employment faced by migrants leads to their disproportionately employment in insecure work that is low‑paid, and for which they are often overqualified.
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The committee further heard that disabled people from CALD backgrounds 'face considerable barriers not experienced by others in the community'. Mr Dwayne Cranfield of NEDA told the committee that these barriers include 'reduced opportunities and lower participation in the labour force' a 'one-year waiting period for carers allowance' and 'limited flexibility in working arrangements'. They also face delays in being granted family member carer visas, which would allow for 'culturally appropriate care at home'.
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Structural barriers to employment have led to an underutilisation of migrants' skills and qualifications in the Australian labour market. Research from the Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre shows that around 35 per cent of migrants from non-English speaking backgrounds work in jobs for which they are overeducated. Better matching migrants' qualifications with their jobs has been estimated to have an economic benefit of several billion dollars per year. It has been suggested that enabling the contribution of migrants should be a priority of the migration system, particularly as Australia faces declining productivity growth and international competition for migrant labour.
Access to care supports
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Compared to their locally‑born counterparts, migrant and CALD carers have limited access to formal and informal work and care supports. Migrants have significantly less access to family support when providing care, particularly for children. Migrants also face additional challenges in accessing professional support to manage poor conduct and practices in the workplace.
Family support
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Migrants experience 'significant obstacles to family reunification' that reduce their ability to provide and receive care. For example, Mr Cranfield of NEDA called for the simplification of the carer visa process, and a reduction of the associated waiting periods. Mr Cranfield said that the current system was:
… complex and requires the person with a disability to go above and beyond to prove that they are out of options. This reduces their choice and control to be cared for at home if they want to be.
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Dr Matt Withers, Member of the Work + Family Policy Roundtable (Roundtable), highlighted the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme as a leading example of the adverse social impacts experienced by migrants due to family separation.
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The PALM scheme does not currently provide for migrant participants to be accompanied by family members in Australia. Dr Withers summarised the research findings on the impacts of family separation on migrant families:
Interviews with migrant workers and their families revealed that participation within the PALM scheme disrupted the care practices and personal relationships that had hitherto sustained their everyday lives. Parental bonds were frayed by the limitations of distance communication; important forms of unpaid household and community labour were displaced; and spousal relationships frequently broke down amid prolonged separation ... [PALM scheme] stakeholders conveyed significant and widespread concern about the frequency of extramarital affairs and the welfare of children separated from one or both parents. Children were reported to experience harms ranging from dropping out of school through to instances of sexual abuse and abandonment. Consistent with the international literature on transnational family separation, it was clear that these outcomes were not gender neutral. Whether working in Australia or caring in their home countries, women and girls were observed to be more disadvantaged by the reconfigurations of transnational family life.
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Dr Withers went on to explain that Australia's migration scheme policy settings mean 'workers have no pathway to permanent residency, are unable to change jobs and cannot be accompanied by family members'. These policies are inconsistent with those in Europe and North America and more closely resemble policies in countries where migrant 'exploitation is rife'.
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At the time of writing, the Australian Government had recently committed to allow PALM scheme workers 'on long-term placements of between one and four years to bring their families to Australia, with the agreement of their employer sponsor'. A statement from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, cited in media reporting, said that family accompaniment was 'expected to commence with up to 200 families of PALM scheme workers in 2023–24'.
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On 13 February 2023, the Australian Government also announced amendments to the Temporary Protection Visa (TPV) and Safe Haven Enterprise Visa (SHEV) schemes, to provide pathways to permanent residency.
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In announcing the changes, the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, the Hon Andrew Giles MP, observed that 'TPV and SHEV holders work, pay taxes, start businesses, employ Australians and build lives' in Australian communities, and often in rural and regional areas. The Australian Government has allocated $9.4 million over two years, for visa application assistance through specialist legal service providers.
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The amendments to the PALM scheme allowing family accompaniment, along with these positive changes to TPV and SHEV visas will ensure that migrants and people of CALD background can be supported by loved ones, and no longer have the uncertainty of temporary visas hanging over their heads. Permanent residency will allow people to engage in paid employment more fulsomely, and to access more care options, with positive impacts on combining their work and informal care responsibilities.
Childcare
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Evidence to the inquiry emphasised that, compared to other Australians, migrant families have less access to crucial supports when caring for children. Associate Professor Myra Hamilton from the Roundtable, for example, told the committee that migrant families 'have limited access to grandparent childcare because the grandparents live abroad.' At the same time, migrant families are 'among those most poorly serviced by the formal ECEC system'.
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The committee heard that, due to the limited accessibility of ECEC services, Australian grandparents are providing increased amounts of unpaid care for their grandchildren to enable their adult children to work. However, for migrant families to access grandparent care in Australia they must overcome costly and lengthy visa processes. As Associate Professor Hamilton's evidence outlined, migrant families are:
… forced to rely on parent visas—one of which has a 30-year-plus waiting period, and the other of which is over $50,000 per parent—or recurring short-term visitor visas, which don't create the continuity of care required for parents to find ongoing, secure, paid work. The recent introduction of the long-stay parent visa was meant to counter this somewhat, but it remains expensive—it's $5,000 to $10,000 per parent—and it creates the conditions of that highly intensive childcare by grandparents that comes with negative impacts that I discussed above. The grandparents on the visa have no access to health and social rights, no access to work rights and no pathways to permanency. The visa comes to an abrupt end after five or 10 years, depending on what you apply for, and then the parents must return to their country of origin.
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To address the limitations that migrants experience in accessing childcare, witnesses supported increasing the availability of ECEC. The Equality Rights Alliance, for example, told the committee that the increased availability of childcare would make it 'easier' for people from migrant refugee backgrounds who have 'difficulty balancing a number of additional demands such as language learning.'
Workplace exploitation
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Despite being 'entitled to the same workplace rights and protections as Australian citizens', migrant workers remain 'one of the most vulnerable cohorts for workplace exploitation'. This exploitation comes in many forms, such as: wage underpayment, or 'cash-back' arrangements; unfair dismissal; and threats to have a person's visa cancelled.
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In evidence, organisations representing workers' rights provided several concerning examples of migrant exploitation. These examples highlighted the importance of migrant workers' access to appropriate supports. However, for similar reasons that migrants' experience employment vulnerability, so too do they have difficulty accessing support.
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Basic Rights Queensland, a state-wide community legal centre, told the committee that around one in six of its clients are migrants or from migrant backgrounds and typically receive legal support services for workplace sexual harassment cases, gender protection matters and unfair dismissals.
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The Working Women's Centre SA (WWCSA) described the experience of a qualified and experience migrant worker it had assisted with a job that involved wage underpayment, sexual harassment, unfair dismissal, workplace bullying and which resulted in a workers compensation claim. WWCSA noted that the migrant worker was initially 'very reluctant' to pursue her claim due to fears associated with her visa status and application for permanent residency.
Conditions in frontline jobs in the care sector
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The committee received compelling evidence on the overrepresentation of migrant workers in low-paid jobs in the care sector, for which they are often overqualified. Australia's migration settings, and gendered norms about what constitutes skill, directly contribute to this problem.
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Professor Sara Charlesworth, Convenor of the Roundtable, explained that migrants often work in the care sector as locally born workers seek 'better paying' and 'more secure work' elsewhere. It was also put to the committee that the care economy is 'racialised', as migrant women from non-English speaking backgrounds do a higher proportion of the 'nursing assistance, disability care and support work'—'because it is the only job they can get.'
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Professor Charlesworth told the committee that gendered norms about 'what constitutes skill' can result in the 'profound undervaluation of care work'. As a result, temporary migrants end up in 'low skilled' long-term care work.
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Mr Cranfield suggested that all care staff should be trained in cultural competency and safety, as well as 'anti‑discrimination, anti‑racism and trauma informed service delivery'.