Fencepost finally said the magic words.

Political - yes indeedy!! I have received an e-mail today telling me that family carers have formed a political party and will be challenging for Senate seats in the upcoming election. Good on you Carers go to town - or should that be Canberra. Now that is some squeaky wheel and long overdue.

The party is called the Carers Alliance, is listed on the AEC website as registered and is ready to go. I also understand that Carers Australia is running a campaign under the theme "if YOU don't care why should WE". So come on Australian carers - here's your BIG chance. Spread the word to be HEARD and Vote 1 Carers. Family carers need equity and equality - they should not have to do all the work, have all the responsibility and no rights. Up the mighty Carers - on www.carers.org.au

Communicat & scorpio, yes I thought of all that. That is why I started saving even before I got married. My wife and I PLANNED for children. We planned, scrimped and saved, and did with out...happily. As a career soldier for most of my working life, my income hovered around the national poverty level, so I am well aware of what can be done with a little money. We still don't have a plasma t.v. and never owned a new car or had a house built just for us. My family has gone with out many of the 'toys' and fashionable items society has to offer. Not one full of the latest, trendiest, most fashionable objects. We did not think we were immune to the requirements of, or the sacrifices necessary to be a home carer. So we took advantage of every medical practice and procedure that would give us the best odds of having healthy children and enough advance knowledge to abort any malformed baby. We have been fortunate to this day not to have had any debilitating accidents but, have been prepared for that event from day one with child savings and life insurance. The money we have gotten from the government 'for having children' has gone into their accounts for their future. I believe it will be medical advances in prenatal sciences that will offer the reprieve the author speaks of, but individual parents have to think ahead and plan ahead of the decisions that they are about to make. Life happens to too many people and they have no plan. Have not thought ahead.
31% of Australia's newborns are from single teen mothers. I haven't enough space to go into this topic but, everyone should educate themselves to this reality and follow up on the life expectancy, medical cost, long term care requirements, cycle of poverty, education, sexual abuse, domestic violence, drug addictions, alcoholism, and everything else that comes with it and the expenditure for government to cover the total cost of that persons decision or indecision.

Oh you poor thing Aqvarivs. I am sorry that you had to go to all that trouble to ensure your children would not be genetically just the same as you.

If, sadly, they were - through an accident of birth or life- wouldn’t you have liked our nation to offer them safe harbor, to ensure they had the supports necessary for worthwhile and complete lives?

The world is richer for the inclusion of all sorts of people Aqvarivs and I am certain the rich and colourful tapestry that is our world would have welcomed your non genetically prodded, poked or modified progeny as well.

Perhaps it might have taught you what real love is Aqvarivs, because real love is not conditional, it is not a concept; it is not something you can purchase via lab results.

Good morning. I read the article with great interest. I can add to the information that as a result of the Federal / State government bickering over the CSTDA funding that the Federal government has decided to go it alone and is current preparing for tender submissions for accommodation services in NSW. This means that families, people with disabilities, service providers and all will have to deal with two levels of governement in providing accommodation services. Public forums are being held by the Feds during October. Look up the FaCSIA web site for meeting details. The antics on both State and Federal governments but particularly the Federal government over the funding of programs has been an appauling indictment on the way in which Australia deals with such issues.
In addition, it may be of interest to forum readers to know that service providers who rely on 100% overnment funding to provide accommodation services recieve annual partial indexation. The impact of the governments 'generous ' partial indexation policy has resulted in an averge annual funding increase to accommodation service providers of 1.1% per annum for the last 10 years. No wonder services are going backwards fast. Many existing accommodation services are in financial dire straits because of the paultry government attitudes to funding. And this has all occurred in a climate of increasing accountability and scrutiny by governments who demand high level performance and accountability from organisations from whom they buy business. Signed Witchdoctor.

Ah so it is all the fault of the government is it Aqvirvs? If you want to put your baby allowance into savings for the future that's fine with me but please do not grumble about being poor as a result.
As for the single mothers issue has it occurred to you that it is society rather than government who now puts the pressure on young teen mothers to keep their children? Adoption is looked on as wrong and children are sometimes required to live in the most horrific of circumstances because there is a policy of keeping mother and child together at all costs - and that is, sadly, often at far greater cost to the child than the 'trauma' of adoption.
But this was about caring for children with disabilities - and there will be no money around for that while other members of the community make unreasonable demands about issues like increased child care allowances so that they can have the 'extras' they now look on as rights and necessities rather than the icing on the cake. Many carers would like to have just the dry bread!

Perhaps witchdoctor, it is a mute point because the states were asked for their unmet needs figures and failed to produce them.
Given that the bureaucracy has been the biggest growth in the public sector, this ask was perhaps not too unreasonable?

Frankly the States record is abysmal on disability services.
In 20 years the accommodation support sector has reduced as the population has grown. Where once 10.8% of people had accommodation, that figure has dropped to 2.8%.

Yes, the Federal ‘offer’ was appalling which shows the contempt held by politicians for caring families. As a matter of citizenship alone, the Federal government should fund all accommodation supports and respite care services.

You are right while we have a double layered system, all we will get is cost-shifting, penny pinching bureaucrats who are paid to be ‘clever’ in hiding the unmet need, deferring supports while pretending to give a damn.

It seems to me that we have wall to wall Labor states that are failing us and ‘big brother’ the federal Liberal party who equally does not give a damn.

Caring families should all VOTE NO to any party, State or Federal, Liberal or Labor who is unwilling to fix the mess. It can only be fixed with population based benchmarks, anything less is another layer of Band-Aids trying to hold in place the ones peeling away underneath. The Senate report on the CSTDA agreed with the benchmark figure, now we need a political party willing to fight for it.

*Read the recommendations for carers in balancing work and family.