Family carers' payment explored

People who stay at home to look after a sick or disabled family member may soon be paid for their work.

The Government's Office for Disability Issues expects to give Cabinet ministers options for paying caregivers in the next few months, as a basis for consulting disability groups.

Australia has paid family caregivers what is now a weekly rate of up to A$238.15 ($254.10) since 1997. Carers Australia president Louise Gilmore told the first "carers' summit" in Wellington on Friday that 80,000 families now receive the payment.

Carers New Zealand executive officer Laurie Hilsgen said family caregivers on this side of the Tasman would like the same recognition.

"People are giving up employment opportunities to care. How do you recognise that?" she asked.

"Carers say it might cost $1000 a week to hire someone to do it. We are doing it for nothing. That's not fair."

New Zealand's population is only one-fifth of Australia's so about 16,000 families might qualify for a payment here based on the same income-tested and means-tested criteria. At $254.10 a week, that would cost $211 million a year.

A paper presented at the summit by the Office for Disability Issues said the Government was committed to encouraging "debate around responsibility for caring, payment for caring and how to further recognise and value the caring role".

It said a Government objective was to "ensure that family caregivers of disabled people are protected from economic hardship and insecurity arising from their caregiving role".

But the office says on its website that a family carer's payment would raise difficult ethical issues, such as monitoring the care quality and the impact on family relationships if one member becomes a "service provider" and another the "client".

The policy review follows a 2001 decision of the Human Rights Commission's Complaints Review Tribunal that the IHC breached human rights law by disallowing an application by the parents of an intellectually retarded son to become paid caregivers.

Despite this ruling, parents told the conference that they cannot be employed by home care companies to care for their own family members.

The chairman of a working party setting up a New Zealand Carers Alliance, John Forman, said there was a major disparity between payments available to the families of accident victims through ACC and the lack of provisions for families of people with long-term illness or congenital disabilities.

Counselling, equipment and housing modifications were all available for accident victims but not for other disabled people.