UK Disability Resource of Disabled Needs

Carers Alliance seeking senate seat
November 19, 2007 - 7:44PM

As the mother of a severely disabled child, MaryLou Carter is sick of having the needs of the disadvantaged put on the backburner.

Ms Carter is one of four NSW carers running for the Senate under the ticket of the Carers Alliance, in a bid to raise awareness of the problems that daily face the disabled.

She says disadvantaged members of the community have been ignored for years by the major parties.

"Our biggest concern is that the services and support and respite that allow families to be resilient and allow people with disabilities to take part in social occasions," Ms Carter told AAP.

"Those things are few and far between and certainly not anything you can plan for with any kind of certainty."

Ms Carter's 16-year-old son has a condition known as Angelman Syndrome which has left him without speech and with functions at the level of a toddler.

"As a parent I thought I would be able to deal with it, I thought I'd be able to do this, but after 10 years it showed to me that I needed more than just having energy reserves," she said.

The party's bid for the Senate has stemmed partly out of personal frustration, Ms Carter said.

"It's an issue that's always on the backburner," Ms Carter said.

"There will be lip service paid and then all of a sudden there's other distractions. When you've got real people who have no voice it's so easy (for them) to be distracted away from what they're saying."

The party has received support from The Greens and Democrats but Ms Carter said the major political parties had offered little in terms of policy after many years of failing to provide.

"There are some 750,000 carers in NSW and if their primary concern is the person for whom they care and they send their vote that way in the Senate then we can be confident," she said.

"But will people vote for their family member or the disabled? Will they translate that into a vote for the Carers Alliance?

"No-one is born with a rubber stamp on their backside saying 'guaranteed to have a perfect life'. That's the message we want everyone to hear because one day it might affect them."

She says the party stands for increased funding to support the disabled, but also wants legislation changed to make employment, education and transport more accessible for the disabled and their carers.

"Many families worked out a roster where one parent worked night shift earning penalty rates so they could be at home caring for a disabled child while their partner went off to work," Ms Carter said.

"Under Work Choices, that system doesn't work because there are no penalty rates and it's more of a struggle for that family to support their disabled child."
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