Parliamentary Friends of SA Carers

Ms HOOD (Adelaide) (15:06): Give yourselves a clap! I want to first acknowledge, as well, all the carers in the gallery today, along with David from Carers SA and all the other organisations the member for Frome was talking about and acknowledging.

Why did we look to establish the Parliamentary Friends of SA Carers? On a personal note, more than 20 years ago, when I was a teenager, my mum was the carer for my beautiful stepdad, Patrick, as he bravely battled terminal cancer. He was only 44 and my mum was only 41. It brings me and my family a lot of comfort knowing that we were able to love and care for him at home as long as we could, particularly given how many trips he would make from Naracoorte to Adelaide to access chemotherapy and other treatments. Eventually, he was placed in palliative care and we had to say our goodbyes.

The thing is, I never really thought of mum as a carer. It was not until a few years later, when I was helping mum clean out some of the bathroom cupboards in our family home, that I came across the leftover medical equipment, the prescriptions, the syringes, and it really hit me: they were the reminders that our home had become a hospital.

That is something I want to point out today, that is, how important it is to identify, to recognise and to support those in our community who are carers but who might not know it and highlight the diversity of carers themselves and the diversity of their roles—because SA carers are unsung heroes. Every single day you are giving, you are caring and you are contributing immensely to our community.

People become carers in different ways. Sometimes they start helping out bit by bit; sometimes it happens suddenly because of an accident or illness. Carers can be any age. They can be parents, grandparents, partners, siblings, children, friends or neighbours. You can all take on a caring role at some point in your life, and for that I cannot thank SA carers enough.

To show our appreciation, the Hon. Heidi Girolamo MLC, who is in the other place and who joins us in the gallery today, and I, in a show of bipartisanship, joined together to establish the Parliamentary Friends of SA Carers, which we officially launched this afternoon in the Old Chamber. Our aim is to recognise you, to recognise carers, to provide some special events for you to come into parliament and connect and enjoy yourselves and, importantly, to educate both the members of parliament and our communities about the work that you do, the diversity of yourselves and your roles, and the supports that are available.

There are a million reasons to care, and this National Carers Week we celebrate the 2.65 million carers in our community. In South Australia, there are 245,000 unpaid carers, and 30,000 of them are young people aged between seven and 25 years. It is important to note that seven out of 10 carers are women and over one-third have a disability themselves.

Carers are people who provide unpaid care and support to a family member or friend who lives with a disability, mental illness, dementia, a chronic health condition, terminal illness, substance misuse or addiction, or who are aged. Carers are an essential part of our health system. They are the foundation of our aged, disability, palliative and community care systems.

Again, thank you to Carers SA—David, Helen and their team—whose skilled and professional staff work across country and metro South Australia supporting SA carers. Thank you to all of the carers who join us here in the parliament today and the many thousands across our state. We acknowledge your work and celebrate your incredible contribution to our community. Thank you.