Families Australia will appear before the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment, Workplace Relations, Skills and Training Inquiry into the operation and adequacy of the National Employment Standards on Friday 15 May at 11.45am, Committee Room 1R3 Parliament House, Canberra

Families Australia and the National Foster Care Sustainability Group have welcomed the opportunity to provide evidence to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment, Workplace Relations, Skills and Training Inquiry into the operation and adequacy of the National Employment Standards (NES), recommending statutory foster and kinship carers have clear access to protected leave when children are placed in their care.

With 44,900 children in out-of-home care, Families Australia says the lack of fit-for-purpose leave settings is contributing to carers reducing paid work or leaving the workforce, particularly women over 50 and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander grandmothers.

“Foster and kinship carers perform essential child protection work on behalf of every state and territory government, yet the National Employment Standards do not formally recognise that responsibility. The evidence shows that carers, disproportionately women and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander grandmothers, are absorbing significant employment and financial costs with no legislative protection.

This is a structural design problem, not an individual failing, and it has a clear and targeted legislative solution. We are calling on the Committee to recommend it.” said Dr Lisa Griffiths, Chair, Families Australia and Chief Executive Officer of OzChild.

Families Australia is recommending a targeted correction to explicitly recognise statutory carers within NES leave entitlements, including Community Service Leave, Parental Leave and Personal/Carer’s Leave.

Nadine Flood, foster carer, member of the National Foster Care Sustainability Group and former National Secretary, Community and Public Sector Union, said the shortage of carers able to balance work and foster care means children can’t find homes and governments face increased reliance on residential care, the most expensive and often damaging option.

“The South Australian Annual Health Survey tells us that eighty-one per cent of carers have reduced or ended their employment. That is not an individual choice. That is structural failure,” she said.

“I had to give up paid work to meet our foster daughter’s needs and the needs of children we take into our home on emergency placements. When a bright, bubbly 14 year-old asks if she could join our family too, if she promised not to need much from me so I could go back to paid work, and if she promised not to have a lot of medical treatment so we could afford to keep her… it breaks your heart.

Without clear recognition in the National Employment Standards, the system effectively tells carers to choose between a child’s needs and a pay cheque, and families pay the price,” concluded Ms Flood.

Kelly Jebb, a foster carer on the National Foster Care Sustainability Group argues that the current settings fail to recognise the reality of caring responsibilities that begin the moment a child comes into their home.

“A 10-day-old baby was placed in our care, because we were foster carers, not the child’s legal parents, we were not eligible for the Government’s Paid Parental Leave. So we did middle-of-the-night feeds, and we went to work the next day exhausted, with no formal protection,” said Kelly Jebb, foster carer.

“When a child needs to be placed, carers don’t get a runway, we get a phone call. Overnight you’re organising school, medical checks, visits and trauma-informed support, and you’re doing it around your job.

I do not hang up my volunteer jacket when I walk in my front door. This is a full-time, 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week responsibility,” she said.

What Families Australia is calling for: