E&OE...
Well thank you very much Lyn. My parliamentary colleague Mal Brough, the Minister for Family and Community and Indigenous Affairs, ladies and gentlemen. I want to thank Pine Lodge for making its facility available for this very important announcement. Today I am announcing that the Commonwealth Government, commencing immediately, will make available an additional $1.8 billion over a period of 5 years to address many of the deficiencies that now exist in the provision of services and assistance to families caring for Australians with disabilities. The announcement falls into a number of categories. By far the major change in policy direction contained in this announcement is that for the first time, the Commonwealth is going to move in a significant way into the area of providing supported accommodation for families with disabled members who they are caring for.
In the past, as you know, there has been a division of responsibilities. The Commonwealth has accepted responsibility for income support and employment services for people with disabilities and the states have had a responsibility in relation to supported accommodation. We think in relation to supported accommodation there is a huge unmet need and the Commonwealth has decided to inject significant additional money into meeting the areas of greatest need in that category of unmet need. And that applies to carers, parents normally who are themselves getting older who have been caring for a significant period of time for family members who themselves are reaching their middle years. And typically of this category you have a parent or parents over the age of 65 with children over the age of 40 and they've been caring for them for a very long period of time. And their worry is not only their declining capacity to look after them because of their advancing years but the terrible worry of what will happen to their children when they die and there is nobody left to care for them.
And that is a need that we feel very keenly and we are going to provide assistance in three areas. We are going to provide some $562 million over five years to introduce for the first time high quality Commonwealth disability supported accommodation. In other words, we are going to provide some supported accommodation for this category. We're also going to spend $270 million over five years to introduce respite services for older parent carers to provide access to in-home and centre based respite care for their adult son or daughter with a disability. We are going to introduce in-home support services including assistance with personal care, home help, home maintenance and home modification, aids and equipment to enable people with disability to stay in the family home for as long as possible; and that is going to involve an expenditure of $113 million over five years.
Now in order to collate all of this and to make sure that the assistance is directed to and is received by those cases that we believe to be in the most dire need of additional assistance, we're going to introduce what is, in effect, an assessment and consultative process. We're going to directly telephone and get in touch with the caring parents and to assess which people are most in need of this additional assistance.
Now when you add all of that together, that is an expenditure in the area of providing help for older carers, particularly with older children, of a very, very significant amount of money; $560 million, $270, $115 and $13 million, which adds up to some eight to nine hundred million dollars. Now in addition to that, and this has received some publicity in the papers this morning, which is always good so people know what we are doing, we are going to introduce a tax free payment, I emphasise a tax free payment, of $1000 each year for every child with a disability under the age of 16 who qualifies his or her parent or carer for the parent allowance. And that involves about 130,000 children throughout Australia and the cost of that is some $721 million. That money is completely at the discretion of the carer. We thought at one stage that we would say you can only spend it on this, and this, and this, but we came rapidly to the conclusion after about 10 minutes discussion around the Cabinet table that of all the carers in the world, those that care for children with a disability know what they need to spend the money on, and they don't need the Government telling them. And obviously it will go on extra devices in the home, extra things that you need in order to care for your loved one, and we're going to provide $23 million over five years for existing specialist services for children with a disability which both support the development needs of children and also provide suitable care so that their families can have a break or in some cases can work.
Now, in addition to that we're going to provide some more help for business services, these are businesses that provide work for people with disabilities. They do a wonderful job, they're a very important pathway into more permanent work for many people and they, of course, provide not only wonderful support and stimulation for the people who work in them, but also terrific form of respite for their carers. So we're going to provide an extra $100 million over five years for additional support to people in disability business services which employ people with a disability. There will be 500 additional supported employment places in disability business services, continued support for people participating in non-vocational activities, increased funding to disability business services and temporary assistance to disability business services facing short term financial difficulties in regional and rural areas. And there is quite a number of them in that category. And we also want to do a bit of an inquiry; you always have inquiries with these things, a bit of an inquiry to see if we have got the balance of our priorities right.
Now I want to emphasise that this is a major injection of Commonwealth money into an area of the disability sector which has historically been the responsibility of the states. Now I haven't come here to criticise anybody. I have come here to make a positive announcement and to say that we're going to put a lot more money into this area. But I do want to appeal to the states, as we are taking over one part of what has traditionally been their responsibility, I would appeal to them, I'd plead with them, to put more money into the other areas of their traditional responsibility. I mean we've always looked after employment services. We've also naturally looked after income support and what we're doing today is we're moving into accommodation. And we're going to provide a lot of extra money for the really dire need, that is the older carers with middle aged children who they have been caring for for a very long time. And we're asking the states, because of the extra money that we're putting in, could they at the very, very least put some extra resources into those areas that we won't be able to cover with the extra money that we are putting in.
I do want to emphasise that the $1000 that I am announcing today is not a permanent replacement for the yearly bonuses that we have paid out of the Budget over the last few years. What that means is that if our financial position remains strong, we will continue to pay bonuses but they have to be decided on an annual basis according to our financial position. This $1000 payment which is available to the 130,000, the families of 130,000 Australian children, will go on a continuing basis. The first payment will be made in October of this year and it will thereafter be paid on an annual basis in July of each year.
This is an area of great need. I have been touched by the numerous examples that I've heard of, families I've spoken to in my own electorate and all around Australia. I have to say that the most heartbreaking circumstances I've come across as Prime Minister have been, well amongst the most heartbreaking circumstances, have been of elderly parents who've cared for often decades for an adult child and in the most very stressful and difficult circumstances and I think that is the area of greatest need. There is need throughout the whole sector, but that are is of enormous need. And I have been determined, as has Mal as the Minister, have been determined to put some extra Commonwealth money in.
We had rather hoped that we could have got a better response from the states. We did ask them to give us a list of unmet need and we said we'd meet 50 per cent of it. We got only a firm response from one jurisdiction and an expression of general interest from another two, so we decided that we couldn't really wait any longer and we've put this extra money in and we're appealing to the states to follow suit, to match it at the very least in those areas that we won't be able to cover.
Can I finally say to all of you that the Minister in this area has taken an immense personal interest in it. He's been a busy boy in a couple of other areas recently, but he hasn't lost his interest in and commitment to this sector; and we've talked about the need for this program now for several months. I did indicate after the Budget that if we hadn't received a positive response from the states we would act ourselves and deal directly with the sector and provide the additional money. So that is what today's package is all about. It's a very big injection of additional money but the nation should do it. The nation can afford to do it. The nation should do it because it's an area of crying need and I hope that it will be seen by people who have carried the burden of caring for a disabled loved one for so many years, will be seen by them as at least a token, perhaps more in practical terms than a token, of our understanding of their great contribution and the wonderful things they do in very difficult circumstances.
I commend it to you. I've had to go through it at a fairly rapid pace but it's all going to be there in the pamphlets and it will be on the website now and you will be able to get all the information you want. But it is a very big policy initiative of the Commonwealth Government and I hope it will make a contribution. And again, to you Mrs Eagles, thank you so much for having us at Pine Lodge and can I express my admiration to you and your colleagues on the wonderful work that you've done over the years in caring for those in our community who have suffered terrible disabilities.
Thank you.
[ends]