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Cut Kate for the children’s sake
23-January-2012
The Federal Opposition today questioned whether the Gillard Government’s Childcare
Minister should remain in the portfolio, after Kate Ellis was publicly shamed into reviewing
cuts in assistance to some of the country’s most severely disadvantaged families.
Reassessed every three months, without warning the Family Assistance Office chopped Special Childcare Rebate payments to more than 60 families just before Christmas.
Opposition spokesperson on Childcare, Sussan Ley, says “these people are not welfare
cheats, they are real families where this assistance is absolutely critical to their very survival”.
In the most extreme example, in home care was halted to a Western Australian family whose
toddler son is terminally ill with Complex Congenital Heart Disease. 3 year old Jaydan Neal requires oxygen 24 hours a day and round the clock care yet, after more than two years of assistance and no alteration to his condition, payments were stopped.
Ms Ley, says “the Perth case is just one of scores of families who had their festive season
ruined by a cost-crimping Minister who either doesn’t have a heart or doesn’t know where to find it”.
Despite Ms Ellis initially deflecting blame on Centrelink, 31 cases are now officially under
urgent review after it was revealed that Department had not actually altered its policy towards applying the rebate.
“Well someone told them to do it”, said Ms Ley. “Yet neither Kate Ellis nor Brendan O’Connor (Human Services) can work out, or perhaps are prepared to admit, who made this callous decision.”
“Mr O’Connor is new so maybe he gets some slack but it is beyond comprehension how
many stuff ups the Childcare Minister will be allowed to make before the Prime Minister cuts her loose”, she concluded.