At last - a national voice for parents, families and carers

Home-based carers of people with a disability, chronic or mental illness, and the frail aged, are about 2.7 million people in number. The people they care for are as many again. This vast number of people are the most hidden, ignored and unrepresented community in Australia. Indigenous people are high in need, but their plight looms large in the national consciousness. Carers don’t rate a blip on the national radar screen.

Family carers are not sexy. No politician has ever lain awake at night wondering how to deal with the electoral consequences of disappointing parents of people with a disability.

No university students have ever taken to the streets in protest over the plight of the many full-time carers who receive an income that is one quarter of the aged pension.

Unlike the green movement, families’ issues do not appeal to the fashionable, the glitterati, or pop stars wanting a cause. There is no “Family Carer Aid” rock concert planned for London’s Hyde Park or the Sydney Opera House.

Suzette Gallagher was awarded an Order of Australia medal in the 1990s for services to disability after pioneering innovations on behalf of her son.  She believes the organising task in uniting parents, families and carers is difficult but essential. "This is like a union, because we have to unite lots and lots of otherwise voiceless people", she says.

"We want our national voice to be as prominent in public life as ACOSS, the ACTU, and the National Farmers Federation. Nothing less. Only lack of organisation stands in our way".

Can ordinary parents and carers come in out of the cold and develop a voice that is as important as these industry groups?

Politicians of all stripes beware. The sleeping giant is waking.