Jane Carrigan: Disability Advocate on disabled family carers being granted employment rights by the Supreme Court

A monumental change for people caring for severely disabled family members.

A landmark Supreme Court ruling yesterday means those providing full-time care for severely disabled family members are entitled to pay.

It was brought by two parents, Christine Fleming and Peter Humphreys, who care for severely disabled adult children.

Disability Advocate Jane Carrigan told Heather du Plessis-Allan getting minimum wage is the bare minimum for these families.

She says this will impact roughly 10 thousand families.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So landmark ruling from the Supreme Court on Disability Rights.
The court has decided that parents who care for severely
disabled adult children should be legally recognized as homeworkers, which
then entitles them to minimum wage protections. Now, this case
was brought by two parents in this position. Jane Carrigan
is an independent disability advocate and with us morning Jane.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Are good morning here that how are you?

Speaker 1 (00:20):
I'm very well, thank you. What's the outcome of this?
How many parents are going to be entitled now to
the minimum wage?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Well, to be honest, the important issue is they are
considered now considered employees of the Ministry of Health. So
it's not the minimum wage. I mean that's the bare
minimum they will get under it in terms of numbers. Look,
because it doesn't just apply to the exploitation, doesn't just
apply to parents of adult disabled children. It's across the board.

(00:50):
And so I would imagine that the number of families
who are talking about would be roughly ten thousand. That's
ten thousand families who have to give up work and
provide twenty four to seven care for often very high
needs adult adult family members. So yeah, so it's a

(01:11):
sizable number and yeah, I'm hoping that the government will
not do what it's previously done and rush off and
an acts of madness, implemented legislation that ultimately they've had
to repeal and concede, have conceded have been appalling legislation

(01:32):
and the circumstances, so hopefully common sense will prevail and
we can have some good conversations with government. And because
this isn't just about money, we're here because the government
will the public servants of the day have ignored the
last three Court of Appeal decisions that have supported this
cohort of families. So we're here out of needs must

(01:58):
you know, we just could not get I mean, when
the when the Crown can tell us no one's above
the layle of law and yet them public servants can
just ignore Court of appealed decisions in which they did
in Atkinson, Spencer and Chamberlain. Then this, this is the result.
This is the only way we're going to get their attention.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
Jane, thanks for your time, mate, best of like with
everything that's Jane Carrigan, independent disability advocate.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
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