"Carers Australia is pleased that Labor's promised tax cuts for small businesses to create new jobs for Australians finding it particularly difficult to engage or re-engage with the workforce has a focus on family and friend carers", said Ara Cresswell, CEO of Carers Australia.
"When their caring role decreases or ceases, carers who have an interrupted work history because of their caring role struggle to find employment after years of caring for a family member. This puts them at a competitive disadvantage as job-seekers.
"The inability to engage in work has serious long-term consequences. It means that carers are likely to remain on welfare payments long after they have ceased to provide full-time care and have come off the Carer Payment. It also means that they struggle to accumulate superannuation and are likely to face financial insecurity in older age.
"We are hoping that this incentive will encourage employers to look beyond simple criteria for job selection, such as an ongoing work history and current referees, and consider what these carers can bring to a job on their own merits.
"We would also hope that employers would be more open to providing some amount of job flexibility for those carers in a position to combine work and care.
"In addition to this incentive, Carers Australia has been advocating for many years that Federal Government-subsidised employment services, such as Jobactive, provide the same high level of support to carers seeking employment after an extended period out of the workforce as they do for other especially disadvantaged jobseekers."
