Maree Buckwalter and Marylou Carter are running for the NSW Senate with the Carers Alliance. Natalie Muller reports.

The NSW Senate candidates for the Carers Alliance call for more support of people with disabilites. Image: jonathanpoh

Sydney residents Marylou Carter and Maree Buckwalter both have severely disabled sons.

For more than a decade they’ve waited for the implementation of a National Disability Insurance Scheme, which they say would ease the load on both the disabled and their carers.

In Saturday’s election, both women will run as NSW Senate candidates for the Carers Alliance.

“If I dropped off the planet tomorrow, who would care for my son?” says Buckwalter.

“If Marylou dropped off the planet tomorrow who would care for her son? We must have legislated rights and entitlements to services for people with disabilities.”

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Buckwalter is the primary carer of her 25 year old son Alex, who has a severe intellectual disability and uncontrolled epilepsy.

“I live for my son,” she says.

“My son’s six foot two and is 90 kilos, I’m five foot six and I’m just under 65. So lifting him up and getting him up the stairs, getting him into the bath… I don’t know how long I’ll be able to do that, but I’ll do it until I can’t do it anymore. But what happens then?”

“One day you just get angry. I shouldn’t have to fight for what my child needs. Maybe I should have to fight for what I want, but not for what I need. Not for what is essential to his life, and no parents should have to, but we all have to.”

The Carers Alliance was officially registered as a political party three years ago, just weeks before the 2007 election. Made up of members from carer families, the party ran a brief election campaign and won more than 14,000 votes in NSW.

But while the Carers Alliance is a relatively small dot in the political landscape, there are many Australians in a similar position to Buckwalter and Carter.

In Australia there are over 2.6 million carers, the equivalent of 10 per cent of the population.

“There hasn’t been for a generation any kind of leadership and what we really are championing is legislation which gives rights and services to people with disabilities,” says Carter. “We will continue to elevate the need to a political resolution to this.”

She says Australia is lagging behind the rest of the world when it comes supporting people with disabilities.

“If you compare the UK, the UK has legislated rights and entitlements for people with disabilities and that was introduced in 1979.”

“In 1995 there was legislation that gave rights and entitlements to services to support family carers, so in the UK most family carers are in paid employment. Here in Australia they are impoverished and living on a pension.”