Recognising the costs families face without Family Allowance supplementation, some States and Territories meet some of the costs arising from the restoration, but a number do not. Each group consulted in the project reported issues arising from two key areas of concern. First, a variety of people may share the care of one child. Indigenous children, for example, move between different carers within and beyond extended family structures. It is difficult to identify one primary carer when a child moves as often as several times a week.
Ethnic children move from carer to carer.
Such mobility, producing frequent changes of care, conflicts with the assumed ongoing care requirement for entitlement to family assistance. These issues are being pursued in two ways. First, by testing more flexible payment arrangements in a Statement of Care pilot with volunteer Indigenous families. Second, we are considering new approaches for children moved between carers at the intervention of State and Territory welfare authorities. The Statement of Care pilot is seeking to address some of the problems arising from the variety of carers and the mobility of Indigenous children.