7 September 2025
Carers Victoria recently made a submission to the Legislative Council’s Environment and Planning Committee’s Inquiry into Community Consultation Practices.
Drawing on insights shared with us by carers across Victoria, our submission called for carers to be recognised as a priority group in government consultations and highlighted the need for processes that are flexible, inclusive, and respectful of carers’ time and expertise. Our recommendations focused on ensuring carer voices are valued and consistently included in policy and service design.
As a result of our submission, Carers Victoria was invited to Parliament to provide further evidence to the Committee.
On 5 September, Judith Abbott (CEO) and Lorraine Langley (Senior Manager Policy and Insights) attended a hearing at Parliament House to speak directly to the Committee about the issues we had raised.
This was an important opportunity to ensure the voices of unpaid carers were heard and to advocate for more inclusive, flexible, and respectful consultation practices that recognise carers as a priority group in government decision-making.
Our key recommendations included:
utilise the definition of carers in the Victorian Carers Recognition Act 2012 to support clarity (in terms of who carers are) and consistency across programs and services;
identify carers as a priority group for consultation due to their vital role and to mitigate the impact of service, policy and funding changes on this cohort;
recognise the diversity of carers and design consultations accordingly;
include carers in shaping the design and implementation of consultation practices to ensure they are accessible, and respectful of carers’ time and energy; and
reimburse carers for any out-of-pocket costs through the consultation process and provide meaningful compensation for their time and expertise.
The Committee was very interested in learning more about how to make consultation processes more accessible and inclusive and asked a number of questions about how current practices could be improved.
Their final report is due in February next year and we look forward to sharing its recommendations with you.
You can read our submission to the Inquiry here (PDF).
