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ABC News
2 hours ago
- ABC News
Workplace flexibility 'paramount' for 'sandwich generation' caring for both children and aging relatives
For Canberra woman Belle Hogg, the first sign her life was about to change came when her mother forgot her birthday. "You might say it's not a big deal, but she's the sort of mum that would send you something in the post two weeks before your birthday because it had to be perfect," Ms Hogg said. "At the time, I was actually cranky … and I said, 'I'm going up there, something's not right.'" Her mother had dramatically lost weight and her home was in a state of disarray. Soon after, the then-68-year-old was diagnosed with dementia. Suddenly, Ms Hogg found herself juggling full-time work in the public service, a photography business, raising her three children and caring for her mother. "She just declined so quickly, and it was just so hard going to work and thinking, 'Is she OK at home?'" Ms Hogg is part of the "sandwich generation" — adults caring for both children and aging relatives. As the population ages and people start their families later in life, a growing number of Australians are finding themselves squeezed by dual caring responsibilities. "It's definitely a rollercoaster — Mum and I have always been besties, the person I call for every piece of advice," Ms Hogg said. Research indicates about two-thirds of sandwich carers are women. Canberran Evie Kollas retired prematurely from teaching to care for her now-94-year-old mother and other family members. "That has financial implications. It also has social implications," Ms Kollas said. She said her caring and administrative responsibilities took up the time of a full-time job, without the same recognition. "If it was a job, it would be paid really well, and it would be really, really well resourced, and we would have some status," Ms Kollas said. "None of that applies to carers. "Recognition is always something carers have called for, but it needs to be a wider recognition, it needs to be a social revolution, it needs to be appreciated on a political level." ABC Canberra has been inundated with frustrated stories of carers in the sandwich generation who feel forgotten by the system. "I personally feel completely ripped off as I had to retire early from a job I loved to care for parents AND In-laws AND grandchildren. I've spent 10 years trying to juggle everything, retired 4 years ago, and have no hope in the foreseeable future of having the retirement we planned. By the time my carer burden is gone I will be too old/unwell to travel." "I'm working full time, caring for my 2 primary school children and now caring for my mother with dementia. My Aged Care has assessed her as needing a level 3 home care package but they won't release the funding. So my mum sleep[s] in my living room. We are all at our wits' end. We get no help. The dementia hotline said when it gets too much my best option is to leave her at the local hospital which they call a 'social admission'. We are paying a consultant thousands of dollars to try and find an aged care placement. The system is broken." "I'm in a double sandwich generation family. My 80yr old parents have been caring for my grandmother for 20+ years (she has now been in aged care for a couple of years). I am supporting my parents whilst raising my kids, who are still young teenagers … I have limited my work (both in hours and in complexity) to prioritise my caring responsibilities. This [affects] my superannuation and plans for my aged care." Melissa Reader, chief executive of not-for-profit Violet Initiative, said sandwich carers were crying out for more support. "Sixty-thousand Australians will turn 85 in the next five or six years … so it's a really phenomenal shift in our demographics and it's putting enormous pressure on the adult caregivers of those elderly Australians," Ms Reader said. And she said the impact of people leaving the workforce would have widespread effects on society. She said a high proportion of sandwich carers were stepping out of their position in the workforce as teachers, nurses or aged care staff. Michelle O'Shea of the University of Western Sydney said a survey run by Carers NSW found sandwich carers wanted to be in paid employment. "[Survey participants expressed] getting out of the home, getting ready for work, going to a workplace, engaging with people as being so important," Dr O'Shea said. Dr O'Shea said carers were often forced into making short-term decisions to look after themselves which sometimes had long-term negative ramifications. "Having to not go for promotion, not necessarily being available for the same number of shifts, or moving from full-time to part-time employment where that was practical — carers talked about the fact that there was often an unwillingness within their current employment to enable their ongoing work," she said. "That is, you couldn't be a senior leader, or you couldn't be a supervisor, and be so on a part-time basis, for example." She said it was important for employers to be able to provide carers with the flexibility they needed such as starting later in the day, finishing later in the evening or allowing breaks in the day for medical appointments. And when that sort of flexibility was given, Dr O'Shea said it benefited everyone. "When that flexibility was provided there was a really positive sense — the employee felt really positive about their workplace, and said the fact they were being given flexibility [meant] that they were probably working over and above to acknowledge their employer's trust in them," she said.
ABC News
2 hours ago
- ABC News
Rangers search for owner of pet snake left on Bundaberg footpath
Wildlife rangers have been puzzled by the discovery of a snake left in an enclosure on a Bundaberg footpath. The Department of Environment said a man walking his dog made the unusual discovery in Avenell Heights and took the reptile home before alerting authorities. Wide Bay senior wildlife ranger Amanda Yates said it had been a "very strange" mission to find who owned the albino Darwin carpet python. "It wouldn't be a wild animal. This animal, they're not found in this region at all, so we're definitely making the assumption that it's a captive born and bred animal. "There are a lot of different forms and morphs of carpet pythons that people breed now." The reptile was found last week, but rangers are at a loss to explain how it ended up on the street. "The animal is in very good condition. It's currently in our care and is eating well," Ms Yates said. "If [anyone has] had a tank and a reptile stolen or if anybody has any information about who may have left the animal there, definitely give us a call." Ms Yates said when rangers received reports about non-endemic snakes being found, it was normally obvious what had happened. Ms Yates reminded the public that people needed a permit to keep snakes as household pets in Queensland.
ABC News
2 hours ago
- ABC News
Do you know what's a no-go in FOGO in NSW? Many don't and that's a problem
By July 2030, every home in New South Wales should have its own food organics and garden organics (FOGO) bin. Many already do, but there is still widespread confusion about exactly what should go in the green bin. Pizza boxes, tea bags, cardboard, timber and bamboo utensils were initially allowed when FOGO started in 2013, but the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) has since revised its advice. Now only food or garden waste should go under the green lid. "We want to keep things out like plastics and anything that might allow for microplastics to break down into the FOGO," EPA executive director of programs and innovation Alexandra Geddes said. Other problem items include pet faeces and poo bags, paper towels, vacuum cleaner dust and lint from tumble dryers. FOGO contamination is a serious issue, with the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimating 45 per cent of all organic waste still ends up in landfill. There are 128 local councils in NSW and, according to the EPA, 57 already have a FOGO service. Another 13 have FOGO plans in place, 32 have green bins to collect garden waste only and 26 offer no organic collection. At this stage, it is up individual councils to implement and enforce rules about what can go in the green bin, although the EPA does provide "guidance". "That's because what we really want is [pure] organic matter that comes out of the process," Ms Geddes said. It is also up to the individual councils to determine how they collect and process FOGO material, with many opting to send it to composting facilities and then buy it back for their fertiliser regimes. Dan Nicholson, director of Topsoil Organics, is acutely aware of confusion around FOGO. The FOGO generated by 186,000 residents in Sydney's Inner West LGA are trucked to his composting facility at Forbes, in the NSW Central West, a round trip of more than 700 kilometres. "We try to really harvest every bit of organics possible that comes on site … it's a circular economy," he said. "We're still obviously getting the wrong things going into the bin, from drink bottles and milk cartons [to] the whole packet of bread still with the plastic around it." Mr Nicholson said he employed 10 people to pick through FOGO and remove contamination. Anything that comes in a green "compostable" bag is separated in the picking station and eventually processed using black soldier flies to harvest residual organics. "We still need a lot more education and people need to understand that FOGO is a material that's being used in the agricultural sector," he said. "We've got to get that material spotless so it fits the order and exemption to be able to go back into land." Clint Neville, a third-generation mixed farmer from Forbes who is using organic fertiliser produced by FOGO composting, said increasing organic carbon levels in the soil boosted its water-holding capacity while adding macro-nutrients. "Every 30 years, your soil organic levels halve," Mr Neville said. "We had one paddock where it was 0.5 per cent organic carbon [with 2 to 3 per cent being where we want to be] and we got about 600 tonnes of compost, and within 12 months we saw it bounce up to 1.7 per cent." Mr Neville said his aim had been to build more resilience within his farming system and do more with less.
