By Paul Sakkal
Grandparents being exploited, neglected or financially coerced will be the target of a new education campaign to eliminate abuse of older people in Australia.
Beginning on Sunday, $5 million worth of advertisements will run on television, online and at medical clinics telling older people to open up about the poor treatment they receive, including from their children and grandchildren.
The push to reveal bad behaviour comes amid mounting evidence that some families take advantage of the vulnerable state of their elders, who are living longer and delaying inheritances.
A 2021 government study found about one in six older Australians were abused, but about two-thirds of them did not seek help.
“If an older person does not feel that they can reach out for help, then we have failed them,” Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus will say in a speech on Monday, describing the statistics as disturbing.
“We know that Australia’s population is an ageing one, which brings even greater urgency to this issue.
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus during question time last month.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“Abuse of older people is a shameful and often hidden form of cruelty and mistreatment. In addition to physical abuse, elder abuse can involve psychological or emotional abuse, financial abuse, sexual abuse or neglect.
“It is ugly. It is unacceptable. And it must be eliminated.”
The one-in-six finding is likely an underestimate, the government believes, because the research did not capture people with cognitive decline or those in residential aged care.
The new advertisement features an older man going about his day, chatting happily to a neighbour and his barber. But when asked how his home life is, the man’s demeanour changes.
Age Discrimination Commissioner Robert Fitzgerald AM.
“Ending the abuse of older people begins with a conversation. If something doesn’t feel right, speak to someone you trust,” the advertisement states.
Age Discrimination Commissioner Robert Fitzgerald AM last month called on the retirement sector to introduce a national strategy to counter abuse.
“We are really where child protection was 30 years ago and domestic violence was 20 years ago,” Fitzgerald previously told a NSW parliamentary hearing, warning “we won’t have that period of time in order to respond”.
The NSW Ageing and Disability Commission’s abuse helpline received 14,025 calls in 2022-23, an increase of 12 per cent from the previous year.
Of the more than 5000 allegations made to the commission, the highest number related to psychological abuse (41.7 per cent).
Speaking at NSW budget estimates in late 2023, Fitzgerald said the trend was attributable to more people reaching the age of 75, an increase in elderly poverty – particularly among single women – and an emerging phenomenon of “inheritance impatience”.
“Our children – my children – will have to wait much longer for the wealth transfer to occur, and that wealth transfer is being pushed out by five to 10 years,” he said.
“What we know about adult children is that they are not patient, so inheritance impatience will, in fact, grow.”
An independent report, led by the Australian Institute of Family Studies, this month found the National Plan to Respond to the Abuse of Older Australians was working well, uniting state and federal governments to counter the scourge.
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