ELDER ABUSE - FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ATTACKS SOME OF THE MOST VULNERABLE MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY

Mannie De Saxe
PO Box 1675
Preston South
Vic 3072
Phone: 03 9471 4878
Web: http://home.zipworld.com.au/~josken/inters8.htm

7 April 2009

ELDER ABUSE
Federal Government attacks some of the most vulnerable members of the community

Elder abuse has been well documented in recent years, covering areas such as abuse in nursing homes, abuse by carers, abuse by partners such as domestic violence, abuse by institutions and abuse by those responsible for management of care for the elderly, frail, sick, disabled.

Elder abuse of the gay, lesbian, transgender and HIV/AIDS (GLTH) communities has also started to be documented in recent years, and horror reports by researchers such as Dr Jo Harrison, researcher of gay and lesbian gerontology, have uncovered instances of abuse to which those in local government and other governmental levels have turned blind eyes in many instances, or in fact have been guilty of inflicting themselves.

Now, in 2009, the Federal Government is about to inflict a new method of elder abuse on the GLTH communities, particularly those least able to defend themselves against this new form of discrimination, homophobia and other forms of abuse by targeting same-sex aged, disabled and other disadvantaged most vulnerable people.

This new abuse inflicts outing, public declarations, income reduction and other disadvantages on these groups because the Government refuses to provide a grandfather clause in the legislation which provides improvements in conditions for same-sex partnerships with changes to nearly 100 pieces of legislation.

In effect, this elder abuse means inflicting hardship on people who have lived their lives with the hardships imposed by the homophobic world in which they have lived, a world which has denied them the same human rights which heterosexual members of the community have taken for granted as their right in our society.

Because so many have remained living as homosexuals in secret, the psychological and physical impacts as well as the other impacts of outing them are too numerous to contemplate. These are people who have had to try to finance their plans for old age in ways which would be foreign to heterosexuals, and who in many instances will now have their support structures torn away from them because of the new legislation.

This is elder abuse writ large and for which the government will be held responsible for the awful situations inflicted on those least able to protect themselves, all this at a time of financial crisis in local and global economies which will affect us all.

All these hardships will be avoided by the inclusion of a grandfather clause to assist some of the most disadvantaged of our elderly GLTH population – those already in their 70s, 80s and older.

You wouldn’t do this to your own families, would you?

Mannie De Saxe

COPIES SENT TO:

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd – contact form
Attorney General Robert McClelland – R.McClelland.MP@aph.gov.au
Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services & Indigenous Affairs Jenny Macklin – contact form
Minister for Resources and Energy, Minister for Tourism Martin Ferguson – Martin.Ferguson.MP@aph.gov.au
Minister for Human Services Senator Joe Ludwig – contact form

Leader of the Australian Greens Senator Bob Brown - senator.bob.brown@aph.gov.au
Leader of the Opposition Malcolm Turnbull – Malcolm.Turnbull.MP@aph.gov.au

Australian Senior (Victoria) - smiceli@thesenior.com.au
Fifty~Plus News – contact@fiftyplusnews.com

Ausqueer – AusQueer@yahoogroups.com
glbti_ageing – glbti_ageing@yahoogroups.com.au
ozhomohist – ozhomohist@yahoogroups.com

MCV – editormcv@eevolution.com.au
Sydney Star Observer – editor@starobserver.com.au

Dr Jo Harrison – GLTH Gerontologist – jamms@ozemail.com.au