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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 9 Hansard (21 August) . . Page.. 3000 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

Mr Speaker, this is an important report. It is also the 11th report of the committee that was established over three years ago. We have had an interesting three years. I have enjoyed working with my various colleagues Mr Rugendyke and Mrs Burke and Mr Hird before that. With this report we finish the work of that committee, although there may be some things still arising.

At this time I want, in particular, to thank Mr David Skinner, the secretary of the committee over that period, for his attention to the committee's needs. Most particularly, I want to congratulate him on the quality of the work that he has undertaken over that time. I know that the committee members join with me in passing on our appreciation to Mr Skinner for that quality of work. He certainly has given value for the work that he has done. All the reports have been outstanding in the way they have been presented, and in the organisation of the committee his work is also of the highest quality. Many thanks to David.

There is a measure of abuse of the elderly in this community. It is not possible to state with any degree of accuracy just how widespread that abuse might be, but it is, on all the information we receive, sufficient for us to be concerned about it and to take some measures to try to reduce it.

Elder abuse does not include criminal acts, such as bag snatching, housebreaking and the like. They are clearly of the criminal nature. But it does include such matters as physical abuse, very often emotional abuse, occasionally a measure of sexual abuse, and most particularly, and of concern to the committee, financial abuse. I will have more to say about that. It also incorporates neglect; failure to take sufficient care; failure to be attentive to all the needs of an elderly person. This can happen whether in the person's own home or the home where they are residing in the community, perhaps with family, or it can occur in an institution.

Elder abuse occurs where there is a condition of dependency by the older person on others; where that person is not in a position to handle his or her affairs in their entirety and is completely or partially dependent on the care of others, again whether in a family or in an institution. Sometimes that abuse is by the family, sometimes in other circumstances.

We paid a deal of attention to financial abuse. There can be exploitation by family members, sadly, and we were given some examples of that. We had a number of case studies, which you might see on pages 32 and 33 of the report, and it is disconcerting to find that family members might anticipate the use of money that they think is theirs well before they have any entitlement to it. It certainly can be a problem.

That arises very often following legal avenues when a power of attorney has been handed over to family members. That power of attorney is still insufficient to stop a measure of abuse. I have no doubt that in the community as a whole the power of attorney is widely used and properly used by most members of our community, but we are saddened to see those circumstances where it may be abused, where those who have been given the power of attorney take actions and use the money that they can gain in ways that they should not.

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