Page 952 - Week 04 - Thursday, 7 May 2020
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abusive and neglectful behaviour that we more fully understand and now no longer accept.
This bill is a cultural game changer. Not only does it introduce new offences that target individuals who abuse or neglect vulnerable people; it introduces new offences which hold institutions responsible for the abuse or neglect of vulnerable people in their care or where those institutions fail to protect those persons. In doing so, the government are taking the same principle-based approach that we took when implementing the reforms from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
Too many of us have witnessed the neglect or abuse of a loved one who resides in an aged-care facility or another institution. Institutions have a responsibility to protect residents in their care from harm and a responsibility to deliver care for those persons. Just like those provisions that the government enacted which held institutions responsible for child sexual abuse and changes to the criminal law which better meet the community’s expectations today for how trials involving sexual offences against children operate, this bill is nation leading in holding institutions criminally responsible.
This bill will create an offence for abusing a vulnerable person. A person commits this offence if they are responsible for providing care to a vulnerable person and if they engage in abusive conduct which results in physical, psychological or financial harm to the vulnerable person or a financial benefit for the abuser or someone associated with the abuser.
There are defences for this offence which ensure that a person acting in good faith, in accordance with the policies or direction from an institution they are employed at or in circumstances beyond the control of an employee of an institution, is not liable for the offence.
The understanding of abuse captures a broad range of manipulative and controlling behaviours which are directed at vulnerable people and which, until now, have not had an adequate remedy in our criminal laws.
The bill also introduces a new neglect offence that brings the ACT into line with other Australian jurisdictions. The offence relies on a failure to provide the “necessities of life” and has similar defences as those I have just outlined.
Finally, the bill also inserts a new sentencing consideration for the court which requires it to consider the vulnerability of the victim. In particular, the court will be empowered to consider if the offender knew or ought to have known that a victim was a vulnerable person, the extent of that vulnerability and the loss or harm caused to the vulnerable person. The offender’s knowledge of that fact will be a factor in deciding an appropriate sentence.
During this time of uncertainty and social isolation that has been triggered by the COVID-19 emergency, the need to enact this bill and to protect vulnerable adults in our community is even more pressing. There are almost daily reports of increases in
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