THE QUEENSLAND government has ruled out, for now, Australian Pensioners and Superannuants League proposals to more deftly deal with financial elder abuse.
At the recent state conference, league delegates voted unanimously for a separate elder abuse dispute tribunal to be established to deal quickly with abuse cases that currently can wind up as lengthy civil cases.
The league also called for acts of financial elder abuse to fall under the Queensland Criminal Code.
“It’s an act of often thinly disguised theft,” state secretary Bob Hetherton said.
A state government spokesman said another tribunal, specifically for elder abuse reparations, would create “complexity and confusion for users” including seniors.
“The Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal is a single recognisable gateway to increase the community’s access to justice and increase the efficiency and quality of decision making,” he said.
However, he also said a government-commissioned literature review and qualitative study into the prevalence and characteristics of elder abuse in Queensland, expected to be released within weeks, would better inform the government.
Mr Hetherton congratulated Seniors Minister Coralee O’Rourke on trying to get tough on elder abuse, “but it’s not far enough and the only real beneficiaries are lawyers, judiciary, Public Trustee and Adult Guardian,” he said.
The state government has allocated increasing funds to seniors legal and support services across Queensland as well as engaging financial advisors to provide seniors suffering or at risk of financial abuse with access to relevant financial advice.
Time to make it an offence: Herd
ELDER law specialist Brian Herd has added his voice to the call for financial elder abuse to be included as discrete, new offences in the Criminal Code.
“Exploitation of an elderly person, isolation of an elderly person, controlling or coercive behaviour in relation to an elderly person: no such offences exist in the Queensland Criminal Code,” Mr Herd said.
“Exploitation and isolation of an elderly person are found in some USA jurisdictions as offences along with other types targeting older people.
“The latter (controlling or coercive behaviour) was actually introduced into the UK in 2015 and made a ‘serious crime’ under the Serious Crimes Act.
“There is an old saying that it is against the law to abuse your partner and your pet but not your parent.”
Mr Herd said the traditional criminal offences in the Criminal Code don’t work because they are not subtle enough to capture the conduct and are not targeted sufficiently to the nature of the abusive conduct and the abuser. “If discrete and targeted criminal offences were created, from my 35 years of legal experience, there would be a marked decline in elder abuse,” he said.
