ATTORNEY-General, Christian Porter has announced the development of a national plan to tackle elder abuse.
"This is a key first step in bringing government, business and community stakeholders together to properly address this critical issue," he said.
"Australia has an ageing population, with the proportion of Australians aged 65 or over rising from 15 per cent of the population in 2014-15 to 23 per cent by 2055 and there is no doubt that, as a community, we need to address the risk of abuse that faces people as they age."
A National Plan was a key recommendation of the 2017 Australian Law Reform Commission's (ALRC) Report: Elder Abuse - a National Legal Response, which highlighted a litany of examples of serious physical abuse, financial abuse, neglect and exploitation of older people.
"Abuse takes many forms and can have wide-reaching emotional, financial and physical effects on victims," Mr Porter said.
"We have all seen or heard stories about older people facing abuse in a variety of circumstances, from financial pressure to provide family members money or change wills to abuses in aged care settings.
"But right now we don't have a detailed picture of the problem in Australia. What we do know from overseas studies is that elder abuse affects between two and twelve per cent of older people and it affects both men and women.
Mr Porter said the Government would fund a national study to examine the prevalence of elder abuse in society and provide evidence-based findings to inform the National Plan.
As recommended by the ALRC, the National Plan has five goals:
- Promote the autonomy and agency of older people
- Address ageism and promote community understanding of elder abuse;
- Achieve national consistency
- Safeguard at-risk older people and improve responses; and
- Build the evidence basis
"Addressing elder abuse is not just a legal problem," the Attorney-General said.
A draft of the National Plan is expected by the end of the year.
