Australian Law Reform Commission Report on Elder Abuse

The Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) released a landmark report on elder abuse last week.

The Attorney-General of Australia asked the ALRC to conduct this Inquiry into elder abuse in February 2016.

The Inquiry forms part of a range of initiatives aimed at addressing elder abuse and builds on a number of other reviews, including: the 2007 report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, Older People and the Law; the 2015 report of the Senate Community Affairs References Committee into violence, abuse and neglect against people with disability in institutional and residential settings; the 2016 research report by the Australian Institute of Family Studies, Elder Abuse: Understanding Issues, Frameworks and Responses; and the ALRC’s 2014 report, Equality, Capacity and Disability in Commonwealth Laws.

The Report includes 43 recommendations dealing with laws and legal frameworks across national, state and territory laws. The goal of these recommendations is to achieve a nationally consistent response to elder abuse and support the choices and wishes of vulnerable elderly people through

• improved responses to elder abuse in residential aged care;
• enhanced employment screening of care workers;
• greater scrutiny regarding the use of restrictive practices in aged care;
• building trust and confidence in enduring documents as important advanced planning tools;
• protecting older people when ‘assets for care’ arrangements go wrong;
• banks and financial institutions protecting vulnerable customers from abuse;
• better succession planning across the self-managed superannuation sector;
• adult safeguarding regimes protecting and supporting at-risk adults.