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An Australia Day reflection (2017)

by Ian Anderson and Sarah Russell

Another Australia Day has been and gone demonstrating that our history provokes a range of emotional responses – pride, sorrow, happiness, anger and guilt. The large number of non-Indigenous Australians who attended Invasion/Survival Day rallies around Australia suggests guilt is a common emotional response of non-Indigenous Australians when recalling Australia’s colonial treatment of Aboriginal people.

If you accept – as I do – that the Australian frontier was a violent place and many Aboriginal lives were lost in this violence. Also that Aboriginal Australian suffered because of the loss of livelihood, disease and poverty. Then there is much to provoke a sense of guilt. However, guilt prevents constructive dialogue.

Instead I want an honest conversation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians about our shared past and its consequences. I want to have this conversation in ways that enable us all to address the legacy of the past and create a shared future.

Guilt can be a crippling and paralysing emotion. Guilt doesn’t create the basis for reframing our relationships or enabling us to see new alternative futures together. For some, the fear of guilt becomes a reason to avoid thinking about these confronting truths about Australia’s past.

For those Australians who do not have any historical connection to Australian frontier– such as more recent migrants – guilt seems an even less appropriate response.

Hobart Lord Mayor Sue Hickey brought herself to national attention when she raised concerns about The Museum of Old and New Art’s (MONA) proposal for a Truth and Reconciliation Park. MONA has a long-term vision to transform an industrial site into a cultural precinct at Macquarie point. This proposal includes a precinct that acknowledges Tasmania’s colonial conflict with Indigenous people as well as a Tasmanian Aboriginal history centre. It has the potential to become a national building project with an innovative cultural space that creates new ways for Australians of all backgrounds to reconcile our colonial past.

Sue Hickey said a Truth and Reconciliation Park would create “a guilt ridden” place adding that she “didn’t kill Aborigines”. She received public opprobrium for her comments, particularly from Indigenous Australians. Although her initial comments were clumsy and caused offence, subsequent discussions between Sue Hickey and Tasmania’s Palawa (Aboriginal) were positive. However, the incident illustrates how the fear of guilt can get in the way of conversations about our colonial past.

I am not promoting a naïve dewy-eyed nationalism that glosses over the confronting aspects of our history. If we are going to have a shared future, we need to collectively remember our colonial history. But there may be more productive ways to set the tone for our engagement with our colonial past.

A dialogue about our colonial history underpinned by generosity, empathy, respect and compassion has greater potential for constructive engagement with our colonial history and its legacy. This approach may allow us to acknowledge past suffering whilst at the same time opening up new ways for us to relate to each other and build a shared future. This is a future in which we all belong but in different ways.

Every year we have difficult conversations about the problems associated with choice of the 26th of January to celebrate our Australian nationhood. This year was no different. Australia day honours, BBQs, citizenship ceremonies and invasion day/survival day marches were all held concurrently. Once again, Australia Day – a national day that should bring Indigenous and non-Indigenous together – divided our nation.

A poll published in the Guardian found most Indigenous Australians want the date changed. 26 January is the anniversary of the date in which the First Fleet raised the Union Jack in Sydney Cover in 1788. It is a date that by virtue of its historical symbolism causes pain to Indigenous Australians.

26 January became a public holiday uniformly across all Australian states only in 1994. For many Indigenous Australians it is symbolic of the act of dispossession. Yet we seem unable to have a frank and honest conversation about changing the date. Being dismissive and responding that this is a silly conversation – or that it is “political correctness gone mad” – is not a generous way to bring all Australians into a celebration of our shared collective future. A generous approach to dialogue based on empathy, respect and compassion would seek to find a date to celebrate our nationhood that is inclusive of all Australians.

We need a way to talk about our past that is honest that acknowledges harm both intended and not intended to Indigenous Australians. Perhaps this would be more productive if we were able to move from one based on guilt to one based on emotional engagement that is enabling. That might require us all to shift our approach to each other and acknowledge the multiple cultural traditions. Whoever we are – Indigenous, descendants of settler Australians, migrants or refugees – we all have a stake in our nations future.

The rise – and risk – of ‘early inheritance syndrome’

Children with early inheritance syndrome feel a sense of entitlement to their parents’ assets. They are not prepared to wait until their parents die. These impatient children seek ways for their parents to give them money, or interfere in the management of their parents’ assets to protect what they see as their entitlement.

Article

Accreditation too lax

Letter, The Age

While there are some excellent aged care homes, recent reports of medical negligence, neglect and inadequate personal care suggest that numerous providers prioritise profits over residents’ quality of life. How do such homes pass accreditation? Ten years ago, a Senate committee held an inquiry into the sector. Its report criticised the accreditation standards, finding them too generalised to effectively measure care outcomes. Unfortunately, vague phrases such as adequate nourishment and hydration, effective continence management, optimum levels of mobility and sufficient staff continue to be used.

Consider the case of a friend. She has been classified correctly as a “falls risk” – meaning she is not permitted to walk without a staff member. Due to insufficient staff and a culture that sees many residents spend most of the day immobile, her son has sole responsibility for “maximising her mobility”.

Given that the accreditation process enables aged-care facilities to receive government funding, it should be a rigorous assessment not a rubber stamp.

Sarah Russell, Aged Care Matters

Aged-care industry in a downward spiral

In what can only be seen as bad news for older people across the country, the “industry” supposed to support and care for them is in trouble. Deep trouble.

The signs are there for all to see. The handsomely government-subsidised aged-care industry model is set on a trajectory of decline.

Read more at http://www.smh.com.au/comment/agedcare-industry-in-a-downward-spiral-20160930-grs6aw.html

Reason to complain

Letter, The Age

John Simpson (Opinion, 2/10) spoke on behalf of all citizens deeply concerned about the quality of residential aged care services. Bipartisan reforms introduced in 2013 decreased regulation and pushed consumer choice. But the “consumers” are often frail, elderly people, many with dementia. How can they negotiate fees and demand a high quality service?

It is no surprise that the Aged Care Complaints Commissioner’s first annual report shows an 11 per cent increase in complaints. Relatives complain because residents’ needs are unmet – when incontinence pads are not changed regularly, when bruises appear or skin tears, and when pressure sores are not treated appropriately, in some cases turning gangrenous. Complaints are also made when residents suffer from malnutrition and/or dehydration and are chemically restrained. The list goes on.

The industry cannot keep dismissing such complaints as a one-off problem. Incidents occur in aged care homes because providers employ too few staff.

When taxpayers are subsidising the care of elderly people, the public’s investment needs to be protected in the form of regulation, mandated staff ratios and a rigorous accreditation system. The care of vulnerable older people is too important to be left to the free market.

Sarah Russell, Northcote

Aged need protections

Letter, The Age

Graeme Croft refers to the slump in share price of aged care companies (Letters, 6/9). This followed analysts downgrading aged care stocks after the government issued new guidelines. After the budget announced changes to the Aged Care Funding Instrument, causing providers concern about profits, some privately owned aged care homes responded by charging additional service fees, including “capital refurbishment fees” and “asset replacement contributions”. These fees improved profits but did not provide any benefit to residents. The Department of Health has announced that these types of fees contravened the legislation.

So while I agree with Croft that the industry needs serious reform I don’t agree with his conclusion. The care of vulnerable older people is too important to be left to the free market.  In an unregulated environment, these extra charges, up to $18 a day, would have gone unnoticed.

Croft also refers to the “high standards” set by the government. On the contrary, legislation falls remarkably short of demanding high standards. Unlike childcare centres, there is no requirement for aged care homes to have mandated staff-to-resident ratios. The accreditation and outcome standards also remain woefully inadequate. “Consumers” of aged care are often frail. They do not have the capacity to “drive” the residential aged care sector.

Sarah Russell, Northcote

Bags of money in aged care

bags

Letter, The Age

Residential aged care is big business. The Aged Care Financing Authority estimates the sector requires an investment of $31 billion over the next decade. Most of this will come from the private sector (The Age, 29/7). The bipartisan “Living longer living better” reforms have decreased regulation in aged-care homes. Vulnerable older people are now “consumers” in a market-based system. Deregulation serves the interests of providers, not residents. Paradoxically, private providers of aged-care homes lobby for a decrease in regulation and an increase in government subsidies. Leading Age Services Australia, the peak body representing private providers, is using images of “money bags” to promote their funding workshops to optimise government subsidies. This ad suggests that profits trump residents’ care. Recent calls for camera surveillance in aged-care homes divert the focus away from the need for systemic change. The care of vulnerable older Australians is too important to be traded on the market like any other commodity.

Sarah Russell, Northcote