Human Rights of the Elderly population in Australia

Assessment 2A: Individual Written Essay Human Rights of the Elderly population in Australia Human Rights can be considered as the basic rights, which are provided to each individual in the society based on certain key values like dignity, fairness, respect and equality. Therefore, it can be mentioned that human rights have major importance in protecting the individual from discrimination, social abuse and isolation (Lane et al. 2017). On the other hand, human rights highly empower people to maintain dignity in a society based on protesting against societal corruptions. Moreover, mostly, it can be mentioned that human rights regulations have been raised in Australia for the protection of different vulnerable groups from social abuse and isolation (Lane et al. 2017). Therefore, it is the responsibility of the Australian Government to ensure the protection of the human rights of all the individuals in the country including the people from vulnerable groups. On this basis, it can be mentioned that the State-level Government has a major role in developing and administering various legislations, which are relevant to provide human rights to the people in Australia. This paper is thereby focused on the discussion of the human rights of the elderly population in Australia. Different obligations of the Government for promoting and protecting the human rights of this particular population can be discussed in the study to determine various laws and conventions related to this aspect. As per the definition of the World Health Organisation, elder abuse has been considered as the act of causing distress and harm to an elder person in a repeated manner (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2021). There are various forms of elder abuse, which are physical, emotional, psychological and negligence. Therefore, it is the major obligation of the Australian Government to ensure the human rights protection of the elderly people in the country for empowering their abilities to stand against these abuses. The major human rights of the elderly population are the right to be safe without violence, the right to family life, right to an adequate and suitable standard of living with clothing, food and housing (Australian Government, 2021). To protect and promote the human rights and freedom of the elderly population of Australia, the Government has the role to implement support plans, which can be beneficial for the service providers to handle the issue of elder abuse in the country. Government funds have major relevance in enhancing mediation services, family counseling services and advancing the relationship between health and justice to reduce age discrimination in the healthcare units of the country. These major obligations of the Government can thereby be beneficial for supporting the initiatives of the Australian Human Rights Commission’s “Age Discrimination” Commissioner to handle ageism (Australian Government, 2021). On the other hand, the Australian Government needs to give priority to the Government for working with states and the territories to reform the “enduring powers” related to the attorney arrangements. In the year 2019, the National Plan has been launched by the Attorney General in response to Elderly Abuse in Australia (Australian Government, 2021). This has been developed in collaborations with the Governments of the state and the territory for determining the action of the Governments in certain areas based on the priorities (Gelber, 2019). According to the National Plan, it is highly essential for the Government to enhance the understanding regarding elderly abuse, improving the “community awareness”, enhancing service responses and increasing safeguards for older adults. On the other hand, there are certain aspects, which can be suitable to determine the limitations related to the existing human rights protection in Australia for the older population. According to Lane et al. (2017), it is the right of the elderly people in the country to make a complaint against Age discrimination at the workplace or in society to the Australian Human Rights Commission under the Age Discrimination Act 2004. Discrimination based on accessing accommodations, employment and accessing goods can also be considered as the violations of the human rights of the elderly people, which can be reported by them in the administration of the laws and programs of the Commonwealth Government (Blackham, 2017). However, in certain aspects, the Australian Government has failed to meet the obligations to promote and protect the rights of the elderly population in the country under the federal Age Discrimination Act 2004 (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2021). Therefore, it has been observed that this particular law is not efficient to protect the elder people of Australia from age discrimination based on the initiatives taken by a voluntary body at the time of providing benefits or offering membership or facility services to the elder people (Temple et al. 2018). On the other hand, this protection of age discrimination under Age discrimination 2004 is considered to be invalid based on this practice of discriminating the elder people executed in direct compliance with other laws, which are related to superannuation and taxation laws (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2021). Moreover, it can be mentioned this particular anti-discrimination legislation is not highly effective to protect the carers and the family of older people from discrimination. In Australia, 15% of the Australian population is over 65 years old with approximately 3.7 million people. It has been estimated that by the end of 205, the aging population can increase by almost 23% in Australia (Australian Government, 2021). Based on the Australian Government 2016 “election commitment”, the Government has provided $15 for the implementation of “Our Plan to protect the Rights of Older Australians”. Therefore, the funding has been beneficial for supporting the implementation process of the National plan to reduce Elder Abuse. Moreover, this funding is also important to support the establishment of the Elder Abuse Knowledge Hub (Steele et al. 2019). It has been observed that the Government of Australia has provided $22 million funding as “More Choices for a Longer Life Package” of 2018-2019 for reducing the level of elder abuse. Under the Australian Human Rights Commission, the Government of Australia has implemented the National Plan for accessing relevant information regarding elder abuse. This can be effective for enabling the government in targeting suitable responses (Australian Government, 2021). Moreover, the implementation of the National Plan is highly significant to enhance the co-ordinations among the jurisdictions for navigating and operating the system of reducing elder abuse in different locations of Australia (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2021). On the other hand, the Australian Government has major commitments to invest $18.3m to support the front-line services for the older people who have been the victims of elder abuse. There are certain components, related to the Elder Abuse service Trials, which are “Health-justice partnership”, “specialist elder abuse unit” and mediation or case management services. Therefore, these major services initiated based on the Government fund have been effective for providing suitable facilities of aged care to older people (Australian Government, 2021). It can be concluded that discrimination is one of the major elderly abuse affecting the human rights of elderly people in Australia. Therefore, it can be considered that the rights of elderly people are majorly considered as one of the most essential public agendas. The services and the initiatives taken by the Australian Government for the protection and the promotion of the Human rights of the elderly people can thereby be highly effective for enhancing the safety of these people in the country. Moreover, under the convention of the Australian Human Rights Commission, the elder people can operate different services based on the Elder Abuse services of the Government for promoting and protecting their rights. References Australian Government (2021), Protecting the Rights of Older Australians, Retrieved on: 28th February 2021,Retrieved from: https://www.ag.gov.au/rights-and-protections/protecting-rights-older-australians Australian Human Rights Commission (2021), Formal family agreements will protect older people, Retrieved on: 28th February 2021,Retrieved from: https://humanrights.gov.au/about/news/media-releases/formal-family-agreements-will-protect-older-people Australian Human Rights Commission (2021), Human rights and Older people, Retrieved on: 28th February 2021,Retrieved from: https://humanrights.gov.au/sites/default/files/content/letstalkaboutrights/downloads/HRA_older.pdf Blackham, A. (2017). Defining Discrimination in UK and Australian Age Discrimination Law. Monash UL Rev., 43, 760. https://www.monash.edu/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/1382371/07-Blackham.pdf Gelber, K. (2019). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 70: protection of human rights in Australia. Australian Journal of International Affairs, 73(4), 313-319. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10357718.2019.1631250 Lane, A. P., Windsor, T. D., Andel, R., & Luszcz, M. A. (2017). Is occupational complexity associated with cognitive performance or decline? Results from the Australian Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Gerontology, 63(6), 550-559. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ross_Andel/publication/316993868_Is_Occupational_Complexity_Associated_with_Cognitive_Performance_or_Decline_Results_from_the_Australian_Longitudinal_Study_of_Ageing/links/599ac95f45851564432f86e8/Is-Occupational-Complexity-Associated-with-Cognitive-Performance-or-Decline-Results-from-the-Australian-Longitudinal-Study-of-Ageing.pdf Steele, L., Swaffer, K., Phillipson, L., & Fleming, R. (2019). Questioning segregation of people living with dementia in Australia: an international human rights approach to care homes. Laws, 8(3), 18. https://www.mdpi.com/2075-471X/8/3/18/pdf Temple, J. B., Kelaher, M., & Williams, R. (2018). Discrimination and avoidance due to disability in Australia: evidence from a National Cross Sectional Survey. BMC public health, 18(1), 1-13. https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-018-6234-7