Six months on

A personal update, by Susan Ryan, on her first six months on the job as Age Discrimination Commissioner.

Above: Aged Care Commissioner, Susan Ryan

*By Susan Ryan

After six months in the job, I’m pleased by the response from the community to the new focus on age discrimination.

I remain positive that, together, we can reduce the incidence of ageism and age discrimination across the community.

To-date, I have addressed a number of community and industry events to explain my role, the protections provided to people of all ages by the Age  Discrimination Act and the work of the Australian Human Rights Commission, particularly the complaints process (click here to find out more).

I have commenced discussion with peak bodies representing younger people about the age discrimination issues facing young Australians.

And I continue to hear from members of the public about their own experiences in battling to find employment as a mature age jobseeker.

Employment

In fact, one of my top priorities is to address the discriminatory attitudes which restrict the hiring and retention of older workers.

I am currently involved in this issue on a number of fronts:

• I am having ongoing constructive meetings with industry bodies, companies and recruiters to discuss how businesses do and could take constructive, supportive approaches to hiring and keeping older workers. These positive strategies will be showcased in a conference I have planned for later in the year that will also highlight the economic costs of discrimination against older workers.

• I am taking part in the government’s Consultative Forum on Mature Age Participation and encouraging the implementation of recommendations from the Advisory Panel on the Economic Potential of Seniors Australians.

• In addition to my role as Age Discrimination Commissioner, I am commencing an appointment as part time Commissioner to the Australian Law Reform Commission, undertaking an audit of Commonwealth laws and policies which contain age bars that prevent older Australians from continuing in work.

• Additionally, I will also be meeting with government and business representatives to discuss reforms to the age caps on workers compensation payments, income insurance and travel insurance.

Older people online

The internet is another priority area for me.

In our submission to the Parliament’s Joint Select Committee on Cyber-safety inquiry into cyber safety for older Australians, I have recommend that better targeted information and accessible training be made available to all older people can so they can participate with the rest of Australia in confidently accessing the benefits of the Internet.

Financial security

Over this first six months as Age Discrimination Commissioner, I have also found that financial security in another major area of concern for older Australians. Therefore, financial security has formed another one of my priority areas while I am Commissioner.

To this end, the development of information to assist older people to avoid financial abuse and approach the management of finances with confidence is another project I have in preparation.

‘Age Positive’ – combating age prejudice

Finally, one of the overriding observations I have made as Commissioner, and before I took up the role, concerns the image of older people in our community and popular culture. There is a disturbing tendency for older people to be pigeon-holed as slow learners, rigid in their ways and as generally inactive in retirement. These destructive ageist images and stereotypes directly support age discrimination in our community. I believe we need to push back against them.

As you will be aware, early in my term I put out a call for contributions to our ‘Age Positive’ initiative, a sub site to the Australian Human Rights Commission website which showcases the varied and important ways older people contribute to Australian society. You can access Age Positive online at humanrights.gov.au/age-positive/stories.html

I am very pleased to report that ‘Age Positive’ has been very successful. We continue to receive many inspiring contributions, and are very interested in receiving many more.

We all know people with an inspirational story to tell, so either send us their story, encourage them to send it to us or send us your own!

What else can you do?

Finally, my task as Age Discrimination Commissioner is to serve the Australian community in promoting awareness of ageism and unlawful age discrimination and in working to eradicate it.

Therefore, I am very interested in hearing from all of you who have suggestions about ways this can be done so that, together, we will ensure all Australians can live with dignity and security, regardless of age.

You can contact me/send your suggestions to:

Age Discrimination Commissioner
GOP Box 5218
Sydney NSW 2001
or agediscriminationcommissioner@humanrights.gov.au
 

Susan Ryan AO
Age Discrimination Commissioner

*This editorial piece was originally printed as a public statement in a Human Rights Commission e-newsletter, and was reproduced by AAA with permission.


 

Tags: aged-discrimination-act, ageism, australian-human-rights-commission, cyber-safety, cybersafety, economic-potential-of-older-australians, hreoc, law-reform, mature-age-participation, susan-ryan,

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