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This 3-day conference was called “Diversity in Ageing”, although this was not entirely obvious from the keynote speeches. Gay, Lesbian, Transgender and HIV/AIDS issues were, in the main, all together on the second day, although we belatedly discovered that there had been a session on the first day which was not listed as being relevant to our communities.
The main sessions of interest on 23 November were titled: “Coming out from the shadows”. The papers presented were:
Jo Harrison: Coming Out From the Shadows and Into the Light: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (GLBTI) Ageing – Celebrating Diversity and Taking Action;The other session on Thursday 23 November of relevance and interest was called: A way forward for better understanding. The papers presented were:
Heather Birch – Are we there yet? Key collaborations on the pathway to quality services for GLBTI seniors in Victoria;On Friday 24 November there were a few more talks of interest.
Unfortunately we do not have sufficient sdpace for more details but these can be obtained from the Australian Association of Gerontology.
We were invited to attend a Positive Ageing Project workshop to be held at one of the Darebin Council’s libraries. This was not a gay and lesbian workshop but one at which 25 people from various groups within the Darebin Council area were also invited to attend. The session lasted about 3 hours and we were able to suggest that the people running the workshop put gay, lesbian and transgender ageing on their agenda for further discussions. At this stage we suspect that nothing further will come of this workshop and await further communications from the organisers with great interest!
To: Senator Santo Santoro, Federal Minister for Ageing, Parliament House, Canberra A.C.T. 2600.
From: Kendall Lovett, PO Box 1675, Preston South, Vic. 3072.
Dear Senator,
In the current February issue of the Fifty~Plus News I noticed that you had announced that under the Australian Government’s Better Skills for Better Care Program 3000 aged care workers will receive extra skills training in 2007. Apparently, personal care workers were being targeted and would be offered training in Certificate III and Certificate IV in Aged Care Work.
As a person now in my eighties, who may need the services of a carer sometime in the future, I would be interested to know now what kind of extra skills training is envisaged for these aged care workers. I am interested in the following issues.
1): Perhaps you could tell me whether or not non-heterosexual identities are at last to be recognised as existing in the ageing Australian multicultural population. It would certainly be a great relief to learn that care workers in skills training are to be made aware of the discriminatory obstacles faced by lesbians, gay men and transgender ageing people and how to deal with their identity needs in an understanding and non-discriminatory manner.
2): For instance, ageing HIV positive people have concerns about being placed in aged care facilities because staff lack knowledge and experience of HIV. They have concerns about possible discrimination related to HIV due to ignorance and fear of the condition by the care worker. Is this a likely concern to be dealt with in the program?
3): Will the extra skills training program encourage the use of gender-neutral language in caring for ageing clients? (eg: ‘partner’ rather than ‘wife’ or ‘husband’--terms like ‘never married’ and ‘widowed’ or ‘spouse carer” reflect the assumption that all elderly people are heterosexual.)
4): Despite the decriminalising legislation of the 80s many ageing gay men, lesbians and transgender people have lived closeted lives since the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s and now may want to find suitable community aged care services. Will they be able to learn from your new aged care website if a care service is accepting and understanding of a lifetime of non-disclosure and that their needs could be different from the heterosexual norm? There are some unfortunate instances that have been highlighted recently. There was a case in which a lesbian being admitted to a home felt unable to reveal that the “friend” accompanying her at admission was really her life partner. The partner was therefore not given the same visiting and decision-making rights as the woman’s children. Also, an elderly man was transferred from a retirement village to a psychiatric hospital because the management disapproved of his “ younger male visitors.” There is anecdotal evidence of denial of services, forcibly preventing cross-dressing, and deliberate physical violence when people are revealed to be transgender. (ADB of NSW Equal Time, No.61 August 2004.) So many aged care services are insensitive to the needs of non-heterosexual aged persons and able to discriminate homophobically because they are run by religious institutions.
One has to ask, therefore, how your website can be of much use to me and my friends. All the brochures from aged care services and retirement homes show pictures of heterosexual couples and singles and speak in glowing heterosexual terms of their caring features none of which encourages us to think such homes or services are likely to be accepting of us as non-heterosexuals.
On the other hand if, in your assessing the appropriateness of a service for your website, you vetted each organisation for such obstacles to safe, sensitive and non-discriminatory high quality care for us and said as much on your website, then we would feel confident in approaching such a home or service.
Sincerely,
Kendall Lovett.
The Hon Christopher Pyne, Minister for Ageing, PO Box 6022, House of Representatives, Parliament House, Canberra A.C.T. 2600.
From: Kendall Lovett, 2/12 Murphy Grove, Preston Vic., Postal address: PO Box 1675, Preston South, Vic.3072.
Dear Minister,
As the new Minister for Ageing I thought I should let you know that I wrote to your predecessor about the federal government’s Better Skills for Better Care Program last month.
I received an acknowledgement, dated 1/3/07, informing me that my correspondence had been forwarded to the Department for advice. In the rapid change over of portfolios it seemed to me necessary to acquaint you as the new Minister with contents of my letter to Senator Santoro. I have, therefore, attached a copy of the letter.
I trust you will be interested in the issues raised and look forward to receiving an answer to my questions.
Sincerely,
Kendall Lovett.
Encl: 2pages
Assistant Secretary Fiona Nicholls, Quality, Policy and Programs Branch, Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing, GPO Box 9848, CANBERRA, A.C.T. 2601.
From: Kendall Lovett, PO Box 1675, Preston South, Vic.3072.
Dear Fiona,
Re: Your reply, dated 3 April 2007, to a letter of mine in the first instance to Senator Santoro, then as an unanswered copy to the new Minister for Ageing, Christopher Pyne MP.
The information in your letter was not of much assistance at all. It did not answer the issues I was raising with the Minister nor did it reply to my particular questions.
Your reply was like a form letter sent to those who wish to enquire about the range of aged care services available. I was asking about the kind of training personal care workers were going to receive in Certificate III and Certificate IV in the federal government’s Better Skills for Better Care program. (See photocopy Fifty~Plus News Briefs, Feb.2007.)
I wanted to know if these extra skills training courses were going to include recognising at long last the existence of lesbians, gays and transgender people in the aged population and the discriminatory obstacles they face in the aged cared industry. Would the program encourage the use of gender-neutral language in caring for ageing clients instead of assuming all elderly people are heterosexual? I provided examples of the kind of discrimination perpetrated on same-sex people who had lived a life of non-disclosure because of prejudice and the laws of the past.
I also pointed out that if the New Aged Care Website did not show that a care service had not been assessed for gay friendly, sensitive non-discriminatory care then my friends and I would not find it to be of much use to us.(See photocopy Fifty~Plus News Briefs, Feb.2007.)
A further issue was the possible lack of knowledge of care workers when HIV-positive people, many now reaching senior status, have to be placed in aged care facilities. (See photocopy Fifty~Plus Feb.2007, AAG National Conference Report.)
Under the circumstances, I think you must send this letter and attachment, with my previous letter, back to the Minister for his comments.
Sincerely,
Kendall Lovett.
Enclosure with above letter:
The following article from the New York Times was sent to InterSection and is of such importance to the gay, lesbian, transgender and HIV/AIDS communities in Australia that it was worth reproducing in full:
Even now, at 81 and with her memory beginning to fade, Gloria Donadello recalls her painful brush with bigotry at an assisted-living center in Santa Fe, N.M. Sitting with those she considered friends, "people were laughing and making certain kinds of comments, and I told them, "Please don't do that, because I'm gay.""
The result of her outspokenness, Ms. Donadello said, was swift and merciless. "Everyone looked horrified," she said. No longer included in conversation or welcome at meals, she plunged into depression. Medication did not help. With her emotional health deteriorating, Ms. Donadello moved into an adult community nearby that caters to gay men and lesbians. "I felt like I was a pariah," she said, settled in her new home. "For me, it was a choice between life and death."
Elderly gay people like Ms. Donadello, living in nursing homes or assisted-living centers or receiving home care, increasingly report that they have been disrespected, shunned or mistreated in ways that range from hurtful to deadly, even leading some to commit suicide.
Some have seen their partners and friends insulted or isolated. Others live in fear of the day when they are dependent on strangers for the most personal care. That dread alone can be damaging, physically and emotionally, say geriatric doctors, psychiatrists and social workers.
The plight of the gay elderly has been taken up by a generation of gay men and lesbians, concerned about their own futures, who have begun a national drive to educate care providers about the social isolation, even outright discrimination, that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender clients face.
Several solutions are emerging. In Boston, New York, Chicago, Atlanta and other urban centers, so-called L.G.B.T. Aging Projects are springing up, to train long-term care providers. At the same time, there is a move to separate care, with the comfort of the familiar.
In the Boston suburbs, the Chelsea Jewish Nursing Home will break ground in December for a complex that includes a unit for the gay and lesbian elderly. And Stonewall Communities in Boston has begun selling homes designed for older gay people with support services similar to assisted-living centers. There are also openly gay geriatric case managers who can guide clients to compassionate services.
"Many times gay people avoid seeking help at all because of their fears about how they'll be treated," said David Aronstein, president of Stonewall Communities. "Unless they see affirming actions, they'll assume the worst.
Homophobia directed at the elderly has many faces.Home health aides must be reminded not to wear gloves at inappropriate times, for example while opening the front door or making the bed, when there is no evidence of H.I.V. infection, said Joe Collura, a nurse at the largest home care agency in Greenwich Village.
A lesbian checking into a double room at a Chicago rehabilitation center was greeted by a roommate yelling, "Get the man out of here!" The lesbian patient, Renae Ogletree, summoned a friend to take her elsewhere.
Sometimes tragedy results. In one nursing home, an openly gay man, without family or friends, was recently moved off his floor to quiet the protests of other residents and their families. He was given a room among patients with severe disabilities or dementia. The home called upon Amber Hollibaugh, now a senior strategist at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the author of the first training curriculum for nursing homes. Ms. Hollibaugh assured the 79-year-old man that a more humane solution would be found, but he hanged himself, Ms. Hollibaugh said. She was unwilling to identify the nursing home or even its East Coast city, because she still consults there, among other places.
While this outcome is exceedingly rare, moving gay residents to placate others is common, said Dr. Melinda Lantz, chief of geriatric psychiatry at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, who spent 13 years in a similar post at the Jewish Home and Hospital Lifecare System. "When you're stuck and have to move someone because they're being ganged up on, you put them with people who are very confused,' Dr. Lantz said. "That's a terrible nuts-and-bolts reality."
The most common reaction, in a generation accustomed to being in the closet, is a retreat back to the invisibility that was necessary for most of their lives, when homosexuality was considered both a crime and a mental illness. A partner is identified as a brother. No pictures or gay-themed books are left around.
Elderly heterosexuals also suffer the indignities of old age, but not to the same extent, Dr. Lantz said. "There is something special about having to hide this part of your identity at a time when your entire identity is threatened," she said. "That's a faster pathway to depression, failure to thrive and even premature death."
The movement to improve conditions for the gay elderly is driven by demographics. There are an estimated 2.4 million gay, lesbian or bisexual Americans over the age of 55, said Gary Gates, a senior research fellow at the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. That estimate was extrapolated by Dr. Gates using census data that counts only same-sex couples along with other government data that counts both single and coupled gay people. Among those in same-sex couples, the number of gay men and women over 55 has almost doubled from 2000 to 2006, Dr. Gates said, to 416,000, from 222,000.
California is the only state with a law saying the gay elderly have special needs, like other members of minority groups. A new law encourages training for employees and contractors who work with the elderly and permits state financing of projects like gay senior centers. Federal law provides no antidiscrimination protections to gay people. Twenty states explicitly outlaw such discrimination in housing and public accommodations. But no civil rights claims have been made by gay residents of nursing homes, according to the Lambda Legal Defense Fund, which litigates and monitors such cases. Potential plaintiffs, the organization says, are too frail or frightened to bring action.
The problem is compounded, experts say, because most of the gay elderly do not declare their identity, and institutions rarely make an effort to find out who they are to prepare staff members and residents for what may be an unfamiliar situation.
So that is where Lisa Krinsky, the director of the L.G.B.T. Aging Project in Massachusetts, begins her "cultural competency" training sessions, including one last month at North Shore Elder Services in Danvers.
Admissions forms for long-term care have boxes to check for marital status and next of kin. But none of the boxes match the circumstances of gay men or lesbians. Ms. Krinsky suggested follow-up questions like "Who is important in your life?"
In the last two years, Ms. Krinsky has trained more than 2,000 employees of agencies serving the elderly across Massachusetts. She presents them with common problems and nudges them toward solutions.
A gay man fired his home health aide. Did the case manager ask why? The patient might be receiving unwanted Bible readings from someone who thinks homosexuality is a sin. What about a lesbian at an assisted-living center refusing visitors? Maybe she is afraid that her friends' appearance will give her away to fellow residents.
"We need to be open and sensitive," Ms. Krinsky said, "but not wrap them in a rainbow flag and make them march in a parade."
Some of the gay elderly chose openness as the quickest and most painless way of finding compassionate care. That is the case for Bruce Steiner, 76, of Sudbury, Mass., whose 71-year-old partner, Jim Anthony, has had Alzheimer's disease for more than a decade and can no longer feed himself or speak.
Mr. Steiner is resisting a nursing home for Mr. Anthony, even after several hospitalizations last year. The care had been uneven, Mr. Steiner said, and it was unclear whether homosexuality was a factor. But Mr. Steiner decided to take no chances and hired a gay case manager who helped him "do some filtering."
They selected a home care agency with a reputation for treating gay clients well. Preparing for an unknown future, Mr. Steiner also visited several nursing homes, "giving them the opportunity to encourage or discourage me." His favorite "is one run by the Carmelite sisters, of all things, because they had a sense of humor."
They are the exception, not the rule.
Jalna Perry, a 77-year-old lesbian and psychiatrist in Boston, is out, she said, but does not broadcast the fact, which would feel unnatural to someone of her generation. Dr. Perry, who uses a wheelchair, has spent time in assisted-living centers and nursing homes. There, she said, her guard was up all the time.
Dr. Perry came out to a few other residents in the assisted-living center - artsy, professional women who she figured would accept her. But even with them, she said, "You don't talk about gay things." Mostly, she kept to herself. "You size people up," Dr. Perry said. "You know the activities person is a lesbian; that's a quick read."
Trickier was an aide who was gentle with others but surly and heavy-handed when helping Dr. Perry with personal tasks. Did the aide suspect and disapprove? With a male nurse who was gay, Dr. Perry said she felt "extremely comfortable."
"Except for that nurse, I was very lonely," she said. "It would have been nice if someone else was out among the residents."
Such loneliness is a source of dread to the members of the Prime Timers, a Boston social group for older gay men. Among the regulars, who meet for lunch once a week, are Emile Dufour, 70, a former priest, and Fred Riley, 75, who has a 30-year heterosexual marriage behind him. The pair have been together for two decades and married in 2004. But their default position, should they need nursing care, will be to hide their gayness, as they did for half a lifetime, rather than face slurs and whispers.
"As strong as I am today," Mr. Riley said, "when I'm at the gate of the nursing home, the closet door is going to slam shut behind me."
Dan Frosch contributed reporting.
I write to invite you or your organisation to make a submission to a Parliamentary inquiry.
On 4 September 2008, the Senate referred the provisions of the Same-Sex Relationships (Equal Treatment in Commonwealth Laws-General Law Reform) Bill 2008 to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee for inquiry and report by 30 September 2008.
The purpose of the Bill is to eliminate discrimination against same-sex couples and the children of same-sex relationships in a wide range of Commonwealth Laws. The Bill will amend 68 Commonwealth Laws, a list of which may be found in the Explanatory Memorandum for the Bill.
The committee has invited written submissions to its inquiry by 15 September 2008, and would be grateful for a contribution from you or your organisation. The committee is interested in hearing a wide range of views from interested parties. I would be grateful if you could also forward information about this inquiry to any individuals, groups or organisations who may wish to make a submission.
The Bill, Explanatory Memorandum and Second Reading Speech are on the committee's website at www.aph.gov.au/senate_legal. Hard copies are also available from the secretariat.
The committee encourages the lodgement of submissions in electronic form, but stresses that all submissions must include the author's full name, phone number and postal address on a separate covering letter. All communications with the committee and its secretariat are protected by parliamentary privilege and it is expected that submissions will be published unless clearly marked as confidential. Submissions must not be disclosed without the prior approval of the committee.
If you require further information, please contact the secretariat on (02) 6277 3560.
Yours sincerelyI am writing to acknowledge receipt of your correspondence to the Inquiry into the Same-Sex Relationship (Equal Treatment in Commonwealth Laws-General Law Reform) Bill 2008.
All correspondence to the committee remains confidential to the committee and may not be circulated to anyone else unless the committee authorises its publication. Correspondence is protected by Parliamentary Privilege unless rejected by the committee. However, correspondence released without authorisation loses this protection.
Due to the large volume of correspondence that is expected in relation to this inquiry, it is not possible to individually notify you that the committee has agreed to accept your correspondence as an official submission to the inquiry. Subject to resourcing and the number of submissions received, the committee intends to post as many names as possible of persons who have had submissions accepted on the committee's website.
Generally, the committee also makes correspondence that it accepts as a submission public, unless it receives a request that it be kept confidential. If time and resources permit, this may include putting the submission on the committee's website. At the end of the inquiry, all submissions made public will be included in the committee's papers that are tabled in the Senate, which means that they can be made available to anyone who requests them.
For privacy reasons, the committee does not publish addresses, phone numbers or signatures, but unless the writer has specifically requested that their name be withheld, this is also made public. If this concerns you and you want your correspondence or name kept confidential, you must let me know by return e-mail or post. Please do not ring. If I do not receive a request for confidentiality from you, then I will assume that you do not require this. Please note that it is not necessary to respond unless you do wish to request confidentiality. Thank you for your interest in the inquiry.
Peter HallahanDespite the Attorney-General’s key concepts and definitions in his Explanatory Memorandum to this Bill, LGS points out that it falls far short of equal treatment. The whole Bill hinges on re-defining the meaning of de facto partner in the Commonwealth’s Acts Interpretation Act 1901 to encompass members of both same- sex and opposite-sex relationships. That equates same-sex partners as equal to a man and a woman living, in religious marriage terms, in sin while at least one of the partners is married to someone else.
That’s outrageous and simply does not apply to the majority of same-sex relationships. So it is not equality; rather it enshrines the religiously-encouraged myth that same-sex relationships are all unstable and less than an opposite-sex licensed relationship, in other words a marriage. Separate treatment is not equal treatment; it’s sexual apartheid in this country!
De facto is acceptable to LGS only if at least one of the same-sex partners is already married to someone else and has not been legally divorced from such a person; because that is how de facto is applied to different-sex partners.
If the federal government does not provide the equivalent licence for same-sex partnerships as it provides for a partnership of a woman and a man, it can never be termed to have provided equality for same-sex partnerships in Commonwealth law.
LGS does not agree that by providing same-sex relationships with an alternative licence, automatically entitling them to the same benefits and responsibilities, reduces the value or belittles the marriage licence. Both licences are fair and honest contracts between two human beings who love each other and wish to share their lives as well as the benefits, entitlements and responsibilities of their partnership.
It also follows there will be a percentage of same-sex relationships that will fail as happens frequently in opposite-sex relationships. In like manner there will be those same-sex partnerships who will not wish to register their relationship just as many opposite-sex partnerships refrain from registering a marriage.
Other serious concernsLGS believes that if this Bill passes into law, it will in no way reduce homophobic discrimination but simply increase the impact on same-sex age pensioners, people who are HIV-positive and lesbian mothers, all who share their lives with another of the same sex. Allowing couples time (July 2009 perhaps) to sort out their finances is another way of saying ‘prepare to be poorer; Centrelink is going to point their pitbulls in your direction!’ It’s a great pity that the federal government does not state explicitly in this Bill that it is illegal to discriminate against lesbian, gay, and transgender people especially in the provision of any aged care service whether in the home or in an institution either public or private.
It is also extremely worrying that there is no indication in the Bill that the government will fund gay, lesbian and trans (GLT) organisations to provide advice, advocacy and information about the impact of the legislation on this community. The fact is that Centrelink will enforce the legislation to the letter and actually use the State and Territory same-sex registers (and no doubt endeavour to use similar Local Government love registers as well) to track down GLT couples.LGS has genuine concerns about the lack of any plans in the Bill whereby the federal government will provide education for the public and for, in particular, public servants who are at the hands-on level of delivering services to taxpayers, about this incredibly wide-ranging change in legislation. It may seem that the public generally accepts same-sex people in their midst from the various surveys which have been publicised but violence towards us and youth suicide in our gay communities remains high. So it is not true to say that by amending all these laws makes the changes easily acceptable. It needs some very widespread and sensitive education. LGS urges the Senate Committee to make these funding and educative measures essential recommendations in its report back to parliament.
LGS also considers that the lead-in time is insufficient to allow for educative measures to be properly understood and accepted by the public, the educators and the lesbian and gay communities throughout Australia. If the government is prepared to allow the present de-unionised building-site workplaces laws to remain active until 2010 before being reviewed, surely the lead-in time for this Bill should be extended to July 2010.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Specifics of the BillThe Attorney-General says that this is a Bill for an Act to address discrimination against same-sex couples and their children in Commonwealth Laws, and for other purposes. As we have said in our preamble, the whole Bill hinges on re-defining the meaning of ‘de facto partner’ in the Acts Interpretation Act 1901. However, it’s rather like putting the cart before the horse. It would have been more relevant to have provided the equivalent licence for same-sex relationships as is provided for opposite-sex relationships, regardless of what you may have decided to call it to placate the diehards. Nevertheless, if this Bill is passed into law it still leaves a more relevant same-sex relationship licence open for future attempt at legislation.
Acts Interpretation Act 1901After section 22, insert: 22A References to de facto partner:- LGS takes issue with both 22A(a) and 22(b) as defined in 22B: Registered Relationships. Line 18: For the purposes of paragraph 22A(a), a person is in a registered relationship with another person if the relationship between the persons is registered under a prescribed law of a State or Territory as a prescribed kind of relationship.
LGS believes this to be a cop-out by the federal government because of its refusal to support a proper federal law of its own.
LGS regards this use of State and Territory relationship registers by the federal government as a corrupt procedure because it affects the privacy laws enacted by all States and Territories.
LGS would hope to see the States and Territories concerned ( not all have relationship registers) refuse to supply any such information because of a privacy issue. Furthermore, other States and Territories should be wary about setting up such registers and instead insist that the federal government sets up a national register.
It is therefore necessary to recommend that all federal agencies such as Centrelink and the Taxation Office should be made aware that they may not seek information from any State or Territory relationship register nor any other such relationship register in the possession of Local Government Councils or Shires.
Signed: Kendall Lovett and Mannie De Saxe,Imagine you are a gay man in your 80s, you have lived through the era when shock treatment, lobotomy, blackmail, sacking from your job, criminal conviction and potentially prison, were all part and parcel of being attracted to the same sex.
Here you are now living with your same sex partner at home. He is also in his 80s and is frail and needing community aged care package related services. You both live on the age pension.
You are not out to anyone, not to your relatives, or to your service providers, who are nice enough, but you are not about to take the risk. After all, the aged care industry in this country has not been forced to protect you, so why would you take the risk when you are more vulnerable than ever.
You attend Mature Age Gays meetings, and that's just about the only place you can really be yourself. Plenty of others there are just like you.
The Government finally passes the same sex relationships reforms, including amendments to the Aged Care Act. You don't list yourselves on any register and you do nothing to declare your relationship, you never have and you can't take the risk of losing the support of family members you know to be very judgmental.
Flash forward 5 years, your partner is assessed as needing to go into residential care, a devastating decision, but one you have felt was coming for some time.
You have to fill in the 5 steps to residential care kit, and be assessed by Centrelink for residential care payments and fees.
The aged care industry is still largely exempt from anti-discrimination legislation and there is research evidence that gays in residential care are afraid to assert their rights. There is no GLBT advocacy officer you can call.
Centrelink tell you that if you are not in one of a very tight list of defined relationships to the person going into residential care, your house will be counted INTO the assets test, meaning you will have to pay much more in fees and charges, and may even have to sell your home to afford these.
You are between a rock and a hard place - disclose now and have Centrelink come for 5 years back payment of benefits to two singles rather than a couple, OR don't disclose and lose your house, or at least pay more than others with the same assets and income.
As a community we appear to see these guys as 'weak' 'getting their just deserts' 'appropriately punished' or even 'wanting it both ways' as I have been told.
I can't work out why there is not more widespread anger with those who will celebrate legislation that will allow the social security and aged care and veterans care systems to happily continue to treat people unfairly, and ignore the history of what was done to those who were victims of the times.
When the time comes and the boomers need nursing homes, what steps will we have taken to ensure that no one is afraid or forced back in the closet?
Dr Jo HarrisonHoles are showing in the federal government's latest "equalising" legislation for the gay, lesbian, transgender and HIV/AIDS communities. This article, from SX issue 409, 27 November 2008 explains:
New stipulations that same-sex couples on Centrelink benefits must declare their relationships will lead to difficulties for gay and lesbian pensioners, according to a leading academic in the aged care field.
Dr Jo Harrison, an Adelaide-based gerontologist, researcher and consultant, says that amendments to social security payments and the Aged Care Act, precipitated by this week’s same-sex Senate reforms, could cause serious psychological and emotional distress to elderly same-sex couples who have not disclosed their relationships.
“[The changes mean] there will be Centrelink investigations, including third party inquiries without permission, which could involve approaching family, friends, fellow worker and others,” she told SX.
“Centrelink could do this to ascertain whether the two individuals are a same-sex couple, so that couple rate pensions or means tests could be applied – usually shifting pensions downwards,” she said.
Dr Harrison said that many elderly same-sex couples would be horrified by such official intrusion into their lives, and that many remembered earlier times when being gay meant electric shock treatment, imprisonment and vilification.
Explaining the changes, Senator Joe Ludwig, Federal Minister for Human Services, told SX: “Customers will be able to declare their relationship from 30 March 2009, but will have their entitlement reassessed from 1 July 2009.”
“After 1 July 2009, customers who are members of a same-sex couple will have another fourteen days to advise Centrelink of this relationship. Customers who do not ... may incur a debt.”
Senator Ludwig said the changes were introduced to ensure equality.
“For the first time all Australians will be treated equally in such areas as social security,” he said.
This article by Adele Horin in the Sydney Morning Herald illustrates graphically the new sexual apartheid and gross discrimination of human rights dislayed by the Rudd government's new legislation to provide "equal" rights to the gay, lesbian, transgender and HIV/AIDS communities. It also shows that the homophobia inherent in both major political parties is the same.
A major achievement of the Rudd Labor Government is the recent passage of historic legislation to remove discrimination against gay and lesbian couples from dozens of laws. As the celebrations die down, however, it is clear the win for human rights is a serious blow to many gay people.
Elderly gay couples will lose pension income, face Centrelink investigations into their sex lives and will be forced to "come out" of the closet and risk prosecution for fraud. Some in their late 60s, 70s and 80s have faced a lifetime of inequality; they missed out on benefits available to heterosexuals and many have felt the full force of the nation's homophobia. Now they are too old to gain from the new legal equality won in areas as diverse as family law and insurance entitlements. Instead, from July 1 next year, they will suffer pension losses through being treated as a couple rather than as two singles.
The Government's much-lauded same-sex reforms, ironically, have continued the tradition of treating gays differently from heterosexuals. Every significant change to social security laws passed in the last 15 years has included a "grandfather" clause to minimise harsh consequences for those already in the system. Legal changes arising from the recognition of women's equality, for example, were introduced in a way that protected an older generation.
The changes to the age pension that raised the qualifying age for women from 60 to 65 were introduced gradually over a period of 20 years. The wife pension, which enabled younger women married to pensioners to also qualify for a pension, was abolished in 1995 but recipients of the time were protected. Changes to the widow pension and other entitlements were grandfathered. But no grandfather clause has been included in the social security changes that extend equal treatment to gay couples.
As a result, human rights progress for many gays and lesbians will come at a cost to those who can ill afford to bear financial losses - those whose retirement plans, and very relationships, were predicated on certain long-term expectations.
Where both partners are age or disability pensioners, they will suffer reduced income through each being paid at the lower couple rate. Where one partner is still working or has a high retirement income, the other may lose his or her pension and concession card entirely once the better-off partner's income and assets are taken into account.
Gays near or at retirement age have had insufficient time to prepare for the new reality. A Centrelink hotline set up this week will deliver many callers the bad news. Unlike the understanding that exists between elderly heterosexual couples, mutual or total financial dependence of one gay partner on the other was not necessarily part of the original deal.
Take the case of a lesbian couple known to the Northern Rivers Community Legal Centre. One of the women had planned to retire soon from her job in an alternative school. A pioneer in the gay liberation movement, she had stayed at the school for 30 years despite the low pay, believing a mainstream school would have sacked her over her political activism. Her partner had been dismissed after having "come out" to her religious employer. The dismissal was lawful because of the religious exemption to the anti-discrimination laws.
Partly because of the effects of the dismissal, and being shunned by her family and former congregation, the woman had been on the disability support pension. The employed teacher said she would have to defer retirement because of the new laws as she could not afford to pay her mortgage on a couple's rate of pension, something she had not anticipated.
Another woman, with her children, had left a violent husband and had lived with her female partner for 30 years. Her female partner helped support the children but could not claim them for tax, Medicare safety net or other benefits. Now the couple are retired they faced a reduced pension income without having had time to prepare. They told the legal centre they considered themselves losers twice over.
As well, many elderly closeted gays in receipt of government payments are baulking at the prospect of having to register their relationship status with Centrelink from March, in effect "outing" themselves.
If couples desist, Centrelink may come sniffing around. Among the questions to be asked of couples in their 70s and 80s is whether they have sex. It is part of the battery used to determine whether people are living as an interdependent couple but claiming benefits as singles. Couples don't have to be having sex or sharing a bedroom - or to have lived together for two years - to be considered de factos. Centrelink has a record for zealous, even brutal, investigations of suspected "marriage-like" relationships among elderly heterosexuals. Now the Welfare Rights Centre is gearing up for a barrage of distressed and offended callers from the gay community.
Gay couples can find themselves with big social security debts or face charges of fraud if they fail to register and have their payments reduced.
As the drawbacks filter through, many in the gay community are angry, calling those who lobbied so heavily for the changes "bourgeois" and uncaring of the impact on the most disadvantaged.
A grandfather clause could have avoided the pain and made these historic changes a true cause for celebration.
The following article from the Sydney Star Observer illustrates how hastily thought out the new legislation for same-sex couples has been, and how inequality will increase as well as discrimination - surprise, surprise, coming from a government which is every bit as homophobic as its predecessor:
Ani LamontWithout federal anti-discrimination laws, same-sex couples may still be subject to unfair treatment by private superannuation companies.
For 18 months, Peter Bartholomew has been fighting Mercer Super for access to his partner’s death benefits, as a company trustee weighs up the worth of Bartholomew’s 16-year relationship.
“My partner left all of his super and insurances to me in his will but with all the threats and lawyers I still haven’t received a response from the company, as to what’s happening. So much for equality, because it really isn’t happening in regards to super,” Bartholomew told Sydney Star Observer.
“The super company has declined to give me any reasons as to why they haven’t paid it yet. They’ve basically said it’s up to the trustee who gets the super. He hasn’t made any decisions yet and is still assessing my partner’s mother’s claim, because he says there are no binding nominations even though he left it to me in his will … which is something I just don’t understand.”
Sydney Star Observer contacted Mercer Super to obtain the company’s policies on same-sex claims, but it did not respond in time for print.
“I’m left now with rent and bills to pay which I can’t afford because Paul was the main breadwinner. This is a matter of survival for me. Paul left his superannuation to me in the event of anything happening so I could get on with my life and survive,” Bartholomew, who is currently on a pension, said.
“Some form of anti-discrimination legislation would’ve definitely helped me. I feel that if it was a wife applying for her husband’s super there wouldn’t be the same issue. I feel like no one has even recognised my relationship.”
Greens senators Bob Brown and Sarah Hanson-Young have continued to push for further super protections, after equality was won for Commonwealth Government employees.
Bartholomew has continued to fight. He wrote to HREOC three weeks ago and to his local member, Malcolm Turnbull. He is awaiting a response.
This t-shirt was bought in Sydney at a Mardi Gras fair day around 1993-1994. At the time it seemed highly unlikely that there would be a "New World Order" in Australia of the sort illustrated.
Well that view has been shown to be correct. The Rudd Government's amendment to commonwealth legislation is supposed to provide equality for those "whinging homos who want everything."
Well of course they want everything - mainly real equality. What we are being given are a few sops to keep us quiet while still having sexual apartheid - "separate but equal" - as in the South African apartheid years.
We are to be offered "marriage-like" status, whatever that means, without defining marriage in its modern context, and the outcome is going to be untold hardship for countless same-sex partners throughout the country who have lived their lives with one set of laws, understanding that they were never likely to be changed, only to be confronted with another set of laws without "grandfather" clauses, thus continuing discrimination and homophobia as if there hadn't been any changes.
So, as the French saying goes - Plus ca change -----------!
Here are some examples, just received, of the hardships about to be created:
I am approaching my 70th birthday. I met the person with whom I co-habit twenty-eight years ago. He is 17 years my junior. At the time he was unemployed and I was a full-time student. We got on well and decided to live together. We paid rent and lived a very 'hand to mouth' existence. Nine years later, and after waiting thirty years to settle a complex family estate matter, I was in a position to purchase the flat in which we lived.
Then six years later, because of several disabilities, I had to give up work and was granted the Disability Support Pension. It became, at age 56, and with several impairments, unlikely that I would be employable.
I sold the flat and I purchased a house which would be more suitable to my needs. My partner and I entered into a verbal agreement that I would buy the property and would register both of us on the Title as Joint Tenants. In return my partner agreed to pay our bills, including rates, utilities, insurances and weekly shopping. In addition to this arrangement I agreed to have a set amount transferred from my pension into 'special account' to meet any emergencies.
These arrangements were entered into on the understanding that we were never considered, nor ever likely to be considered, by the Federal Government or any of its agencies, to be in any sense a couple. The Government is now using the term 'marriage-like relationship'. I fail to see how the living arrangement into which I have entered meets any criterion for such a relationship, especially when the Marriage Act 1961, S45 (1) states that, “Marriage, according to law in Australia, is the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life.”
Should the Government, despite this definition, consider me to be in a 'marriage-like' relationship the hardship for me which would follow would be significant. My co-habitant's income could be taken into account in assessing my Age Pension. This would result in a loss of about $400 per fortnight. Whilst my co-habitant may continue to pay the expenses outlined above I believe he would be under no obligation to do so as the conditions existing at the time of our verbal agreement would have changed beyond recognition. My pension would be about $126 per fortnight, well below the Melbourne Institute's current assessment of $368 per fortnight.
I am a 56 year old lesbian and have been with my girl friend for just over 6 years. My girl friend is 65 years old and retired last July, and she is receiving a part pension from Centrelink to top up her superannuation pension. My girlfriend and I are two independent women who value their independence, and our relationship reflects this in our day to day lives. We share costs in practically everything we do, we do not rely on each other financially and have (or should that be had) no intention of ever doing so.
We each have our own savings accounts, motor vehicles, each brought their own furniture, kitchen items and white goods etc to the house we bought as tenants in common in 2006. We bought the house together because neither of us could afford to buy the same type of house by ourselves without a large mortgage which neither of us wanted. We have an account to pay for house maintenance and statutory bills, and we share equally the purchase of food and doing the house hold chores, very similar to two friends renting or sharing a house together.
Our independence includes being in different health funds as singles, paying singles tax, having our own tax agent/accountants, financial advisers and superannuation funds, and separate solicitors for all but the purchase of the house and we have different executors for our wills.
I work 3 days a week and am in a transition to retirement plan thus receiving an allocated pension from my superannuation fund and salary sacrificing back into the fund. My aim was to work for another 12 months if the economic climate improves and then retire and live as a self funded retiree until pension age at 65.
If we are deemed to be a defacto couple under the Social Security guidelines my girlfriend will probably loose her Centrelink pension, as I am sure if means tested we would exceed the couples allowance due to our combined assets, superannuation funds and savings. I don’t want to jeopardise my girl friend’s pension due to my asset level, nor does she want me to have to subsidise her income due to her loosing the part pension. This means she will draw down much more of her pension then she wants too, and puts her in a poorer financial position due to our relationship. If I subsidise my girl friends income, I will need to work longer to put more money into my superannuation to make up for larger draw down.
We also do not want to have to sell the house and finish our relationship so that our current quality of life can be maintained. We also do not want to lie about our relationship. Therefore the proposed legislation needs to be rethought and a sunset clause inserted to protect the independent nature of our relationships or a grandfather clause inserted for those lesbians and gays already in the Centrelink system.
Stephanie is 64 and recently became eligible for the age pension. She has lived in a lesbian relationship with Ellie for twenty years during which time she completed a PhD degree and became a published, award-winning writer working in the area of lesbian scholarship. Her income has been intermittent and small and her partner has never been able to claim her as a dependant for tax purposes because their relationship has not been recognised.
Women who are also lesbians have been doubly discriminated against in this society. Stephanie's education and career were held back because she became pregnant at 18 and, in the climate of the 1960s, was forced to marry. After the inevitable breakdown of the marriage she brought up two children as a single parent while studying for her undergraduate degree and working in a variety of jobs to support her children. After gaining her PhD in her 50s, she found academic posts and postdoctoral grants impossible to get, partly because of her age and partly because of her subject area (lesbian scholarship). Like many women of her age whose careers have been interrupted by child-rearing and discrimination against women in the work force, she has no superannuation.
On the age pension Stephanie is now able to contribute to the mortgage the couple still has and to feel that she is really able to help her partner. She is also a recent cancer survivor, still under regular surveillance by the oncologist and the added income and health benefits are crucial for her medication as well as for her self esteem. If Stephanie loses the pension Ellie, who will reach retirement age in the next few years, will have to continue full-time work as long as possible in order to pay the mortgage. She also has little superannuation.
Lesbian 1 (55)& 2 (53)have 12 years of lesbian feminist relationship...total financial independence, except for sharing a tenants in common house (valued at $380,000/mortage of $150,000 next door to lesbian 1's frail aged mother who had her house built there so she could get support from her daughter. Six years into the arrangement mother gets ill and lesbian 1 is forced to work very part time combined with carers pension. Lesbian 1's annual income of $19000 covers her mortgage and transport and a basic lifestyle. She has about 10,000 in superannuation and is getting no super whilst caring for her mum. She has worked in services for women for 35 years on low pay and insecure funding programs meaning no long service and little recognition of work place stress. She raised a child now 37 on her own after leaving a heterosexual marriage where her belongings were considered his when he was declared bankrupt in the 1970's.
She vowed never to enter a financially dependent relationship again. Her partner lesbian 2 is a part time Community development worker on casual contracts for 9 years with a local council and is laid off in between project funding. She has about $15000 super. The new legislation will declare them a de facto couple (a term they never use to describe them selves) and means test the carers pension based on the 2 incomes despite them never combining their incomes for other purposes. Lesbian 1 will receive no carers pension and since their relationship does not include financially supporting each other will have to return to full time workforce to pay her mortgage.
This will mean she cannot care for her mother and she will need to be placed in a nursing home. Their planning, based on the best possible outcome given the available assets, responsibilities, laws and discrimination has provided them 12 years of a beneficial mutual arrangement between 3 adult women where 2 houses, 1 dog and a garden are shared will be placed in jeopardy.
Lesbian 3 (59) & 4 (63) bought a house together 3 years ago and have been in a relationship for 6 years. Lesbian 4 retired this year with a part self funded and part aged pension funding to continue the lifestyle they have planned. Lesbian 3 plans on retiring in the next 3 years. Lesbian 4 will now lose her part pension because her partner will be still in the workforce.
Lesbian 5 (65) retired from crisis work last year and lives on aged pension. She has raised 4 children on her own. Her partner lesbian 6 (55) works full time in community services. They do not own assets and rent their modest townhouse. Lesbian 5 will be unable to claim aged pension and will be relying on her partner to pay her living expenses- something which has never been part of their relationship arrangements.
Age: 71 years
Financial status: Small state government pension topped up by part Age Pension.
Because my financial status was handicapped by marriage, children, following the flag and variable pay my superannuation situation is modest. This is the situation of most older lesbians that I know.
Partner: I have lived with my present partner for 12 years. She has retired recently and has independent superannuation. She also owns a small unit which she rents because she lives in my house. She pays me her part of recurrent expenses such as utilities and a small amount of board.
Financial arrangements:Because we met late and had already established financial plans we opted to keep our affairs quite separate. We also both have children who will inherit what we leave so it was important to keep things separate. In addition my partner has never divorced although her finances are separate from those of her spouse.
I have never disclosed her presence to Centrelink because as far as I'm concerned it's none of their business.
I have always regarded Centrelink's interference in people's lives quite unwarranted. I believe that adult pensions should be paid to individuals, not couples.
Plus ca change -----------!Dear Minister, The members of this group have had time to consider some of the consequences of the recent change of legislative status, to take effect on 1st July 2009, for same-sex couples who are already receiving age or disability pensions.
The government has gone to some length to inform us that, with this legislation, it has removed same-sex discrimination from a wide range of Commonwealth laws. That may well be so on paper but as far as pensions are concerned the Rudd government has just added its own new brand of discrimination against us.
Every significant change to social security laws passed in the last 15 years has included a ‘grandfather’ clause to minimise harsh consequences for those already in the system (Adele Horin, SMH 6.12.08). Why wasn’t there a grandfather in this legislative change, for lesbians and gays? It looks as though it may well have been intentional to let us know that our relationships aren’t really in the same class as hetero marriages.
However, there is still time to give us a grandfather clause allowing those already in the system to be exempted. We think it could be done by one of those convenient regulations that don’t always have to be approved by parliament. I think you’ll find that Ministers in the previous Howard government used the regulatory system in a raft of anti-terror laws to cover some controversial sections.
The next best status to a marriage is de facto because there is no binding official recognition like a Marriage Certificate so the government equates a same-sex relationship to de facto provided we tell them we are in a marriage-like relationship or Centrelink decides to use its guidelines to determine two people living in the same house are in a marriage-like relationship and therefore a same-sex couple. We had a badge back in the 70s which we wore with pride which said: ‘How dare you assume I’m heterosexual!’ Now we need to change it to ‘How dare you assume that mine is a marriage-like relationship!’ Your government joined the previous government to amend the Marriage Act as a union between a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others. So, really it’s discriminatory to call a same-sex relationship ‘marriage-like’ because the government has refused to give us the equivalent status of a regulatory licence, and it has said so, because it would look like a marriage. It’s not just discriminatory it’s hypocritical to expect us to accept the inappropriate interdependency lower couple rate of pension.
You can get over the whole problem by simply dispensing with the outdated 19th century couple rate and instead pay the single adult rate to each individual of a couple. It would save a heap of money by doing away with Centrelink’s intrusive and costly investigations into people’s lives. What an unexpected gift from this government to all those different-sex couples, too. It should be a strong recommendation by Dr Jeff Harmer (Secretary, FaHCSIA) to the Review Panel chaired by the Secretary to Treasury, Dr Ken Henry, of the Inquiry into Australia’s Future Tax System. It’s the obvious solution to the vexing problem of the couple rate in pensions which is a throw-back to the time when a woman was regarded as a chattel of her husband.
Sincerely,The following letter was in The Age newspaper on 7 January 2009 in response to an item in the paper a few days earlier about gay and lesbian entitlements under changes to legislation about to come into effect:
MANY Australians will welcome the fact that same-sex partners of serving or retired military personnel will soon be able to apply for equal benefits and entitlements (The Age, 3/1). But being eligible to apply for entitlements is a different matter to accessing them.
Because same-sex marriage is not allowed, all same-sex partners applying for pension entitlements will be required to prove they are in a de facto relationship by producing personal documents, submitting affidavits from friends and/or answering intrusive questions. This will be particularly onerous for partners who have kept their relationship secret out of fear of discrimination.
Allowing same-sex couples to marry, and thereby legally certify the existence of their relationship, will ensure all couples have equality of access to spousal entitlements.
Alex Greenwich, Australian Marriage Equality, Broadway, NSWRe: Same-Sex Relationships (Equal Treatment in Commonwealth Laws - General Law Reforms) Act 2008, and Same-Sex Relationships (Equal Treatment in Commonwealth Laws - Superannuation) Act 2008.
COALITION OF ACTIVIST LESBIANS - AUSTRALIA (COAL) is a national community-based Non-Government Organisation. We advocate on behalf of lesbians in Australia. COAL is an accredited NGO with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) as well as the Division for the Advancement of Women. We are thankful that the government has legislated to bring about equality for lesbians and gays, however there are some who will suffer from the changes such as those on income support/social security payments eg aged pension and disability/carer payments. COAL members are currently meeting regularly to discuss the impact of the changes on individual lesbians. We have serious concerns.
We believe that legislation, policy and programs must promote substantive justice, and therefore should reflect the reality that the playing field is not level. Equal actions do not achieve equal results. Outcomes should always be considered. In every major Social Security reform for the past 15 years grandfathering clauses have been included. We do not understand why this has not occurred here.
Lesbians experience our social position and financial security as being strongly influenced by both gender and sexual orientation. Generally women earn less, have few years in the paid work force, little superannuation and have spent years caring for children and others in need. The new legislation will create hardship to a great many lesbians who have planned their living, financial, social and retirement arrangements - including mortgages - on the basis of two financially independent beings. The changes have come too suddenly for people to plan or rearrange their long-term finances and housing. COAL has case studies available.
COAL urges the Federal Government to use regulatory measures to create a grandfather clause to guarantee that lesbians and gay men already receiving income support do not lose their existing entitlements thereby jeopardising their current living arrangements.
COAL further urges the Federal Government to fund an independent advocate to assist lesbians who will be significantly affected by the new legislation. Law reform is a part of the picture but we also need resources to protect those that have already lived a vulnerable life. COAL requests a meeting with the Prime Minister, as a matter of urgency, to discuss these issues.
We ask that you give serious attention to this matter and take action to ensure that lesbians are not further disadvantaged under the law.
SincerelyInter~Section Part 1 - Introduction to Inter~Section
Inter~Section Part 2 - Information and Details
Inter~Section Part 3 - Gay, Lesbian, Transgender Ageing Issues
Inter~Section Part 3b - STUFF AGEISM! IT'S TIME TO GET ACTIVE
Inter~Section Part 3c - YOU DON'T HAVE TO ROLL UP YOUR BANNER WHEN YOU'RE SIXTY
Inter~Section Part 3d - ELDER ABUSE SUBMISSION
Inter~Section Part 3e - NOT ONLY AGEING, BUT GAY, LESBIAN, TRANSGENDER, PEOPLE WITH HIV/AIDS
Inter~Section Part 4 - Darebin Council and Sexual Minority Issues
Inter~Section Part 5 - Links to documents and sites relating to Gay, Lesbian, Transgender Ageing and other Sexual Minority and Local Government Issues Inter~Section Part 6 - 2006 to 2009 UPDATES Inter~Section Part 7 - 2009 EQUAL RIGHTS CAMPAIGNS - PART 1 Inter~Section Part 8 - 2009 EQUAL RIGHTS CAMPAIGNS - PART 2 Inter~Section Part 9 - 2009 EQUAL RIGHTS CAMPAIGNS - PART 3 Inter~Section Part 10 - 2009 EQUAL RIGHTS CAMPAIGNS - PART 4GAY AND LESBIAN HATE CRIMES - BIBLIOGRAPHY AND RECOMMENDED READING LIST
Mannie De Saxe also has a personal web site, which may be found by clicking on the link: RED JOS: HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISM
Mannie's blogs may be accessed by clicking on to the following links:
MannieBlog (from 1 August 2003 to 31 December 2005)
Activist Kicks Backs - Blognow archive re-housed - 2005-2009
RED JOS BLOGSPOT (from January 2009 onwards)
This page updated 21 MAY 2014 and again on 16 AUGUST 2017
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