Einfeld, The Hon Marcus R --- "The Rights of Older Australians" [2002] ElderLawRw 3; (2002) 1 Elder Law Review 5
THE RIGHTS OF OLDER AUSTRALIANS
The Hon Marcus R Einfeld AO QC PhD
Fifty three years ago this December, a devastated post-war world launched a bold initiative called the Universal Declaration of Human Rights http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html designed to acknowledge and protect the human rights and dignity of its peoples. However, despite the great principles embodied in the Universal Declaration, global humanitarian reform is still necessary.
At present there is an undeniable international human rights crisis in the world and Australia is not immune to breaches of human rights within our own shores. As the sixth oldest democracy in the world, Australia has an obligation to prevent persecution and remedy human rights abuses and we must be consistent in our application of these great principles of human dignity and ensure that they are available to everyone on our land.
One of our weaknesses is the way we are dealing with the present demographic revolution towards an ageing society. One reason for our failures in this field is because those who wanted to promote a more youthful society were the people who designed policies on and for senior citizens. The notion of compulsory retirement, for example, reflects the lack of respect for the dignity and human rights of older persons and has led to discrimination against, and abuse of, some of the most talented people in our world. The ageing of our population is a socio-economic reality. As a member of our global community we must shed our obsession with a solely youth culture and must fundamentally rethink our approach to social welfare to enable the invaluable skills of our older persons to be appreciated and utilised.
The rights of older persons have been relatively neglected at both the national and the international level. There is no specific international covenant which promulgates the rights of older persons. 1999 was the International Year of Older Persons with its theme “A Society For All Ages”. The United Nations, governments and non-governmental organisations around the world used that year, among other things, to challenge among other things, the stereotypes that society has about older persons.
Australia played some role in that initiative but there is still much to be done. We must strive to ensure that older Australians are integrated, not isolated, from our community life. The emphasis of the Universal Declaration on the rights of “every person” includes every older person, who thereby has the right to liberty and security, the right to be treated as equal under the law, the right to work and to be free to choose their employment, the right to education, and the right to adequate food, clothing, housing, medical care and social security.
The right of older Australians to work is integral to the utilisation of skills acquired only through experience. In most of our states and territories, anti-discrimination legislation prohibits most forms of workplace discrimination on the basis of age. But its application is patchy and there is no federal law on the subject so that federal employees have no protection at all. Moreover, an education program is necessary to fight the stereotypes that our nation has unwittingly created through the media and discriminatory workplace policies.
Although legislation can be and often is helpful, the solution to age discrimination is not just more legislation but attitudinal change on the part of all of us brought about by effort initiated by our own sense of decency. What we are looking for is a noble society, which seeks national dignity for itself and grants personal dignity to everyone in it, regardless of age. It is time to make this challenge a priority.
Justice Einfeld’s full address on this subject was given to the National Conference of Aged and Community Services Australia in Cairns, Queensland on 2 October 2001.