MEDIA RELEASE: OFFICE OF AGEING NOT-SO-WELL
From Matilda Bawden (B.A.;B.Soc. Admin.) Social Worker/Specialist Support Co-Ordinator
OFFICE OF AGEING NOT-SO-WELL: FAILING THE ELDERLY, DAMAGING REPUTATIONS, & WASTING TAXPAYER FUNDS
MEDIA RELEASE, 1st November 2024
The Office of Ageing Well (OAW) in South Australia operates in a bureaucratic grey zone—straddling responsibilities between the Departments of Health, Human Services, & Attorney-General’s portfolios. However, critics warn it serves more as a political tool for the Labor Party than a genuine public service aimed at protecting & safeguarding the vulnerable. Central to these concerns is the conduct of the Adult Safeguards Unit (ASU), which operates with opaque processes, far removed from transparency, ethics, & public sector standards.
Service providers & community members report that ASU staff often misuse & abuse their authority. The unit collaborates with entities such as the Office of the Public Advocate, the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), & the NDIS Quality & Safeguarding Commission (NQSC), but critics argue it fosters an unchecked culture of overreach, harming the very people it should be protecting.
In light of recent events, disability & aged care advocates are renewing calls for Kiara’s Law to reform guardianship processes, including how so-called “investigations” are conducted into the risks & threats to vulnerable individuals before determining the need for any guardianship applications.
The tragic case of 90-year-old Kathleen has reignited these calls for reform. Advocates allege that Kathleen was removed from her own home & the care of her devoted son despite being mentally capable of making her own decisions. Under State Guardianship, her home was emptied & prepared for sale while she was forced into a nursing home, losing all autonomy over her life. The Public Advocate & the Attorney-General’s Department (AGD) ignored repeated pleas for intervention, leaving Kathleen powerless as decisions were made over her life & property. Yet, Kathleen was contacted at least twice by the ASU.
In stark contrast, Forensic Social Worker & ardent critic of the ASU, Ms. Matilda Bawden, has had no less than EIGHT (8) clients visited by the ASU in its endeavour to create a “dirty dossier” on her.
“Like fridges that don’t freeze and planes that don’t fly, the Office of Ageing Well is unfit for purpose & it’s certainly not there to save or help anyone but its own bureaucratic class!” Ms. Bawden said. “The ASU runs in parallel to the NQSC, duplicating regulatory roles & functions & trespassing over vulnerable people’s human & legal rights with absolute impunity. The ASU will always try to get in through the back door that when it cannot get in through the front & if that means breaching privacy, defaming providers or tortiously interfering in the NDIS business arrangement between the provider & client, then it is not above doing whatever it takes with absolute impunity - & there is no-one to whom to complain. You can whistle “Dixie”!”
“When it had no case against Kiara for Guardianship Orders, the ASU reported me to the Fraud Unit of the NDIA, the NQSC & the Health & Community Services Complaints Commission (HCSCC) in a desperate effort to stitch up a case & still they came up with nothing. As they say, Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime!”
Like all bureaucracies, the ASU is Empire-building to generate stats & justify its own existence & expansion; only to leave disaster in its wake. No doubt at the end of each year it can point to hundreds of “investigations”, countless knocks on people’s doors & innumerable visits before a SACAT, but this is all “smoke and mirrors” for media stories. Vulnerable people’s NDIS budgets are being squandered on shielding clients from their contrived investigations while ASU officers operate in the shadows & behave like lawless East German Stasi Police of the 1950s. Those under investigation have to guess their own alleged offence or transgression, while the real names of the unit’s officers or branch don’t even appear on their OAW calling cards! Those same officers use deception and force to gain entry into people’s homes even when they are expressly told by the vulnerable person or their lawful guardian to leave & not enter the home. The legal right to refuse these cretins entry is then used as an example of alleged “mental incapacity”.
“Most practitioners (e.g., doctor, lawyers, psychologists, NDIS workers) would probably never get one visit in a career & almost never get two in as many decades, but I’ve had no less than EIGHT clients visited by these nameless, faceless bureaucratic thugs in barely a year” Ms. Bawden said. “The ASU let Kathleen die, but my perfectly healthy, safe, happy & well-cared-for clients have been persecuted & threatened with interventions for absolutely nothing – no complaints & no one at risk!”.
Director of KSM Disability Consultancy, Ms. Ksenija Kristo, said “The real scandal is that the ASU unconscionably fabricates fictitious & implausible complaints, leveraging anonymity to harass service providers. Even complaints that would never withstand scrutiny by the NQSC are weaponized to pursue hidden agendas. Worse still, the ASU files fraudulent guardianship applications against vulnerable people who are unable to defend themselves. Not a single ASU officer should be allowed to come within five meters of a person with a disability, much less decide their fate. It operates so far outside the law, it’s criminal, but the vulnerable person (such as Kiara) is the last to be invited to express their wishes. Kiara was never asked what she wanted for herself, despite two (2) years of horrific systemic abuse at the hands of the ASU, which tried to maliciously guardianship her. What is outrageous is that the ASU didn’t stop their persecution of Kiara. The ASU recently came after her Support Worker for, in fact, enabling Kiara to choose her own dental treatments.”
“Another troubling case involves Anna, an 81-year-old patient at the Lyell McEwin Hospital, who was denied discharge after staff claimed she “lacked mental capacity”—simply because she did not speak English. Despite complaints about ageism & discrimination filed with the OAW & the hospital, no action was taken to address the discriminatory practices which Anna endured. "No apology, no training, no policy changes— absolutely nothing! It’s clear the system is working exactly the way it was intended: ignoring & dismissing the elderly,” said Ms. Kristo.
In yet another display of departmental dysfunction & misconduct by public officials, the Public Trustee (PT) has been accused of retaliating against an NDIS service provider for reporting exploitation.
A vulnerable client under the PT’s guardianship was defrauded of $40,000 by an online, catfishing scammer, yet no formal police report was ever filed by the PT itself. When the NDIS provider demanded accountability & action, the PT responded with threats of regulatory complaints, targeting the service provider rather than addressing the financial abuse of their client.
“The PT’s actions reveal an appalling misuse of power and indifference to the well-being of those under their care,” Ms. Kristo said. “Instead of working to recover stolen funds, they punish those seeking justice. This punitive behaviour reflects a broken system that fails the very people it was designed to protect.”
It’s time to scrap the Office of Ageing Well and Adult Safeguards Unit & stop pretending to care for the most vulnerable, most destitute & most in need of government interventions.
Ms. Ksenija Kristo is available for comment any time at
ksmdisabilityconsultancy@gmail.com or by Mob: 0403 871 364
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