“You walk into an emergency anywhere in Australia today, including Ballarat, you will find patients being talked about by their carers and family and doctors as if they don’t exist,” says Australia’s Age Discrimination Commissioner Robert Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald, whose job it is to “protect Australians from discrimination on the basis of age” - was in Ballarat last week. He told the Brolga the city's planned expansion from about 120,000 to 160,000 residents over the next 15 years will make it more difficult to spot the barriers facing older workers and patients.
🗣️:"Growth often masks the problem," he said after a NextGen Collective panel on multi-generational workplaces.
He said regional Australia is ageing at a faster rate, and 20 percent of these communities are over 65. He said it leaves older members of the community “voiceless” and their experiences "diminished".
What happened? Fitzgerald is a lawyer who has worked in public policy for 40 years. He has previously held the titles of NSW Ageing and Disability Commissioner and was one of six commissioners on the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
What is age discrimination? Age discrimination - or ageism - is the “unfair treatment” of an individual based solely on their age due to a number of stereotypes and false ideas.
Fitzgerald said it is the most reported type of discrimination, but least likely to be mentioned in formal complaint processes in the workplace.
Healthcare: He said ageism is “rife within the healthcare system”, and “older people’s voices are not heard or listened to in the same way as young voices”.
Employment: In the workplace, Fitzgerald said there is an inaccurate assumption older employees are less adaptable and “there’s no point training them up”.
In truth, he said, mature workers “fit in very well” when they are valued, and “if there is reverse mentoring between younger and older people” and a clear pathway when retirement is looming.
He said small businesses are “critically important” in creating this shift in regional communities.
“The urgency in regional communities is in fact greater, but where there are more challenges there are also more fixes.”
In regional areas, he said businesses are able to “interact with the local market in a way that can’t happen in urban areas”.
The problem with growth: Ballarat’s future growth will provide “the opportunity for a more expansive workforce”, Fitzgerald said, but also “creates enormous pressure”.
The commissioner said older women who have been forced to leave violent relationships were particularly vulnerable to ageism. Ballarat’s rate of family violence is 50 percent higher than the state average.
What next? The Council of Small Business Organisations Australia (COSBOA) announced a partnership last week with the Human Rights Commission to support more age-inclusive workplaces across Australia’s small business sector.
Fitzgerald said ageing was just one of life’s stages and no different to other parts in a person’s life - entering the workforce, having children, changing schedules to care for older relatives.
The commissioner has been around long enough to know that the challenge is never complete, it’s just a matter of battling on.
“Most young advocates despair, but most older advocates like me say, ‘Just persevere’. “Very unexciting, isn’t it?”