Op-Ed: Australian women in public care raped, swap sex for cigarettes

It's a well-known problem that has finally managed to get media attention in Australia: women in Victorian “state-monitored” care are subject to rape and degrading situations, according to Victoria's Public Advocate. This is a truly nauseating issue.

The “Ninny” society that replaced Thatcher’s “Nanny” society has screwed up again. Thanks so much to all those dear micro brained cheapskate ideologues of the 1980s for turning the world into a bovine parasite’s paradise where public interest is so little respected. Ever since it became ideologically acceptable for the state to take no responsibility for anything, standards of community care around the world have been nose-diving. The Australian state of Victoria has managed to take those standards quite a bit lower. As ABC Australia reports:

The majority of Victorians living in state-monitored care homes are men and the private businesses charge residents up to 75 per cent of their pension for rent and food.

Perhaps “parasites” is too kind a word. The 75 per cent doesn't deliver much more than a room and some microwaved food, in some cases. That level of income is apparently the reason for the sex for cigarettes racket. The fact is that women are in a minority in these places, in some cases mentally impaired, and about as vulnerable as they could possibly be expected to be. Victorian Public Advocate, Colleen Pearce, isn’t too impressed. Citing figures from circa 2003, which appear to be the last time the state actually monitored anything:

Twenty-six per cent of rapes in that period were women who had psychiatric disability and they were amongst the group that was hardest to get reliable evidence, hardest to get someone to believe them and harder to get a conviction, if indeed it ever went to court.

OK, this article’s been cute long enough. A few issues for whichever collection of misanthropes is running this dog’s breakfast: • Rape is a serious offence under the Crimes Act. Failure to report and act can be construed as being party to, or accessory, to a criminal act. There are no exemptions from prosecution, even in theory. Why aren’t the “homes” being held accountable? • Do the words “class action”, “criminal convictions” “delicensing” and “bankruptcy” mean anything to the establishments concerned? • Do the responsible agencies know how to read, and have they ever condescended to notice information which has been circulating in Australian media for at least a decade, to my knowledge? • Do the senior management of the agencies believe they have discharged the duties of their contracts? If so, why? • Are reports regarding homes in the agencies’ care only reported during the years between leap years, or is there some other advanced scientific method involved which requires them to be done at suitably elegant parts of different decades? • How does one cover the audit trail of complaints about the rape of severely disadvantaged people, and why does one do that? • Exactly what the hell does one think one is doing by operating a clearly ineffectual administration and complaints process, and why in the name of Matilda does one think one is going to get away with it? Here’s a theoretical off the cuff response: • Managers of homes responsible for the care of victims to be charged with any applicable criminal charges, criminal neglect, breach of contracts, breach of statutes, and fully audited regarding any government monies received. May also be areas of civil plaint for residents. • Homes de-licensed and under state control until otherwise determined and sane caring agencies are identified. • Responsible government agency managers sacked, without superannuation benefits unless otherwise deemed by a court. • Care “workers” prosecuted where applicable. • Appointment of qualified people to positions of authority in Victorian agencies. This is enough case law and policy work to get even a collection of obviously ineffectual clowns like community care to pay attention. For foreign readers, the Australian expression referring to head-kicking is to “Put in the boot”. In this case, preferably literally, with steel caps. The currently thoughtful Victorian Parliament and public should be pretty keen. I'm sure Yakka and Dunlop would help. This is a disgrace to the country. There are no excuses for a 75 per cent bloodsucking exercise, abuse of disadvantaged people, or the sort of blatant, grotesque, maladministration which allows them. Either Victoria has a Hieronymous Bosch exhibition, or it has care facilities. Which is it?