Image : Amnesty International SANT
No, it’s not just the young people at the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre. It’s Nauru, Manus and this week as well it’s also an Adelaide nursing home . As Australians some of us seem to have become very good at abusing and harming vulnerable people. We have crossed the divide to the other side and , you know, we are actually pretending we don’t do it. We keep trying to ignore it. We keep trying to hope it will go away. Four Corners had our eyes wide open and our hearts in pain. The news of what had happened in a nursing home then sent shockwaves through us. We have people in nursing homes. We know people who have people in nursing homes. That one cut just as deeply and then there is the ongoing hideous abuse which we know is occurring on Manus and Nauru. It been thoroughly documented. The UN knows. We are still quiet. So what do we do? Think it’s all too serious and too big for us? Keep quiet hoping someone might fix it? We have seen it . We have confronted it , we have talked about it and now we have shut down. We feel powerless. Talk of royal commissions is not very helpful. There was, I believe a royal commission in 1998 with over 300 recommendations. Did we implement them? It is a dire situation and we have no integrity as a nation while it remains like this. We have never thought of ourselves as such a harmful nation . The evidence is there. Most people are deeply concerned. Are we saying anything? There is this thing that if you say something you feel you will be judged. For standing up for respect and dignity for the vulnerable? For asking that young people in detention be treated humanely, people in detention be treated humanely, and old, weak people be treated with loving care? As South Australians we have had a long and good history of working with the Northern Territory. I would want to see us working with them now. I would love to see South Australia be who it is and just go to the Northern Territory as we have done forever and just work alongside as we always have done so not another young person is abused. Sarah Hanson-Young has fought long and hard for some humanity and human rights on Nauru and Manus. She has not once given up or given in. She has been a voice for the voiceless . Irrespective of our politics we should be pleased she is South Australian and doing the decent thing of making her voice heard. As for the abuse of elderly people. All homes now should be under review. All staff should be under review. All families should have a place for mandatory reporting as other people in the state have. We need mandatory reporting laws for older people as well as for younger people but at this point in time we all need to know that our nursing homes are treating people properly. We have done the really hard part of seeing it all and hearing it all. Now we need to get a plan together so all this abuse stops now. Right now. Not one more minute of abuse for anyone. Not one more bit of pain for anyone. We need to reinstate our integrity as a nation in the only way we know. By not putting up with the blatant mistreatment of others and listening to everyone’ s side of the story.
The Talk of the Town 