Entries by

Augustine Zycher

Abandoning Old People on Ice Floes

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It’s called Senicide – the custom of abandoning or killing the elderly once they reached the age of 60 or 70. The Inuit abandoned elders on ice floes. If you are ageing in Australia and are financially vulnerable, while you may not be dumped on an ice floe, you are at risk of being abandoned.

The Australian Government fails to acknowledge the scale and severity of an unprecedented crisis facing our ageing population. But confront it we must, because it has become an existential issue for Australia.

In the same way that we need a comprehensive climate policy to deal with climate change, so too do we need a comprehensive strategy to deal with demographic change.

However, the Government is not engaged in strategic national planning on this issue. Instead its policy towards financially vulnerable older Australians can best be described as a policy of attrition.

Now We Know Who To Blame

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Australia is in the midst a housing affordability crisis. And now we know who to blame for it.

The Government is not to blame for a tax system that fuels skyrocketing house prices by benefiting local and foreign investors, developers and speculators. Nor is the Government to blame for its failure to address scarcity of housing including social housing.

No. The real culprits it appears are older Australians still living in their homes. It is their generational greed that is to blame.

We, the Matriarchs…

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We, the Matriarchs… are the first generation in history of older, highly educated women to number in the tens of millions.
We are the first ever generation of older women who have spent decades in the workforce in professions and skilled employment, and not in the sweatshops and the fields.
We are the first ever generation of older women who have accumulated independent wealth and economic clout, despite discriminatory wage practices.
And we are the first ever generation of older women who can expect to live into their 90s.

But now we are entering the age of retirement. What next? What does society expect of us?

Well, nothing really.

WOMEN OVER 50 – what shall we call ourselves?

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Let’s start by listing what other people call us – matron, old lady, granny, biddy, old bag, crone, hag, witch, are some of the names used.

There is nothing positive about these appellations. They are either neutral or negative. 
They denote weakness, ugliness, helplessness and even evil.
They constitute a massive put down. 

In a society that values women primarily for their youthful beauty, sexual and reproductive powers, the more we age, the more we lose value. Our currency as women is devalued. 
Until we become invisible.

True Face of Newstart Recipients

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Wendy Morgan, in her appearance on ABC’s The Drum, showed the true face of Newstart recipients.

The majority are older women and they are on Newstart much longer than younger people, often for four years until they are old enough for the pension.

Wendy is not a drug addict. Nor is she a dole bludger.

She is a science tutor, has a double science degree in physics and chemistry, ran a printing lab and also has a forklift license.

Covid19 – Is it the economy or the elderly?

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There is a disturbing narrative growing about Covid19 restrictions. It boils down to making a choice between the economy or the elderly. The argument is that the economy and young people are being sacrificed to protect older people. Mike Seccombe in the Saturday Paper defined it as “ the extent to which we will mortgage our children’s future to protect the health of our ageing parents.”   And he talks about “ repaying the massive debt we have accrued, largely out of consideration of those older people.”

First, this creates an artificial dichotomy that somehow presents an international and a national crisis as an  inter-generational conflict.

The ‘Invisible’ Crisis

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This election is characterised by bipartisan blindness. Both the Coalition’s 2019 Budget and the Budget Reply show that Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten have overlooked a looming national crisis. Neither is prepared to recognise that older women in Australia are ageing into poverty and homelessness in unprecedented numbers.

These women remain invisible to both leaders and to their party platforms.

And yet the statistics are available to those who want to see them.

TWO AUSTRALIAS

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Paul Keating recently expressed fears of a future when there will be two Australias. But we are already there. We already have a generation of people who have worked all their lives and now find themselves impoverished. They are women aged over 55 and there are over a million of them.
Their economic disadvantage is the consequence of a history of gender discrimination.
Throughout their working lives, these women suffered decades of economic discrimination, inequality and injustice.

Michelle Garnaut – My Top 5 Places in Australia

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For centuries, empires, governments and global companies have vied with each other in displays of wealth, grandeur and power along the Bund in Shanghai. For close to a quarter of a century, one Australian woman has maintained her position on the Bund with no power other than the power of her reputation.

Michelle Garnaut, CEO of the M Restaurant Group, has established restaurants and lounges that have pioneered independent fine dining in both China and Hong Kong.

The Queen & Other Older Women

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Have you noticed something about the women who were honoured this year in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list?

Have you noticed that a significant number of these leaders in business, the media, STEM, women’s rights, Indigenous recognition, and innovation are women over the age of 50 – usually referred to as ‘older women’.

These women have been quite rightly recognised for their valuable contributions to society.  So why is it that women over 50 are generally regarded in media and in terms of employment as having expended their value with their youth?