A lone woman stood before a committee of parliamentarians last week to share the brutal reality of elder abuse and her own desperate attempts to protect her father.
A public hearing was held at the Logan West Community Centre in Hillcrest as part of a parliamentary enquiry into elder abuse in Queensland.
Local Tara Brussell spoke on behalf of her father, who she said experienced elder abuse during the breakdown of his marriage, when his ex-wife and her family allegedly abused him financially and psychologically.
“His entire pension had been allocated to their joint mortgage, his super was gone, and he had $4 to his name,” she said.
“The family, having done this, still tried to claim that he had never contributed financially, and therefore he had no claim to the house.
“It was insidious, it was intentional, and it was preying on his disability, his age, his dementia.”
Ms Brussell said she tried to report the abuse by calling the elder abuse hotline, which turned out to be a “band-aid fix that actually makes matters worse”.
“There is no help in that help line, they tell you to go back to the police or to a counselling service, neither of these things were going to help,” she said.
“I found out how alone you are when you are trying to act to get someone out of a toxic situation.”
The Queensland Council of Social Service recommended the inquiry focus on providing “holistic” and centralised services, increasing education and awareness campaigns, and improving resources to monitor and address cases of elder abuse.
Council of the Aging’s CEO Darren Young, who spoke at the inquiry on Monday, said social isolation and digital literacy increased the “vulnerability of older people”.
“Isolation is one of the biggest factors for abuse and mistreatment,” he said.
“Education among young people is an important component in stopping elder abuse.
“We have to influence social values. When you haven’t had exposure to older people, it’s very easy to distance yourself from them. “
While many actions identified to be elder abuse are considered a crime in all Australian states, it can often overlap with other areas of the law, like family and domestic violence, theft, fraud, and the misuse of power of attorney.
According to recent Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data, one in six older people experiences elder abuse. One in two perpetrators of elder abuse is a family member of the victim-survivor.
Policy director at Mental Health Lived Experience Peak Queensland, Danie Williams-Brennan, said that reporting levels of elder abuse were low.
However, she said the phenomenon was widespread.
“Reporting levels are relatively low; this can be due to shame, the fact that it is [the perpetrators of elder abuse] a family member, and that they don’t want to get other family members involved.
“It’s insidious, it’s more widespread than we’d like to admit, and most often it’s difficult to spot.”
Hearings have been held across Queensland in major cities and rural centres as part of the inquiry since February this year. Digital submissions closed in April 2025.
A report is expected to be passed down by the committee on 12 December.
