Monthly Archives: May 2013

Centrelink fraudster’s get out of jail card

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courthouse_300A Berkeley man will avoid spending the next six months in jail as long as he keeps paying back the $22,000 he illegally pocketed from Centrelink.

Laci Zivko, 45, appeared in Wollongong District Court yesterday to appeal a sentence handed down in the local court earlier this year when he was convicted of collecting Newstart allowance for more than a year while also employed full-time.

Yesterday Zivko told the court he was “disgusted” in himself and regretted not advising Centrelink he had secured a job.

“In hindsight I wish I hadn’t done it,” he said.

“I do take full responsibility for it, I’ve got no-one else to blame but myself.”

Defence solicitor James Howell, acting for Zivko, told the court his client would almost certainly lose his job if he were sent to jail for six months.

However, if Zivko could instead carry out community service, the 45-year-old could keep his job and make regular, weekly payments towards the $22,752.32 commonwealth debt, Mr Howell said.

The court heard Zivko had in the past battled a crippling, long-term drug addiction, but since finding employment he had turned a corner and entered a treatment program.

The Berkeley man said he just wanted to get back on track and pay off the debt.

Judge Paul Conlon suspended the six-month sentence and ordered that Zivko continue to pay back Centrelink.

Dementia-related violence a growing concern for the aged

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clara-tangThe justice system is unprepared to deal with aggressive behaviour by sufferers, writes Paul Bibby.

Clara Tang sat, pale and drawn, in the forensic hospital at Long Bay jail. She had no idea where she was.

A few days before, the 90-year-old had beaten her husband, Ching Tang, 98, to death in their Surry Hills apartment with a desk lamp, flowerpot and a walking stick.

After a night in Mulawa women’s prison, Ms Tang was taken to Long Bay and examined by Justice Health’s old-age psychiatrist, Sharon Reutens. It quickly became clear that she was suffering from advanced vascular dementia.

”I asked her if she knew where she was and gave her options, like, ‘are you in a shopping centre?”’ Dr Reutens said. ”She said she didn’t know.”

Having been moved from Long Bay to the geriatric ward at St Vincent’s Hospital, Clara Tang passed away at Lulworth House at Elizabeth Bay on August 8, 2011. It was 17 months after killing her husband and one day before a court hearing to determine whether she was fit to stand trial for murder.

This week’s finding by the NSW coroner that Ms Tang killed her husband during a psychotic episode brought on by advanced vascular dementia clears her of responsibility for the crime.

But it also highlights the little-discussed, growing problem of dementia-related violence and the unpreparedness of the Australian justice system to deal with it.

While some attention has focused on the issue of violence against people with dementia, there has been less interest in violent and aggressive behaviour by sufferers themselves.

One of the few large-scale studies, conducted by researchers in northern Utah, found that, over the course of a month, 30 per cent of dementia sufferers in a sample group exhibited violent or agitated behaviour.

Another study, published in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry in 1999, found that 96 per cent of patients with dementia demonstrated aggressive behaviour at some point over the course of their illness.

”Homicides by dementia sufferers are very rare, but less serious violence such as assaults are more common,” Dr Reutens said. ”Often the victims are elderly themselves. You or I could have kicked the flowerpot out of Clara’s hands, but Mr Tang was obviously unable to do that.”

Carers of dementia sufferers are also often on the receiving end of violent action.

Like so much about dementia, the scientific cause of violent behaviour by those with the condition is not fully understood.

Research suggests the condition affects the frontal lobes of the brain, which play a central role in controlling our behaviour. When these are incapacitated a person may act on urges, violent, sexual or otherwise, without inhibition.

While Ms Tang never made it to court, her case and others reveal a number of limitations in the judicial system’s ability to deal with the growing number of offenders affected by dementia as Australia’s population ages.

”The main issue is, ‘where do you house them?”’ Dr Reutens said. ”There are no long-stay nursing homes in the Australian prison system. In the US they have had to open up nursing homes for prisoners and I think we may need to consider going down the same path.”

The other, more difficult issue, is how to sentence those affected by dementia.

In October last year 55-year-old dementia sufferer Michael William Goodridge was sentenced to 18 years for the brutal 2009 murder of his carer, Carmel George. While Goodridge murdered Ms George before his dementia had taken hold and was aware of what he was doing, at the time of sentencing he had no memory of the crime and little sense of his punishment.

Doctors predicted that the condition would claim Goodridge’s life within six years.

Like Ms Tang in the days after she killed her husband, Goodridge now finds himself in the forensic hospital at Long Bay jail.

Single dad families growing at twice the rate of lone-mum families

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single-father-familiesONE of the fastest growing social groups in Australia is single parents. According to the 2011 census, there are more than 902,000 single parents with children under 15.

There are, of course, even more single parents when the definition is expanded to include at least one child over the age of 16, but this is not the focus of my inquiry.

I am interested in measuring young single parents with wholly dependent children.

This category of Australian families is up 10 per cent, or 79,000, over the 2006 census estimate. Traditional families with two parents, where all children are under 15, were up 7 per cent to 2.5 million across the same period.

By this measure, close to one-quarter of families with young children are now headed by a single parent.

And, of course, the overwhelming majority of single-parent young families are headed by women: 743,000 or 82 per cent of lone-parent families in 2011.

Single-parent families headed by men numbered 159,000 in 2011, up 19,000, or 14 per cent, over the previous five years.

This compares with a 7 per cent growth rate for single families headed by women.

One the fastest growing social groups in Australia is single-parent families headed by a man, where the children are all under the age of 15.

This may reflect a shift in legal thinking about custody.

It may reflect generation X and generation Y men’s determination to remain connected to their children’s lives.

It may reflect the fact an increasing proportion of women may be the household breadwinner and continue that primary role after separation.

Whatever the reason, the fact male single parents are growing at twice the rate of female single parents suggests a powerful gender-based social shift is under way. The orthodoxy of the single mum is being challenged by the rise (from a low base) of the single dad. But where do these single dads live, and are local services as prevalent for their needs as they may be for single mums?

Across the nation, 18 per cent of lone-person young families are headed by men.

But in the Melbourne suburb of Montrose in the Dandenong Ranges, and in the Brisbane suburb of Banyo, north of Brisbane airport, this proportion reaches 26 per cent.

In other cities, the single-dad factor tops out at 25 per cent of single-parent families in Perth’s Lesmurdie and at 24 per cent in Sydney’s beachside suburb of Cronulla.

Single dads seem to prefer low-cost, edge-of-town locations where there is space for physical activity. Single mums, on the other hand, cluster in very different parts of the city.

At a national level, 82 per cent of single-parent young families are headed by women.

But in the Melbourne suburb of Mernda, and in the Adelaide suburb of Ferryden Park, this proportion reaches 92 per cent of single-parent families.

Indeed, it is not uncommon for about nine out of 10 single-parent families to be headed by a mum in places such as Miller in Sydney’s Liverpool, Reedy Creek on Queensland’s Gold Coast, Nedlands in Perth, Prospect Vale near Launceston and Palmerston on the edge of Darwin.

Single mums also cluster in low-cost locations often associated with public housing or new housing estates.

It is odd and perhaps more than a little unfortunate that the single-mum and single-dad hot spots are so removed from each other; surely there’s a social synergy to be had from getting these groups closer together.

I have Google-mapped the single-dad and single-mum hot spots in each capital city and have established that the intervening distances are prohibitive. For example, Sydney’s single mums in Miller are 40 minutes’ drive from single dads in Cronulla.

In Melbourne, single dads in Montrose are 55 minutes’ drive from single mums at Mernda.

The Nedlands to Lesmurdie trip across Perth can be done in a speedy 37 minutes, but the Banyo to Reedy Creek trip in Queensland takes at least 63 minutes. But by far the closest single-parent hot spots are to be found in Adelaide: the dads are in Grange; the mums are in Ferryden Park.

The travel time is 20 minutes; the midpoint is Woodville.

Clearly the Woodville pub on a Friday night is the place to be.

Bernard Salt is a KPMG partner and is an adjunct professor at Curtin University Business School.

Mother wins High Court challenge against Centrelink welfare fraud conviction

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centrelink-high-courtA HIGH Court ruling has put into doubt thousands of prosecutions against people on welfare who did not tell Centrelink their circumstances had changed.

The High Court this morning upheld a 2011 law which forces a welfare recipient to tell Centrelink within 14 days of changes to income. The Federal Government made the law retrospective to cover up to 15,000 prosecutions since 2000.

But the Court found the retrospective aspect of the law was not valid.

The test case was led by Victoria Legal Aid to overturn backdated welfare-fraud laws that could mean up to 15,000 people owe the federal government money.

The case will help thousands of people at risk of criminal charges for welfare fraud because they have made mistakes in dealing with Centrelink.

The case was brought on behalf of single mother Kelli Keating. Ms Keating has been charged with welfare fraud under backdated laws introduced by the federal government in July 2011.

She had received an alleged overpayment of $6942, due to what Centrelink says was a failure to declare her income.

Ms Keating, 36, was working casual shifts that varied from week to week and did not declare changes in her income to Centrelink between 2007 and 2009.

Victorian Legal Aid Director Civil Justice, Access and Equity Ms Kristen Hilton said the retrospective legislation had targeted vulnerable people who in many cases had made a genuine mistake in failing to tell Centrelink of changes to their circumstances, not the rorters who set out to deliberately defraud the system.

“Being overpaid is simply not the same thing as fraud. Centrelink can already reclaim mistaken overpayments through administrative processes so this retrospective legislation was about also trying to turn genuine mistakes into crimes.”

Ms Hilton said the Court’s judgment had also provided more clarity around the legal obligation imposed by the notices sent out by Centrelink to welfare recipients asking them to report changes in their circumstances.

“The Court has recognised that Centrelink just sending a notice to someone does not necessarily mean that person has done the wrong thing if they don’t respond, for example it matters whether they actually received the notices or were able to properly understand them.

“In our experience many of our clients who have a disability or don’t speak English well struggle to understand these notices and their obligations in a complex and confusing Centrelink system.

Ms Hilton said that taking on this case had been part of Victoria Legal Aid’s commitment to improving government decision making, which avoids time and worry down the track with reviews, appeals, criminal charges or court challenges.

“Preserving a person’s income is also a key aspect of Commonwealth legal aid policy as it ultimately saves the community money by preventing other problems such as reliance on social services, homelessness and family breakdown.”

Grandmother banned from challenging for custody of grandsons

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court-judgmentA GRANDMOTHER has been banned from challenging for the custody of her two grandsons after a court heard details of her “bizarre” parenting style, that included threatening to have the boys’ father “bumped off” if she was left off a birthday invitation list.

In the Queensland case from 2011, the Full Court of the Family Court of Australia upheld a no contact order against the 57-year-old grandmother, meaning that she is now banned from any further legal challenge.

She had launched 33 applications in various jurisdictions since 2008, including the 18-point appeal.

According to a lengthy appeal judgment, the grandmother threatened to have the boys’ father “bumped off” over not being invited to a birthday party, and the boys’ mother claimed her mother kicked her in the stomach and then tried to frame her by cutting herself in the face.

The daughter took out an apprehended violence order against her mother, but she was then accused of using cigarettes to burn her children.

At one stage, the grandmother had custody but DOCs removed the boys after they were witnessed hanging from a balcony.

The grandsons refused to go back after telling authorities that their grandmother hit them with a wooden spoon for wrestling.

In response, she alleged their mother had urged them to “jump” from a moving car that was being driven by the grandmother.

The Family Court finally banned contact with the grandmother after one of the boys’ became suicidal because she was telling them their mother was having “sexual relations with many men and aborting their babies”.

Family Court Justice Garry Watts said it was a “cry for help” in an “extremely conflict-ridden environment”.

IVF parents lose $10m wrongful birth case, hit with legal costs

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Debbie Waller with her disabled son Keeden. Photo: Quentin Jones

Debbie and Keeden. Photo: Quentin Jones

The parents of a severely disabled NSW boy have lost their $10 million damages case against an IVF specialist who failed to properly warn them of the likelihood their son would inherit a rare blood clotting condition.

The couple now face the prospect of having to pay the doctor’s legal costs, which will almost certainly run to tens of thousands of dollars.

The plaintiffs suffered no harm consequent upon Keeden inheriting ATD. 

Just days after Debbie and Lawrence Waller gave birth to their son Keeden in August 2000, the infant suffered a massive stroke that caused severe brain damage and meant he was never able to walk, talk or go to the toilet.

The Waller’s claimed the stroke was the result of a rare blood clotting condition known as antithrombin deficiency [ATD] which Keeden inherited from his father.

The couple were not properly made aware there was a 50 per cent chance that Keeden would have the defective gene and sued the IVF specialist who oversaw his conception – Christopher James – in the NSW Supreme Court for what is known as “wrongful birth”.

They said that, had they been properly informed of the risk Keeden would inherit his father’s condition, they would not have gone ahead with the IVF treatment that resulted in his birth.

They sought compensation in the order of $10 million for the lifelong care of their handicapped son.

But on Monday – 15 months after the case was heard – Justice John Hislop rejected the Waller’s damages claim and ordered them to pay Dr James’ legal costs.

Crucially, Justice Hislop found that the Wallers had not proved that the stroke Keeden suffered was actually caused by the blood clotting condition he inherited.

“I find that, properly informed, the plaintiffs would have elected not to have Keeden,” Justice Hislop said in an 111-page judgement.

“[However] in my opinion the plaintiffs have failed to establish that the CSVT [stroke] was caused or materially contributed to by the ATD.”

“The plaintiffs suffered no harm consequent upon Keeden inheriting ATD.”

Dr James was, therefore, not liable for the harm Mr and Mrs Waller have suffered as a result of Keeden’s disability.

In accordance with standard practice in civil cases, the Wallers were ordered to pay Dr James’ legal costs. Given that the hearing ran for four weeks, these costs are likely to run to tens of thousands of dollars – a major blow to the struggling family.

It is not the first time the Wallers have been to court in relation to their son. In 2006, they launched an unsuccessful “wrongful life” case in the High Court on Keeden’s behalf, in which he sought compensation for future loss of earnings and opportunity.

NSW govt launches domestic violence app

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Aurora, domestic violence mobile appThe New South Wales Government is looking to the latest in smartphone technology to help victims of domestic abuse.

Working in conjunction with police and domestic violence experts, the Government has developed a world-first app that it says will save lives.

Called Aurora, the free app allows victims of domestic violence to quickly send an emergency message to a trusted friend or police for help.

NSW Minister for Women Pru Goward says the app is fast and discreet, and sends a message containing the user’s exact GPS location.

“That can all be done with four presses of their smartphone,” she said.

The Aurora domestic violence app has a “message friends” section allowing users to quickly send an SMS to a trusted friend or family member when they are feeling threatened.

It has a choice of three in-built messages – “call me”, “come and pick me up” and “call the police for me” – that can be instantly communicated in emergencies with three quick touches on a phone pad.

The app also allows users to customise texts to include a secret codeword shared only with a trusted friend or relative.

NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Murdoch said the app had GPS-locating so police would know where the call was coming from.

“Given the prevalence of domestic violence within our community, particularly in NSW, this is an initiative that we strongly support,” Mr Murdoch said.

The NSW Domestic Violence Line received more than 22,000 calls from people seeking support in 2011/12.

An estimated 10 million Australians own smartphones.

Donor children kept in dark about origins

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Geraldine Hewitt says donor-conceived children need more information. Photo: Dallas Kilponen

Geraldine Hewitt. Photo: Dallas Kilponen

A decision on whether to give people conceived from sperm donors clues about their genetic origin on a separate page of their birth certificate has been shelved by the NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell.

Donor-conception support groups said people had a right to know where they came from, and they were disappointed Mr O’Farrell had written to Parliament’s law and safety committee, which strongly supported the changes, to say the government would wait for the findings of a raft of other health and registry reviews before making any decision.

Caroline Lorbach, who has three donor-conceived children, said the government had put the issue into the ”too hard” basket because it didn’t want to spend money implementing the reforms.

”Donor-conceived people are the only group around that are actually denied information about their identity that is in most cases available and known by someone,” said Mrs Lorbach, who runs the Donor Conception Support Group of Australia. She said tens of thousands of children are affected.

”The same arguments were put forward about adoptions, but governments around Australia eventually decided it wasn’t in the best interests of the adoptees.”

She drew a parallel with recent government apologies for the past treatment of adopted children. ”My question to government is: How long before you have to apologise?”

The parliamentary committee in October found the rights of donor-conceived people to understand their identity ”were of a greater value” than the privacy rights of sperm donors or families who wanted to hide the sperm donation.

It recommended families could be protected from being ”outed” by only allowing adults to receive a separate page of their birth certificate, with more information about their birth. They could then apply to the donor register for details.

But the state government has said it won’t consider the issue until the completion of a separate inquiry into whether donor-conceived people should be able to obtain details kept about anonymous sperm donations made prior to 2010. This inquiry, which will hold hearings on Monday, is also examining whether counselling services should be offered to people accessing donor information.

The Victorian government is also stalling on the issue, after a committee recommended all donor-conceived people should have access to their donor records, regardless of when the donation was made.

Concord Hospital’s director of andrology, Professor David Handelsman, who was involved in the hospital’s anonymous sperm donation program for decades, is strongly opposed to any breaches of the men’s privacy.

He describes the sperm donor as the ”undefended minority” in the debate, and has urged the government not to ”forcibly out” men who donated altruistically before 2010. Anonymous sperm donation became illegal in NSW in 2010.

Professor Handelsman has told the committee the government should instead do more to promote the voluntary register, which was designed to encourage sperm donors to come forward.

Miranda Montrone, a psychologist who has worked with donors, is also against retrospective legislation, but wants these pre-2010 records kept safe so that in 50 years time, for example, future descendants could access the information.

 ‘They keep better records for dogs, cats and cattle’

Geraldine Hewitt was five when she was told by her parents that she was donor conceived. Now 30, Ms Hewitt has been unable to find out anything about the donor because the hospital destroyed her records.

Only one in 10 donor-conceived children are told the truth, she says. She believes this is why it is important for birth certificates to carry clues, so that when they reach adulthood, information vital to their identity and medical history can be traced.

”My birth certificate would look like anyone else’s, with no asterisk or addendum to indicate there is something more,” Ms Hewitt says.

”Its really important. I’ve got a chronic health condition that no one in my family has and it has a genetic origin. They keep better records for dogs, cats and cattle.”

Her young brother and sister were also conceived from donor sperm, but they know the donor and get birthday cards and travel advice from the men, whose wives are supportive of the contact.

She will tell politicians on Monday the information gap for donor-conceived children will have long-term generational consequences. ”I’m one of four live births. I have a half brother and two half sisters … I want to know if my brother was born in May 1983, for example, so I won’t date anyone born in that year.”

She believes DNA testing should be made available free for donor-conceived children, because the records have been so badly mismanaged.

Sharon Hunt, president of Solo Mums by Choice, has an eight-year-old son who was conceived by an anonymous donor. Ms Hunt says that at the time she was grateful to the donor, and respected his privacy.

”But when you have a little person in front of you, already wanting more information at the age of eight, it’s no longer about you,” she says. ”That desire to know more about the other half of your background just grows.”

Wife spent $170,000 on lover during affair

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financial-abuseA MAN had a heart attack after discovering his wife had spent $170,000 on her lover during an affair, a court has heard.

The 44-year-old has been forced to cut back his work after doctors said his “major heart attack” was brought on by “enormous emotional stress”.

The Federal Circuit Court heard the man had split from his wife of more than 10 years when he found her diary and read it.

“From this diary it became apparent to him that the wife had for some years been conducting an extramarital affair,” the court judgment said.

“Worse again … it was apparent that (the lover) Mr K had been given very substantial amounts of money by the wife during the currency of the marriage.”

The husband claimed his wife had spent $201,000 on the affair. He fought to have her made responsible for the missing money in their divorce settlement.

The court heard the husband’s continuing sense of outrage about the infidelity had led to “over-elaborate bickering” between the pair.

“This case has been fought with an intensity that reflects the distaste of the two parties for each other,” the judge said.

The wife, 39, admitted giving money to her lover but said it was closer to $100,000. She said he had paid some of the money back and was continuing to make payments on her credit card.

The court heard she took out a line of credit against one of the family’s properties to fund the expenditure.

The husband said although he had signed forms for the line of credit he thought it was going to be used to buy an investment property.

The wife and her lover are still in a relationship, but the judge criticised her evidence about him as “evasive and incomplete”.

She claimed to not know his address and professed a lack of understanding about his “circumstances”.

Judge Philip Burchardt said the wife had clearly underestimated the amounts she had spent on her lover.

He said while the figure was closer to $170,000 there was only enough evidence to support $120,000 being added back to the property pool.

NSW Parliament set to debate voluntary euthanasia legislation

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greens-mp-cate-faehrmann

Greens MP Cate Faehrmann

HIGH profile supporters of voluntary euthanasia are expected to attend NSW parliament when the legislation is debated in the state’s Upper House.

Greens MP Cate Faehrmann says she will introduce a bill giving terminally ill people the right to die on Thursday.

She believes many members of pro-euthanasia lobby groups and some prominent individuals, including former NSW attorney general John Dowd, former NSW director of Public Prosecutions Nick Cowdery and former NT Chief Minister

Marshall Perron, the architect of Australia’s original right to die laws, will come to watch the debate.
Members of the NSW government and opposition are expected to get a conscience vote on the issue, making it more likely the laws will pass.

However Ms Faehrmann said while MPs were telling they supported the right of the terminally ill to die with dignity they were baulking at enshrining them in law because of concerns about the laws being abused.

She said she hoped to convince them that adequate safeguards existed in her bill, and if she succeeded she was hopeful the legislation would pass after “a couple of weeks worth of talking to people about it”.

“It’s going to be a very tight fight, its going to be a very hard fight but it’s time we did it and I think it’s time that MPs listen to the community about it,” she told the ABC.

Eighty-five per cent of Australians supported terminally ill people having the right to ask for assistance to die, Ms Faehrmann said.

Ms Faehrmann launched a photo book and online video in March promoting voluntary euthanasia part of her campaign for the Rights of the Terminally Ill Bill.