From: Gary White <garywhXXXXXXXXX@bigpond.com>

Date: 13 April 2022 at 5:34:14 pm AEST

Subject: Review of Four Corners State Control

There has been a considerable amount of feedback concerning the Four Corners programme the ABC put to air on 14th March 2022 titled State Control. The programme was certainly not the groundbreaking one that many of us had been hoping for as it simply expanded on what had already been reported previously through mainstream media sources regarding the large scale abuse and exploitation meted out to our elderly and most vulnerable citizens by corrupt and greedy Public Trustees. These media reports had mostly come out of QLD and Tasmania and they were the two states where Four Corners also put much of its focus.

Four case stories were presented as illustrations of the sorts of abuses, mistreatment and exploitation victims of the guardianship system suffer once placed under the Public Trustees. Four Corners claimed it had been necessary for them to go to the Supreme Court to win the right to have these stories told and the victims identified.. However, three of the four case stories involved victims who had been under the Public Trustee in QLD, where the ambiguous wording of that state’s legislation allows victims under financial administration orders to be identified providing they are not at the same time under the jurisdiction of the Public Guardian. The fourth case from WA involved a client who had died and as a consequence was no longer subject to a protected person order.

The three cases from QLD (one of which later transferred to the ACT) were excellent examples of the fee gouging that goes on as the Public Trustee stripped their clients’ of their assets with exorbitant fees and any other charge they could think up while requiring the clients to live on a pittance to cover their basic every day needs. The WA case, on the other hand, involved a young woman who had been managing her mother’s finances before the Public Trustee took over. The Public Trustee, soon after being appointed, had accused the daughter of stealing from her mother when in reality it was simply a case of the daughter seeking benefits which were outside the scope of what could be reasonably afforded on the mother’s budget. The daughter was later shocked to find out that the Public Trustee had actually spent nearly $12,000 of her mother’s funds in legal costs, mostly in preparing a case to convince the police to prosecute her.

Whilst sympathy can be felt for the daughter in this matter, there were many other far more compelling case stories Four Corners could have used to better illustrate the abuse, exploitation and losses suffered by the clients themselves than what this case did. Rather than merely misusing nearly $12,000 of a client’s funds in legal fees, there are numerous cases where Public Trustees have cost their clients hundreds of thousands of dollars each by using the clients’ funds in legal battles to force the sale of the clients’ homes against the wishes of both the clients and their families. In some cases entire estates have been destroyed in this fashion when these disputes ended up in the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, Four Corners did not make mention of any of these cases when, in NSW at least, this has been just as contentious an issue as the erosion of clients’ estates through exorbitant fees and charges.

In fact, the Public Trustee in NSW did not so much as rate a mention by Four Corners throughout the entire programme. This is despite the fact that NSW Trustee and Guardian (NSWTG) alone holds approximately 45% of the total value of all clients’ assets held by Public Trustees throughout Australia and well over double the assets held by either of the next largest states in Victoria and QLD. What really stands out in NSW is how NSWTG goes out of its way to sell off its clients’ homes when there was never a need to sell them. NSWTG sells up to nearly three times as many properties each year than State Trustees does in Victoria yet State Trustees has only slightly fewer clients (11,459 as against 12,494 for NSWTG). NSWTG, in fact, has described itself as the largest single client for selling properties in Australia but its own clients have suffered horrendous losses as a consequence of those sales.

It has not just been a case of the losses clients suffer from NSWTG selling their homes but also the loss of all their possessions being kept within their homes and which often simply just disappear when the properties get sold. Instead of receiving compensation over their losses, NSWTG invoices the clients’ accounts with additional charges claiming to be from contractors preparing the properties for sale when it later turns out that the contractors don’t even exist. Four Corners was sent subpoenaed bank records regarding some of these payments along with a court judgement where NSWTG paid $135,000 in damages in one case after the victim took NSWTG to court. However, Four Corners chose not to follow up on any of this material, even though a letter from the Ombudsman confirmed that fraud had taken place, Quite clearly these rackets connected with property sales are a very significant part of NSWTG’s operations each year and should never have been disregarded by Four Corners the way that they were.

Besides the case stories, Four Corners also spoke with several advocates and professionals who have been dealing with the victims. These included Jeff Garrett, Director of legal firm Attwood Marshall Lawyers, and Leanne Groombridge, CEO of Advocacy Tasmania. Leanne Groombridge, in particular, has done an outstanding job in bringing these issues to the attention of the broader public through mainstream media sources, something which is essential if the state governments are to be forced into putting a stop to these rackets. Whilst the Public Trustee in Tasmania is only a very small player in what has been happening, it is undoubtedly the state where real change is the most likely to take place thanks to the splendid work Leanne Groombridge has done. Hopefully, this will lead to meaningful changes in other states as well. The much broader audience Four Corners reached with its programme should certainly help in this regard.

It was really good that Four Corners and the ABC should finally take an in depth look at the way victims of the guardianship system get treated once they are placed under the Public Trustees, even if they did not go nearly far enough in exposing what is going on. At least, many more people are now aware that there is something terribly wrong with our Public Trustees and the system they operate under. What was very concerning, however, was the considerable exposure the programme gave to the advocacy group Australian Association to Stop Guardianship & Administration Abuse (AASGAA) and its secretary Christine Dalas [see the following excerpt]