More disabled people in Australia victims of abuse, but fewer investigations occur

From the Sydney Morning Herald in Australia:

Disabled people are being assaulted, neglected or mistreated by State Government employees in greater numbers but formal investigations into complaints have fallen.

The Opposition has seized on new figures revealed during last week's budget estimates grilling of Disability Services Minister Paul Lynch to charge the Government with doing too little to guarantee the safety of vulnerable people in its care.

Mr Lynch told an upper house committee examining his department's performance that 353 allegations had been made in 2008-09 (compared with 331 the previous year), of which 47 had been investigated (compared with 55).

Eight complaints had been proved, and he expected the figure to climb to about 20 when the other investigations were finalised.

One staffer had been dismissed, the committee was told.

Opposition disability spokesman Andrew Constance said the figures were alarming. There was almost one complaint made a day, yet one was too many, he said.

''An urgent overhaul of the investigations process is required given the difficulties people with a disability face with the current internal reporting system,'' he said.

''We must examine ways to improve the system so hard-working employees doing the right thing are not tarnished by those who aren't.

''The bottom line is children and people with disabilities must have appropriate safeguards in place.''

Mr Lynch said the department ''went out of its way'' to ensure complaints were reported: ''People with a disability are among the most vulnerable in our society - that's why we strongly encourage people to bring forward any allegations.

''The vast majority of our 13,500 [care] workers perform their duties with great empathy. The minority [who] betray that trust can [be] and are dismissed and face the full force of the law.''

Most complaints were investigated by department staff and police were called in for serious allegations, Mr Lynch said.