Tarni
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When Tarni first met with her advocate more than two years ago, her priorities were accessing more of her own funds and going home to country.
Tarni is an Aboriginal woman. She comes from a remote community where people identify strongly with their ancestral countries and their languages, stories, songs, dances and histories. However, because there are no relevant disability or health services there, she has no alternative but to live in supported accommodation in the nearest city – an eight-hour drive away – estranged from her country and family.
Tarni is in her late 40s and has an acquired brain injury, chronic liver disease and other health issues. She is on the Disability Support Pension and a public trustee manages her financial matters.
Tarni’s advocate told the Royal Commission that when they first met Tarni, her weekly funds allowance was so low she was living below the poverty line. She could not afford to engage with the community in even the simplest ways, like going out for a cup of coffee. Her quality of life was suffering, yet there were funds available.
As a result of Tarni’s acquired brain injury, a successful claim had been made against her superannuation fund for total and permanent disability (TPD). These funds were rolled over to her superannuation fund and could be drawn down at any time. So her funds included the Disability Support Pension, superannuation and TPD.
Yet, when her advocate went to the public trustee about this issue, they were met with ‘complete resistance and lengthy delays’.
The public trustee argued that Tarni’s superannuation funds should be maintained for her retirement. Her advocate argued that this is ‘inherently discriminatory when it comes to Aboriginal people as their life expectancy is shorter than the rest of Australian society’. It is unlikely, they said, given Tarni’s disability and serious health conditions, she would even reach the superannuation preservation age of 60.
The advocate argued it was also the public trustee’s duty to take into consideration the ‘maintaining of an adult’s cultural and linguistic environment’.
The advocate told us that in their experience the public trustee ‘prefers to maintain funds at all costs and there is a culture within the public trustee office which promotes this value above others’.
It took more than three months and an internal complaint by the advocate for the matter to be resolved.
Meanwhile, Tarni’s need to go home was intense. Her words ‘I want to go home’ were ‘recurring and urgent’. At one stage, she was in danger of self-harm – she felt ‘like the only way she was going to get there was “in a box”’.
In support of Tarni’s application to the public trustee for funds to go home, her doctor wrote:
‘Tarni has … significant medical comorbidities that will limit her quality of life and long-term prognosis. She has recently been seen by … a general physician who strongly agrees that getting Tarni back to country is an urgent priority …’
It took almost two years of back and forth between the public trustee, Tarni’s guardian and the NDIS – of obfuscation, negotiation, gathering information and reports and trying to find appropriate supports – before the public trustee finally allowed Tarni to access her TPD funds to go home to country for a holiday.
Her tickets were booked, she was ready to go, it was finally happening. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
Only a couple of weeks before Tarni was due to fly home, her community was placed under a restricted access direction. Her trip was cancelled.
Due to ‘the public trustee’s continued resistance … and a veil of non-disclosure of information and lengthy, unreasonable delays by various government departments’, the advocate fears that Tarni’s words of only going home ‘in a box’ might come true.
Disclaimer: This is the story of a person who shared their personal experience with the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability through a submission or private session. The names in this story are pseudonyms. The person who shared this experience was not a witness and their account is not evidence. They did not take an oath or affirmation before providing the story. Nothing in this story constitutes a finding of the Royal Commission. Any views expressed are those of the person who shared their experience, not of the Royal Commission.