Faking a Nursing Home RAD NSWTG (NSW Trustee & Guardian) routinely claim their clients who are in aged care have a RAD (Refundable Accommodation Deposit) owing even when it is not true. They even lie to NCAT about this, who seem to not mind. Such fraud is an offence under Section 192E of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW) . This is can be dishonestly putting their client at "financial disadvantage by deception" in situations where this fictional RAD is used as a rationale to sell the client's property to pay off the imaginary debt. In fact it could also be NSWTG gaining financial advantage for themselves because the money is always secretly invested so that the client never know the true rate of return, only what is passed on to them. In a phone call with APTAGE in about 2023 a NSWTG agent claimed that if a client owned property, the only option for paying nursing home accommodation fees is to pay a RAD. When he was reminded that the regulations changed in 2014 to allow a daily payment option he acknowledged his error but it seems implausible that he would have made a genuine slip-up. One client , Dee, was told in writing that a $315k RAD had already been paid, with NSWTG refusing to show evidence (even resisting providing the evidence through a formal summons but NCAT seemed to not mind this contempt). Another client, Lee, was told she had a $453k RAD. The number didn't even match the amounts theoretically charged by the nursing home. At the time of entry (30 June 2020) it was $349k for single room and at the time NSWTG reported the fake debt to NCAT in 2023 it was $440k for single room. However Lee wasn't even in a single room — she shared a room with three others.

Podcast Discussion of TAG

When Rosslyn's Mum had a brain bleed, the Public Trustee refused to use the Mum's funds for an interstate aiirfare for her daughter to see her for what could be one last time. This is despite Rosslyn being her Guardian. Because she cannot afford from her own pocket the NSW to Tasmania fare, there is a real risk that her Mum's dying wish will remain unfulfilled.

ABC TV's 7.30 Report explores unjust gag laws in particular which forbid even ex-clients from speaking about their experience with Public Trustees. Parts one and two of the viedos aired are at the bottom of the above linked page. There was also a 6 minute wrap-up interview which is available as a separate video: here is Sarah Ferguson interviewing Rosalind Croucher, the president of the Australian Human Rights Commission. ABC reports that "Among the disability royal Commission's recommendations are lifting blanket gag laws across the country, and overhauling legislation to ensure people with disability are better included in decisions about their own lives." Tasmania meanwhile is leading the way with legislative reform to eliminate these gag laws. All of this is about a year after ABC's Four Corners documentary . Below are the penalties for publicly disclosing that a person is under the Public Trustee/Guardian, or even (eg in NSW) publication of names or identification of persons involved in tribunal hearings...