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Pandemic sees surge in family elder abuse

A VICIOUS cycle of increasing elder abuse is unfolding on the Gold Coast and it’s those closest – the offspring – carrying it out. Pandemic pressure is being blamed for a surge in physical, emotional and financial abuse of parents.

TOURISM leaders are demanding that state borders be reopened.

If Queensland borders remain shut to key interstate markets NSW and Victoria until Christmas, the tourism industry faces a $15bn hit.

In an letter to premiers and chief ministers across Australia, backed by tourism heavyweights Flight Centre boss Graham Turner, Helloworld travel executive director Cinzia Burnes and Intrepid Travel CEO James Thornton, operators have called for border travel bans to be lifted to help the industry survive.

Scott Morrison will on Friday call for a common set of rules for borders to reopen after revealing he had been inundated with letters and emails about the stress that restrictions have put Australians under. “We need to get borders open, based on a common set of fair, simple principles taking into account advice from health professionals,” the Prime Minister will say. “Borders cost communities and the economies they constrain. They must be proportionate to the risk.”

Chief operating officer of Baillie Lodges Craig Bradbery said closures were killing tourism: “There’s been so much pentup demand from domestic travellers, but now as we’ve been forced to ask our guests to once again postpone trips … people are losing confidence in planning and booking a holiday.

“Tourism can’t survive for an extended period solely on support from intrastate travellers.”

Queensland’s tourism industry was last year worth almost $27bn to its economy, but almost two-thirds came from interstate/international travel.