'Age apartheid' thrives as Gov's older worker policy fails

Much of the so-called change in attitudes to older job seekers has been rhetorical. Over the last six years we've had a 'Greek Chorus' of academics and special interest groups produce reports on the nature of age prejudice and its effects but little on how to solve the problem. If you want to generate discussion, ask an academic to write a report. If you want to kill off it completely, get them to write 50 reports.

CEO's and Managing Directors have been cocooned from the travesty perpetuated in their company's name by private recruiters. Business leaders would be shocked to learn that job candidates of experience and merit are routinely rejected by the recruiters they hire, simply because the candidates were born in the 1950s or 1960s.

Every Friday afternoon in the Department of Employment, I used to ring HR managers and recruiters across the country who had placed job ads requiring 'young', 'dynamic' and 'go-getter' staff. I reminded them of the Age Discrimination Act and to rewrite their ads to make them more inclusive. Most did.

For repeat offenders, I told them in unambiguous terms of the brand damage a court case may do to their business. Every single one of them complied. Whether they employed older workers is another matter.

The time has come to use the law as a battering ram and smash down the doors of ignorance. The late and great SMH journalist, Adele Horin, hit the nail on the head when she wrote on her blog just before she died:

Higher penalties for age discrimination, and more naming and shaming of errant firms are needed to jolt employers and recruitment firms into changing their ways. The 'nicely, nicely' approach hasn't worked.

The only way recalcitrant recruiters and HR managers will be bought to heel is by legal action by the victims. It will take guts but that's the price of equality.