Older Women's Network NSW

Older Women's Network NSW The Older Women's Network NSW aims to promote the rights & dignity of older women. Membership to OWN is open to all women that identify as older.

The Older Women's Network (OWN) NSW was established in 1987 to give older women a collective voice on issues that concern them. Now a national association represented in NSW by around 20 member groups, OWN is a peak women’s organisation, recognised and consulted by all levels of government on issues that affect older women such as: homelessness & housing, employment, ageism & sexism and, domestic

violence and other forms of elder abuse. In addition to our ongoing research and advocacy work, OWN have created a unique, network of centres that support the physical, social and emotional wellbeing of older women -OWN Wellness Centres. OWN Wellness Centres offer affordable programs of classes and activities that enhance and maintain older women’s wellbeing. They also offer a community hub where older women gather for connection and emotional support. OWN have six wellness centres - Bankstown, Blacktown, Sutherland, Wollongong (Coniston), Northside (Chatswood) and at OWN's Head office in Newtown. What makes all OWN groups unique is that they are community based, member groups run by older women, specifically for older women. As such, they offer a non-judgemental environment where older women feel safe to be themselves, make new friends and have fun. Members of OWN define the issues that are of primary importance to them as older women. We believe in a society rich in social capital, where mutual respect and trust are paramount, where diversity and debate are valued and where people and their networks have a legitimate voice. We warmly welcome you to join us.

Gaynor is 79. She is the carer for her husband Graham, who cannot eat, talk, or breathe without help. Graham Crossan is ...
18/06/2026

Gaynor is 79. She is the carer for her husband Graham, who cannot eat, talk, or breathe without help.

Graham Crossan is 80 and has late-stage motor neurone disease. He depends on a ventilator 22 to 23 hours a day, and needs two people just to be lifted. Gaynor is his sole carer 24/7 and she doesn't have a spare minute to look after herself.

An algorithm decided Graham doesn't qualify for higher home care funding. The federal government's Integrated Assessment Tool does not allow a human to override it.

Gaynor appealed the algorithm decision backed by a senior occupational therapist to no avail. This is Robodebt logic, transplanted into aged care. We have already lived through what happens when government replaces human judgement with an automated formula and lets it run unchecked over the lives of vulnerable people.

We swore we'd never do it again, but here we are inflicting the same suffering - this time to older people. Those bearing the pain will be women. When the system underfunds care, it doesn't disappear because it lands on a wife, a daughter, a sister. In Graham's case, his wife is doing unpaid, around-the-clock labour that the budget quietly relies on so it never has to be costed.

It is infuriating because these are the same women being asked to subsidise fuel tax credits for the mining industry, hundreds of billions for nuclear submarines, and a tax system generous enough for millionaires to access concession after concession. But there is just never enough for an 80-year-old man to die with dignity in his own home, or for his 79-year-old wife to get a single hour of rest.
That is a choice which we should not accept.

Tell your federal MP that this is unacceptable. Aged care funding decisions must not be made by an algorithm with no human oversight. A person, not a formula, must be able to look at a case like Graham and Gaynor's and say: this is wrong, and we will fix it.
Find your MP: https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Members

Read Gaynor's story here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-18/motor-neurone-disease-integrated-assessment-tool/106811112

Today, we honour Richard Scolyer. He was an extraordinary man whose life showed us what true strength looks like. He liv...
08/06/2026

Today, we honour Richard Scolyer. He was an extraordinary man whose life showed us what true strength looks like. He lived with courage, compassion, honesty and grace; and he treated his family, friends, colleagues and community with kindness and respect.

At a time when young men and boys are too often exposed to toxic models of masculinity, we need to point them to men like Richard who show that courage and compassion can sit side by side. He demonstrated that dignity, respect and humanity are the true measure of a man. We reproduce his letter to us all below:

"My fellow Australians, I pen this letter as a final goodbye to all those I have had the immense privilege of loving, sharing life’s adventures with, working alongside and meeting during what can only be described as a life filled with happiness, optimism, opportunity and passion.

My intention is for this letter to be published upon my passing – as my final farewell. I’ve spent the last three years being open and honest about my journey with glioblastoma (brain cancer), in part to be transparent about what cancer patients and their families go through, and in part to provide hope and inspiration that we can and should continue to push boundaries to propel the cancer field forward.

Having dedicated my 35-year working life to patient care, cancer research and improving lives, I wanted to keep contributing, even in my darkest hour.

I am extremely proud of my impact – from my lifelong career as a world-leading melanoma pathologist and cancer researcher, to being the first patient to receive experimental brain cancer treatment based on melanoma science I helped develop, followed by participation in development of a brain cancer clinical trial and advocacy for greater investment in brain cancer research.

I sincerely hope the scientific data and awareness I have generated will provide a platform for others to build upon to ultimately make a difference for future cancer patients.

I am perhaps lucky that the physical and cognitive impacts of the final stages of brain cancer mean that I am unlikely to have been aware of my own decline over these final weeks.

I write this knowing that my wonderful family would have been by my side every minute, as they have been throughout my cancer journey. Like all families living with cancer, the impacts have been far wider than just on me. Since my diagnosis in May 2023, our family has been thrown challenges that we didn’t plan or want. But those same challenges have also drawn us closer and reinforced that family is everything. I cannot thank my beautiful wife Katie and my adored children Emily, Matthew and Lucy enough for their love, their support, their strength, and their compassion. They are shining examples of the best of humanity and make me extremely proud.

Much love also to my elderly Mum and Dad in Tasmania, my brother Mark and many friends for their strength and support, particularly during these recent years. My childhood was full of adventures built on “how”, not “if”, which set me on a path to being inquisitive and truly believing nothing is impossible.

If you will allow me one final indulgence, composing this letter encouraged me to reflect proudly on my role in generating new evidence ultimately leading to life-saving advances in melanoma diagnosis and treatment. I helped start what is now the world’s largest melanoma biobank, became the world’s most published melanoma pathologist authoring over 1000 research publications, and lectured hundreds of times at conferences across the globe. I am also proud to have held leadership roles at the American Joint Committee on Cancer and the World Health Organisation and many other international organisations.

In addition to my roles in the development of breakthroughs in melanoma treatment, including immunotherapy, and the subsequent soaring of advanced melanoma survival rates, my mentoring of the next generation of clinical doctors (including pathologists) and cancer researchers has perhaps been the greatest reward to come from my life’s work. I have always been driven by the belief that we all have a responsibility to try to change the future for others and leave the world a better place. From mentoring PhD students in the translational research lab and early career clinicians in hospitals, to taking on the undeniably risky experimental treatment for brain cancer and undergoing swathes of voluntary medical tests purely to advance scientific knowledge of brain cancer – I have lived that ethos to the fullest.

I was incredibly humbled when the federal government recently named the Chair in Brain Cancer Research at the Chris O’Brien Lifehouse in my honour. Such public accolades have never sat entirely comfortably with me, but I am delighted that much-needed brain cancer research will continue to be funded long after I have gone.

To my research and clinical colleagues, I implore you to stay inquisitive and brave and keep striving to break new ground. To all cancer patients, I encourage you to consider enrolling in research and clinical trials, if on offer. And to government and the wider community, please keep funding science and medical research. This is the most impactful way that you, too, can make a difference.

Perhaps the greatest lesson to come from these last three years is that cancer does not define us. It may be the current road we are travelling, but it is not our entire journey. A terminal cancer diagnosis does however provide clarity as to what truly matters. It shines a spotlight on the importance of relationships, on true friendship and on selflessness.

Whilst cancer may not define us, our ability to empathise with and have compassion towards others does. That is true in all facets of life, and I am confident those traits will continue to guide Australians towards acceptance and support for all.

My final message to all Australians is to say thank you for your outpouring of love and support for me and my family. Those of you I met during my travels as joint 2024 Australian of the Year, my amazing online community which spans many countries, and of course my hometown Tasmanians – you’ve laughed with me, cried with me, and provided encouragement and support to keep going just when I needed it most. I haven’t sugar-coated my journey and I sincerely thank you for allowing me the space and opportunity to share it with you, warts and all. I hope I have in some small way made the road ahead easier and smoother for others.

If my legacy was to continue beyond these words, I would be delighted and humbled to be remembered as a proud everyday Aussie who “gave it a crack”, and in doing so, inspired others to pursue their dreams and passions with humility, love and compassion.

With much love and gratitude, Richard."

Trigger Warning: This post describes police violence against a woman in mental health crisis.Her name was Jodi Knott.In ...
31/05/2026

Trigger Warning: This post describes police violence against a woman in mental health crisis.

Her name was Jodi Knott.

In 2023, Jodi, a 48-year-old woman living with schizophrenia, was alone on a Western Sydney street, in the grip of a psychotic episode. She was frightened and unarmed. She was also naked. She had been released from custody that morning, was off her medication, and had become disoriented trying to find her way to the train station. She was, in every sense, a person who needed help.

What two plain-clothes NSW police officers did to her over the next hour, a District Court judge would later call "gratuitous cruelty."
They stomped on her as she lay on the road. They kicked her in the head. One of them dragged her by the hair across the bitumen until her back was raw. They emptied two full canisters of pepper spray into her face, and into the open grazes on her body, as well as on her ge****ls. They talked, on camera, about fetching a taser and a baton to subdue her. One of them laughed. All this while, she was begging them to stop.

No mental health clinician was ever called to the scene. Not even three months later when Jodi was tasered twice during another call-out at her home.

This is what happens when a woman in distress is treated as a threat instead of as a person who needs help. Jodi was unwell, frightened and vulnerable. She actually needed a mental health response. Instead, she was met with extreme violence at the hands of two policemen. The fact that this was captured on camera makes it even harder to understand, not only because of what was done to her, but because the officers appeared to believe they could behave this way with impunity.

Jodi should never have been brutalised at all. Sadly, she died of cancer eighteen months later. Her own family have fought to have the video released so that the public can see the truth, and so that Jodi would have her name and her face back. Her cousins remember her as a gentle soul who needed a hand from time to time.

At Older Women's Network NSW, we will say her name: Jodi Knott. We stand with the family who loved her and we echo what they are asking for: proper training, mental health responders alongside or instead of police, and a culture that sees the person first. No one in crisis should ever be treated like this ever again. And the same goes for people with dementia such as Clare Nowland who you may recall was tasered in her residential aged care facility and died.

Jodi deserved care and dignity, not cruelty, when she was at her most vulnerable.

Read the ABC story here: https://bit.ly/43DlV6e

28/05/2026

Despite the grey and rainy day yesterday, 15 older women got together for a Career Expo at Newtown Wellness Centre organised by OWN and Dress for Success. They had an opportunity for one-on-one consultations related to their job search and finance information from Good Shepherd. They also heard from the LinkedIn team about how using the platform can help in finding a job.

We know it's tough for an older woman to get back to the paid workforce, which is why our Employment Service is free for unemployed women over 50 in NSW and the ACT. Get in touch to find out how we can help you! We will plan for another Career Expo later in the year for the next group of participants.

Contact: [email protected] or visit https://ownnsw.org.au/employment-pathways-for-older-women/

(ps - Dress for Success can also help provide styling advice and clothes for the other important events in your life, not just a job interview!)

From the dedication of OWN Blue Mountains volunteers, an idea to help older women who are homeless became a reality. Tod...
22/05/2026

From the dedication of OWN Blue Mountains volunteers, an idea to help older women who are homeless became a reality. Today marks the 2nd Anniversary of the Homes for Older Women program — and 87 older women have been housed as a result!

That's 87 women supported to find stability, dignity and hope, at a time when older women are one of the fastest growing groups facing homelessness in Australia.

Behind every one of those 87 connections is an older woman with a lifetime of work, care and contribution behind her. She deserves a secure home, and HOW Blue Mountains helped make that happen.

Our small but mighty program was conceived by the members of the Older Women's Network (OWN) Blue Mountains, who refused to accept rising housing insecurity among women aged 55+ as "just the way things are." They wanted a real response. So they built one.

An initiative like this has a big backstory of donors and supporters. They include the Mercy Foundation, which provided the seed funding that got HOW off the ground, and the NSW Government through Homes NSW, which has kept it going. Other important supporters include the volunteers doing the hard yakka of fundraising and backfilling important roles, along with our donors, property owners and real estate agents.

Most of all, thank you to the older women who have trusted us to help find you a home. The need is still growing, but so is the community's resolve to meet it. Here's to the next 87 older women who we promise to do our best to help.

Learn more about HOW: www.how.ownnsw.org.au
(If you're looking to donate in time for EOFY, all donations to HOW are tax deductible.)

Today, we send our solidarity to the victims and survivors of child sexual abuse connected to institutions that should h...
19/05/2026

Today, we send our solidarity to the victims and survivors of child sexual abuse connected to institutions that should have protected them.

When a public figure dies, there is often a rush to speak about legacy, service and achievement. For those who were harmed, and for those who were not protected when adults in power knew enough to act, this moment may bring grief, anger, disbelief and fresh pain.

The failure to protect children from known paedophiles is not a minor failure of judgement. It is not an administrative error, nor a private matter. It is a profound betrayal of trust.

For too long, institutions have tolerated child sexual abuse by treating it as something to be managed, contained, moved along, explained away or forgiven behind closed doors. The damage of that tolerance is carried not by institutions, but by children - the survivors and their families. Oftentimes for a lifetime.

Sadly, the burden does not end there. Those impacted by these failures include his own children, who must carry the knowledge that their father did not step up to protect children from known paedophiles. That is its own terrible inheritance.

We must stop treating institutional failure as somehow separate from abuse itself. When people in authority know children are at risk and do not act, they help create the conditions in which abuse continues. And that includes our governments.

Our thoughts are not with reputation today. They are with the victims - the children who were not protected. They are with every survivor who has had to watch powerful men remembered more gently than the children they failed.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-19/former-governor-general-peter-hollingworth-dies/106554086

Trigger Warning: DVThis morning, there is a family who is plunged into grief. The parents and siblings of an unnamed wom...
18/05/2026

Trigger Warning: DV

This morning, there is a family who is plunged into grief. The parents and siblings of an unnamed woman in her 40s are walking in a daze of sorrow. As will all who knew her, and her two boys who are both under 13. They have been murdered allegedly by the man who is her husband and their father. The police said they were confronted by a “particularly violent crime scene”.

We continue to spend hundreds of billions in weapons systems and nuclear submarines to help us with an external enemy. But there is not enough money to support women and children who need help to be safe from abusive and violent men - the enemy within our homes who makes lives a misery. We are not spending enough money to hold men accountable through culture change programs. And men are not stepping up to support their mates to become better men.

It is a question of power - of how poorly women are viewed in the eyes of men and society. We don't have men killing their bosses at the same rate as they kill their partners, do we?

Our hearts are broken for the unnecessary death of this woman and her children. And for all the others who have died before them. And for all the others to come because theirs is not the last death.

If you are in need of help, call 1800 385 578 (Full Stop Australia).
If you want to help, please donate to a DV service near you.
If you want to speak up, please write to your local MP to say that not enough is being done to help women.
If you want to change the culture, please help intervene when you see women being disrespected - but only do it if it is safe to do so.
If you are a man, please speak up when your mate is being disrespectful.

Violence against women has got to stop.
RIP to the unnamed woman and her two children.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/may/18/man-arrested-after-woman-and-two-children-found-dead-inside-sydney-home-ntwnfb

A hot cup of tea or coffee on a cold morning, in your favourite chair at home is one of life's simplest pleasures. For a...
13/05/2026

A hot cup of tea or coffee on a cold morning, in your favourite chair at home is one of life's simplest pleasures. For a growing number of older women, that is out of reach.

The NSW government has pushed ahead with building seniors housing in Riverwood, despite opposition from local residents. It is easy to oppose social housing when all you see are stereotypes of "homeless people who lower property prices." What residents don't see are the older women behind those numbers: women who spent their lives caring for others, or who suddenly lost everything after a relationship breakdown. Homelessness in later life can happen to any of us.

We congratulate Minister Rose Jackson for pushing ahead with the build. As we said in the news article, "every roof matters", but given the scale of demand, the Riverwood project is "a drop in the ocean."

Last night's federal budget did little to change that. There was nothing in it for housing for older women, the fastest-growing group of homeless Australians.

We will keep advocating, because every older woman deserves to age with dignity and safety. And because that simple cuppa in your favourite chair at home should be within reach of us all.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-13/public-housing-for-seniors-in-riverwood-hardwicke-and-munmurra/106638656

Australians will spend around $1 billion on Mother’s Day this year, but the one thing money cannot buy is what its origi...
09/05/2026

Australians will spend around $1 billion on Mother’s Day this year, but the one thing money cannot buy is what its original founders called for: peace.

Before it became cards, flowers and a business bonanza, Mother’s Day had radical beginnings. In 1870, Julia Ward Howe called on women across the world to rise against war and bloodshed. She imagined women gathering beyond national borders to demand peace, justice and the protection of life. She wanted mothers to demand an end the senseless deaths of their sons in wars.

With so much carnage happening in the world, and so much violence in the home, we should be calling for a return to the original mission of Mother's Day.

In a world that too often asks women to carry the consequences of decisions they did not make, the deepest tribute to mothers is a world without war, without violence, and without fear.

Happy Mother’s Day.

Happy 100th birthday, Sir David Attenborough!We celebrate his commitment to help us look more closely at the natural wor...
08/05/2026

Happy 100th birthday, Sir David Attenborough!

We celebrate his commitment to help us look more closely at the natural world. Among the many lessons his films have brought into our living rooms is one that resonates deeply at OWN NSW: older females matter.

In orca pods, it is the grandmothers who lead. They remember where the salmon run in years of scarcity. They carry the cultural memory of the whole community and when they die, the entire pod is more likely to falter. Elephant herds, too, are guided by their oldest matriarchs, whose decades of accumulated knowledge keep the family safe through drought and danger.

Nature has known something for a long time that our societies are still learning: older women are not surplus. They are essential. They are the keepers of memory, the navigators in hard seasons, the ones who hold the whole together.

Thank you, Sir David. 100 years and still counting for the world.

Address

8-10 Victoria Street
Newtown, NSW
2042

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 4pm
Tuesday 9am - 4pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 4pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

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02 9519 8044

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