About the seminar
Aged care is a feminist issue because women are more likely than men to be residents, primary carers, and staff in aged care; and residents in aged care have fewer housing rights than residents in any other form of housing. Residents in aged care deserve the same kinds of housing protections and tribunal remedies as those who live in retirement villages, caravan parks, boarding houses, strata title, and residential tenancies. The proposed Aged Care Rights Act empowers residents in aged care facilities to bring applications in in State tribunals about breaches of the former equivalent of the Statement of Rights set out in the Aged Care Act 2024 (Cth). The legislation is designed to embed human rights as housing rights for residents of aged care, and provide accessible and comprehensive remedies for harms caused by breaches of those rights. The proposed Act recognises the inherent dignity and equal rights of older people, as envisaged under a United Nations Convention on the Rights of Older People.
Read more in the open access Chapters 15 and 15A in the Feminist Legislation Project .
About the presenter
Charlotte Steer has been a government lawyer, sessional university lecturer and tribunal member in NSW for over twenty-five years. The proposed legislation builds on her knowledge of the gaps in housing law, elder law and consumer law for residents in aged care facilities.
Charlotte Steer is a Member of the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal in the Consumer and Commercial Division (which resolves housing disputes) and in the Guardianship Division, and a member of the NSW Mental Health Review Tribunal. She teaches Housing Law and Older People and the Law in the Faculty of Law and Justice at ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ.
Previously, Charlotte Steer worked as a solicitor at the Legal Aid Commission of NSW, the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board, and the Seniors Rights Service; as a Conference Registrar at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal; and as Associate to Justice McHugh AC QC on the High Court of Australia. .