Panel and Book Launch: 'Extending Working Life for Older Workers: Age Discrimination Law, Policy and Practice' by Dr Alysia Blackham (August 2016)

The Hon Dr Kay Patterson (Australian Human Rights Commission), Professor Mia Rönnmar (Lund University, Sweden) and Professor Beth Gaze (Melbourne Law School).

CELRL Labour Law Seminar

Panel and Book Launch: Extending Working Life for Older Workers: Age Discrimination Law, Policy and Practice' by Dr Alysia Blackham

Panel presented by The Hon Dr Kay Patterson (Australian Human Rights Commission), Professor Mia Rönnmar (Lund University, Sweden) and Professor Beth Gaze (Melbourne Law School).

Wednesday, 24 August 2016: 5:30 - 7:00 PM

Painting from book cover

About the event

2016 marks the tenth anniversary of age discrimination legislation in the UK. This panel, convened to launch the book Extending Working Life for Older Workers: Age Discrimination Law, Policy and Practice by Dr Alysia Blackham, focussed on the relevance of the UK experience for Australia, looking at the effectiveness of age discrimination laws for addressing age inequality in employment, and the future of age discrimination regulation in Australia. It was presented by The Hon Dr Kay Patterson (Age Discrimination Commissioner, Australian Human Rights Commission), Professor Mia Rönnmar (Lund University, Sweden) and Professor Beth Gaze (Melbourne Law School).

About the panellists

The Hon Dr Kay Patterson was appointed as Australia’s Age Discrimination Commissioner in 2016. Dr Patterson is a psychologist with expertise in gerontology and has had extensive experience advocating for older Australians. She is a current Commissioner of the National Mental Health Commission. Dr Patterson has had a long and distinguished career as a parliamentarian and an academic. She served as a Senator for Victoria for 21 years and has held a number of ministerial positions including as a Cabinet Minister as the Minister for Health and Ageing and the Minister for Family and Community Services and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women’s Issues.

Professor Mia Rönnmar is Dean and Professor of Private Law at Lund University in Sweden. Mia specializes in Swedish, comparative and EU labour law and employment relations, and applies interdisciplinary approaches to labour law research. Mia is the President-Elect of the International Labour and Employment Relations Association (ILERA), and has conducted expert work for international organizations (e.g. the European Commission and the ILO) and for national governments, authorities and social partners. She is the former Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Comparative Labour Law and Industrial Relations and member of editorial boards of several journals in the fields of labour law and industrial relations. Mia is a member of the Norma Research Programme at Lund University, including its research initiative in Elder Law. Her current research is centred on collective bargaining, elder law and age discrimination.

The panellists with Anna Chapman
Panellists speaking at seminar

Professor Beth Gaze is a Professor at Melbourne Law School. Beth has expertise in Australian anti-discrimination law and in administrative law including tribunals. She has held a number of nationally competitive research grants for research into the effectiveness of the enforcement of anti-discrimination laws, the impact of the Fair Work Act's adverse action provisions on employment discrimination law, and participants’ experiences in the Social Security Appeals Tribunals. Beth teaches equality and discrimination law to JD and LLM students, and regularly speaks at conferences and seminars on issues in anti-discrimination law.

Dr Alysia Blackham is a Senior Lecturer at Melbourne Law School and an Affiliated Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on the intersection of employment law, equality law and public law, using empirical evidence to cast new light on legal problems. Alysia’s recent work concentrates on the consequences of demographic ageing for workplaces, and has been published widely in UK and Australian law journals.