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For more than 35 years, Elder Rights Australia has championed the rights of older Victorians. At the heart of the organisation today is CEO Debra Nicholl, whose nearly two decades at ERA have helped shape it into a nationally influential voice.
There is a moment, says Debra Nicholl, that never leaves you. It is the image of a family separated from their elderly loved ones during Melbourne’s long COVID lockdowns. Not for days, but for months. Partners kept apart. Grandparents dying alone.
“There are many sad stories of separation, loneliness and fear,” says Nicholl, CEO of Elder Rights Australia (ERA). The recovery period, she adds, was prolonged in Victoria due to the scale of trauma and the state’s extended lockdowns.
It is a story that captures everything ERA stands for. For more than 35 years, first as Rights Complaints Resolution Residential Care Rights, then as Elder Rights Advocacy, and now as Elder Rights Australia, the organisation has been a steady hand beside older Victorians in their most vulnerable moments.
When the organisation rebranded as Elder Rights Advocacy in 2006, it was more than a new sign on the door, it was a statement. Residential aged care was only ever part of the picture. Older Victorians were increasingly receiving care at home, in the community, in flexible arrangements that the old name simply didn’t reflect.
“The name change was necessary to reflect the work being done across all areas of aged care service provision,” Nicholl explains. A clearer identity brought a sharper purpose and a growing platform.
It was in this same year of renewal that Debra Nicholl joined ERA. She arrived with a breadth of direct experience, having worked in residential aged care and the community across South Australia, Queensland and Victoria, providing support to older people and their carers. Over the years that followed, she moved through many distinct roles at ERA, including Intake Worker, Advocate, Senior Educator, Advocacy Manager, Programs Manager and Deputy CEO, before taking on the role of Chief Executive Officer.
Throughout that time, Nicholl has travelled across Victoria promoting the rights of older people, providing information to communities and education to aged care workers. She has spoken at conferences across the country on the rights of older people to live free from abuse and to receive person-centred care, and holds qualifications in Leadership and Management, Community Development and Mediation.
ERA’s influence has reached well beyond state borders. The organisation played a role in the Productivity Commission’s landmark review of aged care, and was a founding member of the Older Persons Advocacy Network (OPAN), a national coalition that gives independent advocacy groups a direct line to federal government.
“As a member of a national network, we are better able to raise systemic issues at a federal government level,” Nicholl says. That voice proved critical during the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, where ERA worked to ensure older Victorians could share their experiences and shape the Commission’s recommendations.
Something has shifted in who walks through ERA’s door. Baby boomers – children and grandchildren of care recipients – are now the ones raising their voices, asking harder questions, and, importantly, encouraging their parents to do the same.
Yet for many older people receiving direct care, hesitation remains real. The fear of reprisal, of somehow making things worse by speaking up, has not disappeared. It is one of the most persistent challenges ERA navigates every day.
Australia’s new aged care legislation, built around a rights-based framework and a Statement of Rights, is, in ERA’s view, a good beginning. But Nicholl is measured in her optimism. Meaningful reform, she says, takes time and the rules that currently prevent truly person-centred care must be tackled head-on.
“We must listen to and hear the older person, and stop including guidelines and rules that prevent person-centred care,” she says. A rights-based Act with a Statement of Rights at its heart is, she argues, a good start, but amendments will be needed to ensure equal access and services that are truly flexible and responsive to individuals.
Her concern for the future is quietly urgent: that for some older Australians, change will simply not arrive in time for them to benefit from it.
Asked what makes her most proud, Nicholl does not point to policy wins or media coverage. She talks about people. About a team with a strong culture, all pulling in the same direction. About clients who know ERA will stand firmly beside them, even when the outcome is not the one they hoped for.
“Our focus has not shifted,” she says. “We are here to represent the perceived interests of the older person first and foremost. We may not always be able to achieve the result that we aim for, but our clients know that we try our best and stand strongly beside them throughout.”
More than 35 years on, that has not changed. And in the complex, evolving world of aged care, that kind of constancy matters more than ever.