Australian Human Rights Commission Report title October 2022 problems with Australia’s initial vaccine rollout which involved lengthy delays.234 149. Large numbers of aged care staff tested positive to COVID-19 or were deemed to be close contacts, resulting in significant staff shortages. This led to ‘in some instances, aged-care residents faced deplorable conditions, with some left without food, water, or help showering and toileting’.235 The Senate Select Committee on COVID 19 found that ‘the crisis in aged care was entirely predictable and – to a large extent – avoidable’,236 noting key, unimplemented, Royal Commission recommendations to address staffing issues and improve aged-care capacity.237 This highlights the importance of strengthening Australia’s aged care regime, including by implementing outstanding recommendations without delay. Recommendation 41: Government implement recommendations of the Australian Law Reform Commission’s report, Elder Abuse—A National Legal Response and the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aged Care and Quality Safety. 11 Sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex issues Relevant provisions of the CAT: Articles 2 and 16. 150. The Commission is concerned about involuntary surgery on people born with variations in sex characteristics, especially infants.238 The 2019 concluding observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child called for the Australian Government to ‘enact legislation explicitly prohibiting coerced sterilisation or unnecessary medical or surgical treatment, guaranteeing bodily integrity and autonomy to intersex children as well as adequate support and counselling to families of intersex children’.239 In 2017, the UN Human Rights Committee also made comments on the issue when considering Australia’s obligations under the ICCPR.240 151. The Commission notes that the Senate Community Affairs Committee conducted an inquiry into the involuntary or coerced sterilisation of intersex people in Australia in 2013.241 The Government responded to the recommendations of that inquiry in 2015. 242 Many of the recommendations were not implemented; particularly at the state and territory level. 152. The Commission’s own 2021 report, A human rights-based approach for people born with variations in sex characteristics, makes recommendations for how Australia should protect and promote the human rights of people born 37