What are my step-parenting legal responsibilities?

As a step-parent you don’t automatically have legal parental responsibility for your stepchild. This means you can’t legally authorise medical care, sign school forms, apply for passports and so on.

There’s an exception for emergency medical situations when you might have to give consent for a procedure if neither of your stepchild’s biological parents is available.

If your partner dies, you don’t automatically get parental responsibility for your stepchild. Parental responsibility passes to your stepchild’s surviving biological parent.

Read more...http://raisingchildren.net.au/articles/step-parenting_law.html/context/1664

What about step-parenting custody rights?