Keynote Speakers
The Hon. Linda Burney
NSW Minister for Community Services
Linda Burney is a member of the Wiradjuri nation.
In 2003, she became the first Aboriginal person to be elected to the NSW Parliament, winning the seat of Canterbury. Following the 2007 State Election, Linda was appointed Minister for Fair Trading, Youth and Volunteering. She is also Vice-President of the Australian Labor Party. In 2008 Linda became Minister for Community Services.
Linda started her career as a teacher and spent many years in the education sector, leading to an Honorary Doctorate in Education from Charles Sturt University.
Before entering Parliament, she held the role of Director General for the NSW Department of Aboriginal Affairs.
Linda has an extraordinary active public life. She has chaired and been a member of many boards and committees at both state and national levels, including the ATSIC National Social Justice Task Force, the National Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, SBS, the NSW Board of Vocational Education and Training and Board of Studies. She was Convenor of the Natural Resources Advisory Council, and represented Australia at meetings in Geneva of the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations.
Linda is the immediate past National President of the Australian Labor Party.
Dr Howard Bath
Children's Commissioner for the Northern Territory
Dr Howard Bath took up his appointment as Children's Commissioner in June 2008.
Trained as a clincal Psychologist, Dr Bath has a long history of providing consultancy, clinical and training services relating to the needs of children and young people. For a number of years he provided consultancy services for the NT Government and in 2007 he undertook an audit of responses to high risk clients by programs of the then Community Services Division of the NT Department of Health and Community Services.
Dr Bath has been a youth worker, manager, clinician and Agency Director. He was the inaugural Chair of the Child and Family Welfare Association of Australia, the peak body for service providers representing all states and territories.
From 1999 to 2008 he was Director of the Thomas Wright Institute in Canberra which provides a range of consultancy, training and clinical services for organisations working with young clients who have complex needs and challenging behaviours. His particular clinical interests have included work with young people who have experienced developmental trauma, those with problems around aggression and sexuality, and those with developmental disorders such as autism.
He has had a long-standing interest in and involvement with children in the care and protection system.
Professor Peter Read
Academic and Historian
Professor Peter Read is a renowned academic and historian best known for his groundbreaking research on Aboriginal Australia. In the mid-1970's, he was a pioneer of Aboriginal history in the Northern Territory and his work on the separation of Aboriginal children instigated the Bringing Them Home Inquiry. In 1980, he founded Link-Up which is run by, and for members of the Stolen Generation to trace and reunite families separated by government policies of the past. For the last 10 years, Professor Read has focused on the question of non-Indigenous place belonging in Australia. Professor Dipesh Chakrabarty, University of Chicago, aptly sums up Read's body of work as being 'of' global significance.
Bruce Barbour
NSW Ombudsman LLB
Bruce Barbour has been NSW Ombudsman since June 2000. Before that, he was a senior member of the Commonwealth Administrative Appeals Tribunal for nine years. He has been a member of the Casino Control Authority and Director of Licensing at the Australian Broadcasting Authority. He has extensive experience in administrative law, investigations and management.
Steve Kinmond
Deputy Ombudsman (Community Service Division) and
Community & Disability Services Commissioner
Steve Kinmond has been in this position since February 2004. He was the Assistant Ombudsman (Police) for seven years and has had close to ten years involvement in the community services area, specialising in working with young people. He has also worked as a solicitor and run his own consultancy practice.
Aunty Lorraine Peeters
Aboriginal Elder, NSW Senior Australian of the Year 2009,
Stolen Generation Member, Aboriginal Healer
Like many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children of her generation, Lorraine was forcibly removed from her family at the age of four and placed in an institution. Through the healing journey necessitated by this traumatic event, she established a healing program called Winangali-Marumali, to support survivors of the stolen generation. Lorraine also played an important role in the National Apology given by the Prime Minister in 2008 to the Stolen Generations. Following the apology, she presented the Prime Minister with a glass coolamon, an indigenous carrying vessel, to thank him for offering the apology. Lorraine has had a profound impact on helping members of the Stolen Generation to heal.
Aunty Bev Manton
Chair NSW Aboriginal Land Council
Bev Manton, a member of the worimi nation, is a strong and respected advocate for community development, particularly in relation to employment, housing, health and education.
Involved with NSWALC since its inception, Bev is a founding member of the Karuah Local Aboriginal Land Council and worked as the LALC Co-ordinator for four years before being elected to NSWALC.
Chairperson Manton represents her people on a number of Boards including the Worimi Conservation Lands, Aboriginal Community Environment Network and the Northern Alliance.
Julian Pocock
Ex SNAICC Executive Officer
Julian has worked for over 20 years with a range of national and state based peak bodies focused on young people, students and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. He has worked with the Victorian TAFE Students Network, Australian Youth Policy and Action Coalition, Youth Affairs Council of Victoria and was the Executive Officer with SNAICC, the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care from 1998-2009.
To build on policy expertise in the areas of employment, education, training, Aboriginal child welfare, child protection he completed a Masters in Policy and Management including a published research report on child abuse in the Northern Territory, State of Denial: The Neglect and Abuse of Aboriginal Children in the Northern Territory.
Dale Tolliday
Director of the NSW Pre-Trial Diversion of Offenders Program and
New Street Adolescent Service
Dale is Director of both programs which are NSW Department of Health Programs for parents and children who have sexually abused children. Dale has been Director of both programs from the time of their commencemet in 1989 and 1998 respectively. He is also a consultant to adolescent and family services in regional NSW and other states. Previously Dale has worked in a variety of child, adolescent and family mental health settings.
Dale's professional training is in Social Work and Law. He has a particular interest in training and professional standards for people working with those who have sexually abused children. He participates in a number of government and professional associations, panels and committees as well as assisting some church groups review complaints concerning the conduct of clergy and church leaders.
Dale is a member of the Australian Association of Social Workers and a founding member of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abuse (ANZATSA). He was President of this association from 2000 to 2004. Dale is also a member of the accreditation panel of the Child Sex Offender Counsellor Accreditation Scheme (CSOCAS) administered by the NSW Commission for Children and Young People.
Jody Broun
Director General NSW Department of Aboriginal Affairs
Jody Broun is a Yindjibarndi woman, born in Perth. Her family comes from the Pilbara region in North-West Australia.
Jody was appointed as the Director-General of the New South Wales Department of Aboriginal Affairs in October 2003. Before becoming Deputy-Director of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, Jody was Executive Director of Aboriginal Housing and Infrastructure and the Director of Equal Opportunity in Public Employment, both in Western Australia. For eight years before that, Jody was a teacher at an Aboriginal college.
A respected artist, Jody's work has been exhibited around Australia and internationally in Kyoto, Japan and London, England. In 1998 she won the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award for her painting "whitefellas Come to Talk 'Bout Land'. In October 2005, Jody won the Canberra Art Prize for 'Half-Time Game'.
Jody has a Diploma of Teaching, Bachelor of Education and Master of Philosphy (Honours).