Speaker Profiles

The Hon. Kon Vatskalis is the Northern Territory Government's Minister for Health; Minister for Children and Families; Minister for Child Protection; and Minister for Primary Industry, Fisheries and Resources.

Kon emigrated to Australia from Greece in 1983 and moved to the Darwin in 1993.

Kon first became involved in politics in the mid-seventies during the Greek democracy rallies which led to the removal of the Greek monarchy.

He has been the Member for Casuarina since 2001 and a Minister since Labor was elected to Government.

Frank Hytten took over as SNAICC CEO in June 2009. Frank started his working life as a Youth Worker in community development in the early 1970s and has continued in the social and community services as a manager, policy bureaucrat, sector-based trainer and consultant - always with a focus on social justice and human rights. His work has been primarily in the youth and psychiatric disability support sectors, with people confronted by the issues that arise from poverty and exclusion.

For the eight years before working with SNAICC, Frank was the Coordinator of ANTaR Victoria and CEO of Reconciliation Victoria.

Ngaire Hosking is the Group Manager of the Indigenous Pathways and Early Learning Group in the Commonwealth Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. This role covers delivery of the Australian Government's commitment to universal access to early childhood education, a range of early childhood education and care programs targeting Indigenous children, workforce and data issues, including the Australian Early Childhood Development Index, and the implementation of the National Early Childhood Development Strategy.

Prior to joining the department Ngaire worked as Assistant Secretary in the Office of Work and Family in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and was involved in a number of Council of Australian Government negotiations on early childhood issues. She has worked in a range of other areas in the Australian Public Service covering employment, work and family, and workplace relations.

Leslie-Ann Conway has Noongar, Yamatji and Wongai affiliations and lives in Kalgoorlie. She is the Executive Manager of an Aboriginal Maternal and Infant Health Care Centre which caters for ante and post natal mothers and infants up to 5 years old.

Mrs Conway has extensive experience in change management in Aboriginal organisations particularly in governance and has assisted organisations through periods of transition, while ensuring staff maintain suitable responses to the priority issue of service delivery to the community.

She has worked with and in government agencies involved in social priorities relative to Aboriginal people. She has worked previously with Commissioners, Chairpersons and Councillors of the Mulga Mallee ATSIC Regional Council, as a Solution Broker with the ICC and assisted in the development of local Shared Responsibility Agreements.

She is a member of local groups, such as Strong Families Reference Group, local Aboriginal Justice Agreement Group, Emergency Relief Community Collective, the Aboriginal Collaborative Council for Applied Research and Evaluation (with TICHR) and the Aboriginal Child Health Network. She is also a member of the WA Aboriginal and Education Training Council and the WA Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advisory Council.

She was one of the first appointed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) Commissioners in 1990, has sat on various boards and committees around Australia and is a member of a wide range of organisations. She was awarded an Order of Australia - the Australia Medal in 1993 for her work with Aboriginal people and the community, and she was awarded a Centenary Medal in 2003, and the Defence Service Medal in 2006.

In 2002 she was the Chairperson of the Inquiry into Response by Government Agencies to Complaints of Family Violence and Child Abuse in Aboriginal Communities in Western Australia, otherwise known as the Gordon Inquiry.

In 2006 she was appointed as a Member of the Council of the Order of Australia, and was recently re-appointed by the Rudd Government for a further 2 years.

In June 2007 she was appointed as Chairperson of Prime Minister Howard's Northern Territory Emergency Response Taskforce (NTERT) for a period of 12 months. She finished the 12 months under the Rudd Government in June 2008.

In December 2008 she was appointed to the Western Australian State Training Board for a period of 3 years.

She is also a member of the Western Australian, Indigenous Implementation Board having been appointed in February 2009.

Professor Sven Silburn heads the Child Development: Health, Education and Wellbeing research group at the Menzies School of Health Research in Darwin. His current research is focused on developing evidence-based policy and practice in child and youth health, family and parenting interventions, education and child protection services. He has been involved in a number of large-scale epidemiological studies including the WA Child Health Survey, the WA Aboriginal Child Health Survey, the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) and the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children (LSIC). Prior to taking up his current position in Darwin in 2009, he was co-Director of the Curtin University Centre for Developmental Health at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research in Perth.

Scott is the Director of Aboriginal Drug and Alcohol Council, (ADAC). He is an Aboriginal man from the Stolen Generation. Scott's background is one of poly drug use and he has spent considerable amounts of time and effort learning to live illicit drugs and alcohol free lifestyle.

Scott's youth was spent misusing and abusing alcohol and other drugs, which bought him into both law enforcement and health agencies constantly.

The Aboriginal Drug and Alcohol Council (SA) Inc. interviewed Scott in 1994 when he applied for the position of Director. Scott was appointed Acting Director and in 1995 he became the Director, a position he has had ever since.

Since working at ADAC, Scott has led a drug free lifestyle and has bought his background of abuse into being, where ADAC now has a harm minimisation focus.

Scott's commitment and involvement in Indigenous substance misuse sees him in a variety of structures and committees, and his involvement was recognized in 1997 by ADCA in receiving the ADCA Australia Day Award and in 2003 he was a recipient of the Australian Centenary Medal.

Jason King has Gunditjmara (Western Victoria - Lake Condah) and Ngarigo (South Eastern NSW-Far Eastern Victoria) ancestral connections.

Jason has worked with his local community over the last 8 years in the areas of aged care, Elders, home care and disability. Specifically, he has worked as a Child Protection Crisis Worker with the Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency; as the Cultural Heritage Manager Gippsland; and as a Victoria Executive Officer for the Regional Aboriginal Justice Advisory Committee Gippsland.

He has been the CEO of the Gippsland and East Gippsland Aboriginal Cooperative (GEGAC) for the last 3 years.

GEGAC has over 50 government-funded community programs. It also has the only Aboriginal Keeping Place east of Melbourne and is one of the oldest Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations in Victoria.

Debbie Moyle is a member of the Ngarrindjeri nation of South Australia and has cultural and family relationships with many Aboriginal communities across South Australia.

Debbie has worked for the South Australian Government in the Department of Education and Children's Services as the manager or principal policy adviser for Aboriginal early childhood services since 1985. Her work has taken her into both urban and rural regions, within and across government, non-government and private sectors at local, regional, state-wide and national levels.

Throughout Debbie's professional and personal life she has acted as an effective advocate for Aboriginal children, for Aboriginal community leadership and for system reform to improve outcomes for Aboriginal children, their families and their communities.

Her experience in a wide range of Aboriginal community engagement and planning activities has led to her involvement in many task groups, committees for community-based projects, strategic planning groups, and particularly training and leadership initiatives.

Julie White is a senior policy adviser and writer who has worked with Debbie Moyle and Aboriginal early childhood staff since 1987 in a range of roles. In 2009 she was seconded to work in the South Australian Department of Premier and Cabinet to assist with the development of the COAG Indigenous Early Childhood Development National Partnership initiatives.

She was the principal writer for the Virtual Village Report of the Inquiry into Early Childhood Services in South Australia in 2005 and assisted Debbie Moyle to promote the results of the Aboriginal community consultations and develop recommendations for system change.

Julie has been extensively involved in developing integrated service responses across child care, early childhood education, health, child protection and family support services as she believes this is necessary to overcome major disadvantage.

She is particularly interested in linking these developments with the strengths and directions that are provided by Aboriginal leaders, staff and community members in order to empower them to achieve the changes they want to see for their children, families and communities.

Dr. Lyn Fasoli has worked in early childhood for over 30 years, most of them in the Northern Territory. She has worked at Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education for 6 years and works with Indigenous and non-Indigenous colleagues to develop their research skills through research strategies that empower and build capacity. Her work focuses on early childhood education, learning in diverse contexts and Indigenous education and leadership.

Alison Wunungmurra grew up in a small island community called Milingimbi and has worked in Early Childhood for 8 years. Before moving to Darwin, she was a child care director in the Gapuwiyak community

Alison is currently doing her Certificate III and IV in Children's Services at the Batchelor Institute, whilst assisting Dr Lyn Fasoli with the Learning at Work Book project. She was employed to help edit the learning resource to make it more relevant and appropriate for remote Indigenous workers.

Alison is also a Children's Services lecturer at the Institute.

Dr Fadwa Al-Yaman currently heads the Social and Indigenous Group at the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

The Social and Indigenous Group was established in 2008 to strengthen the Institute's capacity to produce statistics, analysis and information on health and welfare issues across the life-span of all Australians including children, young people and older Australians. Within this life-span perspective, a significant focus of the Group's work program is to provide evidence to support policies for Indigenous Australians and other groups including children and families who receive child protection services, people in the justice systems and older people with disability.

In 2008, Fadwa was awarded the public service medal for outstanding public service in improving the accuracy and reliability of the data on Indigenous Australians contained in information collections for health, housing and community services.

Fadwa Al-Yaman has a PhD in Immunology from the John Curtin School of Medical Research and a Master of Population Studies from the demography program at the Research School of Social Studies at the ANU.

As the Registrar of the Family Responsibilities Commission, Tammy Sovenyhazi is responsible for the human resource, financial operations, administrative and logistic support provided by the Registry of the Family Responsibilities Commission based in Cairns. Her role enables the Commissioner to exercise his or her powers and responsibilities effectively and for the FRC Board to perform its advisory role to State and Commonwealth Ministers and the Commissioner regarding the operations of the Commission.

Tammy's previous role was as Manager, Indigenous Justice Strategies within the Department of Justice and Attorney-General.

Lillian Simpson is the CEO of Mookai Rosie Bi Bayan.

She is related through her father to the Wakka Wakka people of Cherbourg and on her mother's side, the Alywarre people of Lake Nash.

She has lived in the Cairns area for more than 30 years. During that time Lillian has been involved in many Indigenous issues and been on many boards and committees including the Cape York Health Forum, Cape York Partnerships Social Responsibility Steering Committee, Wuchopperen Medical Centre, Woompera-Muraluj Housing Cooperative and the Ngoombi Housing Cooperative.

Lillian was a member of the small team who established the Apunipima Cape York Health Council in 1994 and went on to work for the organization for 4 years.

Lillian has been the CEO of Mookai Rosie Bi Bayan (Aunty Rosie's place) for 12 years. In that time she has worked towards achieving the goals of the organization which has undergone great expansion of services and resulted in the relocation of Mookai to a 24 bed facility in July of this year.

Darren Atkinson is a Koorie Counsellor and Liaison Coordinator at the Children's Protection Society. He's Bangerang man from Cummergunja; an Aboriginal settlement situated on the banks of the Murray River 25kms east of Echuca, Victoria.

His principal responsibility is running the 'I'm An Aboriginal Dad' support program, which aims to assist young Aboriginal fathers' transition into fatherhood. The program offers assistance to partners of Koorie Women accessing the transitional clinic at the Mercy Women's Hospital. Program participants receive ongoing assistance centered on crisis support; including counseling for relationship difficulties, anger management, anxiety and depression.

The program has received positive feedback from Koorie Dads of all ages. It has helped them to play their part in developing strong role models and leaders of the future.

Darren has worked in a variety of settings, both for community controlled organisations and non-indigenous agencies, providing support to the Community.

Throughout his professional life as a journalist and filmmaker, Jeff McMullen has written, filmed and campaigned around the world to improve the health, education and human rights of Indigenous people.

He is the Honorary CEO of Ian Thorpe's Fountain for Youth, developing early learning programs and the Literacy Backpack project in 22 remote Indigenous communities over the past nine years.

As a Director of AIME, or Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience, Jeff has helped grow this highly successful education movement connecting university undergraduates as mentors for Aboriginal high-school students in urban areas.

Jeff is also a Director of the Australian Indigenous Engineering Aid Summer School program that is building opportunities in tertiary education.

As a Trustee of the Jimmy Little Foundation, Jeff also works with Aboriginal doctors and medical services to improve dialysis and introduce the nutrition program, "Uncle Jimmy's Thumbs Up", aimed at reduction and prevention of the epidemic of chronic illness.

Robin McConnel is a NZ trained Teacher of the Deaf who has worked in various roles in the field of Education, both nationally and internationally.

The majority of her work had been in Early Childhood field with an emphasis on 0 - 5 years and the development of family education programs. Although she started working with profoundly deaf infants developing speech and language, she has extended these skills to Aboriginal children with the hearing disabilities resulting from Otitis Media and with English as a second language.

Her current program extends this work into the field of disability prevention in collaboration with her husband.

Joan Pracy is an Aboriginal woman of Ngaringnam descent from Bulla Community, Northern Territory.

She has worked with Aboriginal Legal Services in Darwin and Katherine over the past thirty years and lately through the legal services was involved in working and training aboriginal men and women in the dealing with, and overcoming, domestic violence.

She has worked in all schools in the Katherine region as a tutor and Indigenous Education Worker and it was through this experience she decided to study at Batchelor College to gain her Batchelor of Teaching (Primary).

She now works as a Project Officer at Sunrise Health Service in the LiTTLe Program.

A/Prof Fred McConnel is a bush doctor who has worked at the interface between ear disease and education in the Top End of Australia for most of the past 40 years. He has worked as a GP, Hospital Superintendent, Public Health Physician, researcher, teacher, and academic. Fred's wife Robin, who is a teacher of the deaf, inspired his involvement with education. He has been Chairman of the Otitis Media Committee of the NT Health Department, and moved its focus to become the NT Aboriginal Ear Health Committee as a joint NT Health and NT Education venture. He was a principal investigator in the Menzies School of Health Research Ear Health Program, a 5 year NH&MRC grant which was multidisciplinary within health and cross-disciplinary with education. He worked in the program as a Research Medical Officer. He now works in Aboriginal health and teaching.