Sue-Anne Hunter is the National Commissioner for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People and a Wurundjeri and Ngurai Illum Wurrung woman.

Phillip is a descendant of the Bidjara Tribe (Great Grandfather), the Kairi Tribe (Great Grandmother) and the Ducabrook Clan located at Springsure, Central Queensland. 

As Chief Executive Officer of the Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Protection Peak (QATSICPP), Phillip leads the state’s independent peak body for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled child protection and family support sector. QATSICPP is also the Youth Justice Peak body for Queensland, representing the broader youth justice sector. 

Through strong partnerships, sector capacity building and systems reform, Phillip drives efforts to foster effective collaborations and influence policies, strategies and programs to advance QATSICPP’s vision that all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are safe, cared for and supported to thrive within their families, cultures and communities. 

Phillip most recently held the position of Deputy Director-General of Corporate Services and First Nations Strategy and Partnerships and where he was responsible for overseeing the human resources, finance, procurement and facilities, legal services and internal audit functions for the department, along with improving education outcomes for Aboriginal students and Torres Strait Islander students. 

Phillip was previously Deputy Director-General and Chief Operating Officer of Service Delivery, Youth Justice in the Queensland Department of Children, Youth Justice and Multicultural Affairs, and a former Commissioner at the Queensland Family and Child Commission. 

Phillip’s distinguished career in child, youth and family support in Queensland also includes roles as Officer in Charge Queensland Police Service, Manager of Child Safety and Youth Justice Service Centres, Director Government Coordination, Executive Director Strategy, and Regional Director Child Family and Community Services in North Queensland. 

Phillip completed the Executive Master of Public Administration with the Australia and New Zealand School of Government in 2020. 

Associate Professor at the Social Policy Research Centre, UNSW Sydney.

Dr BJ Newton is a proud Wiradjuri woman and mother to three young children. BJ’s research focuses on working in partnership with Aboriginal organisations to build evidence and support Aboriginal families interfacing with child protection systems. Her current research, Bring them home, keep them home investigates the rates, outcomes and experiences of successful and sustainable restoration for Aboriginal children in out-of-home care. This research is making significant impact across the child protection sector, facilitating truth telling, advocacy, and Aboriginal community-determined initiatives including the Aboriginal Authority for Restoring Children (AARC).

Debbie is a proud Gamilaraay yinarr, with maternal ancestry from the Bull, Colebull, and Balding families, and paternal connections to the Haynes, Lawrie, and Coleman families across Wirangu, Mirning, and Yuwaalaraay Country. Her work in psychology, psychotherapy, and trauma is grounded within her early beginnings of learning about advocacy and knowledges of community and family strengths. Debbie holds an Honours and Master of Clinical Psychology, registration with Gestalt Australia New Zealand, Australian Indigenous Psychology Association and College of Indigenous Healing Practices and is a registered Clinical Psychotherapist with PACFA. Deb is undertaking her PhD at Melbourne University, evaluating the “Walking in Blak Traks; Embedding the SEWB into Clinical Practices” cultural training, which she co-developed and delivered across NSW Department of Communities and Justice, Psychological and Specialist Services.

Her first publication, “The Effectiveness of Trauma-Based Therapies for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Children in Out-of-Home Care,” was published in the Lowitja Journal in May 2025. Deb advocates for the power of community-led healing and the urgency of truth-telling. Her work is a collaborative effort to create a future where our children’s voices are heard, valued, and protected.

Through her PhD efforts, she is committed to fostering meaningful change for young people, families, and communities impacted by family policing system. Her focus is on prioritising Indigenous models of wellness to support the development of strong cultural identities and enhance social and emotional wellbeing. Central to this commitment is strengthening a sense of belonging to Country and strongly advocating for the understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ways of knowing, being and doing which allow community to self-determine and flourish.

Grounded by her beginnings, she is committed to transformative approaches that support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, centring Social and Emotional Wellbeing frameworks of self-determination, and collective flourishing.

My name is Miimi Morris I am a Gomeroi and Dungutti mother of five and a social work PhD student with RMIT University Melbourne. I am a survivor of colonial child abduction and my children too are victims of the same system. My lived experience spans a lifetime of systemic impacts of child abduction and has involved 15 years of advocacy in confronting dcj and life without barriers in relation to the impacts of systemic violence upon my own Aboriginal motherhood, my own children, family and our culture knowing, being and doing and advocating for self-determination, authority and abolition. 

I have lived, studied, worked and resisted colonisation on Awabakal Country for the past 30 years. My social work career spans 27 years of practice in various Aboriginal communities throughout nsw and remote communities in the remote Kimberleys and North East Arnhem land. I have worked across issues of domestic violence, drug and alcohol addiction, mental health, counselling in collective colonial trauma and in child protection spaces. My career has also involved working for victims of crime for NSW Justice as a counsellor in  Frank Baxter Juvenile Justice Centre and as a private practitioner counselling women facing the impacts of violent crime.  

My PhD thesis asked the question “What are the experiences of Aboriginal mothers who lose their children to colonial abduction?”  I am nearing completion of my research thesis and will continue this work as an Indigenous researcher committed to the work of abolition and sovereignty for our families to raise our own children within our kinship systems guided by Indigenous governance prinicples.

Candice Butler is a proud Aboriginal woman with strong family connections to Yarrabah in Far North Queensland and is a Social Worker with over 20 years’ experience working across government and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs.  Prior to her current role as PhD Candidate and research fellow with the Child Protection Hub at the Jumbunna Institute of the University of Technology Sydney, Candice was the inaugural Executive Director of the Centre of Excellence at the Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Protection Peak Ltd (QATSICPP), where she provided significant leadership in the design, delivery, management, and evaluation of projects to improve child and family wellbeing across Queensland. This included co-author of research and leading of the evaluation and action research agenda.  

Candice’s PhD research is looking at what the key elements of a model to reclaim child and family services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities looks like in Australia.  She is passionate about ensuring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have true self-determination and authority over decisions that are made about their lives particularly in the area of Child Protection. 

Wendy is a proud Palawa woman from Lutruwita / Tasmania, with family connections to the Furneaux Islands, specifically Cape Barren and Flinders Island. A qualified social worker with two decades’ experience working with Tasmanian children and families. Wendy is director of  SNAICC and member of the national Safe and Supported Aboriginal Leadership Group.  

She has also completed international study tours in USA in 2017 investigating First Nations culture and community-based initiatives, as well as participating in key Australian networks to support and strengthen the rights of Tasmanian Aboriginal children and families.   

In 2023, Wendy managed the development of the first Tasmanian Aboriginal co-designed model and strategy to keep Aboriginal children living in Tasmania safe at home – out of welfare.  The project was successfully launched in July 2025.  The project has been hailed as a significant piece of work that will help ACCO and government to keep Aboriginal children safe in Tasmania  

CEO, Victorian Aboriginal Child and Community Agency.

Aunty Muriel Bamblett is proud a Yorta Yorta and Dja Dja Wurrung woman who has been employed as the CEO of the Victorian Aboriginal Child and Community Agency since 1999. Aunty Muriel is active on many boards and committees concerning children, families and the Indigenous community, including Chairperson of the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC), the peak Australian agency for Indigenous child and family services; the Aboriginal Children’s Forum; the Aboriginal Justice Forum; the Coalition of Peaks Joint Council on Closing the Gap and is on the Elders Group for the First Peoples Assembly of Victoria.

Aunty Muriel’s contribution to her community and to Victoria has been recognised in many awards and she was recently bestowed the 2024 National NAIDOC Award for Person of the Year.

Chancellors Postdoctoral Indigenous Research Principal, Jumbunna Institute of Indigenous Education and Research.

Managing Director, Indigenous Psychological Services

Dr Westerman AM, a Nyamal woman from Pilbara, WA, is a trailblazer in Aboriginal mental health, cultural competency, and suicide prevention. She has won numerous awards for her groundbreaking work. She was the first Aboriginal person to attain a master’s and PhD in Clinical Psychology.

She founded Indigenous Psychological Services in 1998 in the absence of government funding.

Delivered over 100 keynotes nationally/internationally in Canada, the USA, and New Zealand

Trained 50,000 plus practitioners, making her arguably the most in demand trainer in Australia.

She has developed numerous Australian firsts, including the only culturally & clinically valid tools for at-risk Indigenous people. The first national Indigenous youth mental health prevalence database

In 2019, she funded the Dr Tracy Westerman Indigenous Psychology Scholarship Program to ensure that our highest risk families and communities have access to a psychologist.  In 2020, launched the charity, The Westerman Jilya Institute for Indigenous Mental Health to drive Indigenous mental health and suicide prevention best practice. Jilya has supported 55 Indigenous psychology students, many of whom have now graduated.

She launched her memoir Jilya on September 3rd , which has already achieved best seller status

Chief Executive Officer, SNAICC – National Voice for our Children.

An Arrernte/Luritja woman from Central Australia, Catherine has been a leading advocate in upholding the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples on a national, regional and local level. Catherine has held senior management positions in First Nations organisations including First Nations Media and Jawun Indigenous Corporate Partnerships, as well as within the Northern Territory Education Department, the ABC and NITV/SBS.

A journalist by trade, Catherine’s motivation has always been to drive change that leads to positive outcomes and options for First Nations people. Over the past 10 years she has led multidisciplinary teams, overseen workplace transformations, and advocated for policy reform. Catherine is the CEO for SNAICC – National Voice for our Children, the national non-governmental peak body for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children that works for the fulfilment of the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, in particular to ensure their safety, development and wellbeing.

Author, Founder, Director.

Brenda Matthews is a proud Wiradjuri woman living with her husband, Mark, in Bundjalung country, Queensland.
Brenda co-directed the feature documentary The Last Daughter, which was released in Australian cinemas and on Netflix in mid-2023 to excellent reviews and critical acclaim. The film is based on her beautifully penned book of the same title, and was also released in 2023 to excellent reviews.
Brenda’s journey from being part of the stolen generation to becoming a Mother, Grandmother, Author, Speaker, Film Director, Storyteller and Co-Founder/Director of Learning Circle is an inspiring testament to the power of healing and reconciliation.
Her remarkable story, as eloquently portrayed in her debut book and Netflix documentary feature film, “The Last Daughter,” encapsulates heartbreak, love, forgiveness, hope and bringing the Country together.

First Nations Performance Audit Team Leader, Audit Office of NSW.

Carla Ware is a Mualgal woman who currently resides on Darkinjung country, and has worked in the public sector for the last 20 years. Having
spent 16 years at the NSW Ombudsman’s office working in and then managing the Aboriginal Unit, Carla was involved in several audits that
inquired into and made recommendations supporting Aboriginal people’s rights to self-determination and how the public sector can practically and meaningfully support this.

During her time auditing the Interagency Plan to tackle child sexual assault in Aboriginal communities, she wrote the ‘healing’ chapter of the report. Following the release of this report, the NSW government included healing in their Aboriginal Affairs strategy: OCHRE, a first for any state in Australia. Carla acted as the Deputy Ombudsman, Aboriginal Programs before moving to AbSec as the Operations Manager and then on to creating the First Nations Performance Auditing Program at the NSW Audit Office.

NSW Minister for Families and Communities.

Kate Washington is the newly appointed Minister for Families and Communities, and Minister for Disability Inclusion in the Minns Labor Government.

Since 2015, Kate has proudly represented the people of Port Stephens in the Parliament of NSW. Prior to entering Parliament, Kate was a partner in a law firm in Newcastle, specialising in health law.

As a parent, parliamentarian and lawyer, Kate has a strong track record of giving voice to the voiceless and looking after the most vulnerable people in our communities.

Chief Executive Officer, AbSec

Secretary, NSW Department of Communities and Justice.

Prior to joining DCJ, Mr Tidball had been the Chief Executive Officer of the Law Council of Australia (LCA) and the Secretary-General of LAWASIA. He also served as the CEO of the Law Society of NSW for 14 years.

During his 35-year career, Mr Tidball has worked with Government leaders and ministers, agency heads, industry leaders, the judiciary, non-government organisations and the community.

Mr Tidball began his career in child protection working for the South Australian public service, before moving to the Commonwealth to
develop community corrections and juvenile justice programs in the lead-up to self-government in the Australian Capital Territory.