Welcome Address

Trained in maternal and child health epidemiology and public health, Professor Stanley has spent her career researching the causes of major childhood illnesses such as birth defects.  For her research on behalf of Australia's children, Fiona was named Australian of the Year in 2003 and in 2006 she was made a UNICEF Australia Ambassador for Early Childhood Development.

Concerned by the increasingly negative trends in the key indicators of child health and wellbeing in Australia, Professor Stanley was a key driver of a collaborative partnership between like-minded researchers, practitioners and policy makers that saw the establishment of ARACY.

Professor Stanley is also the founding Director of the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, a unique multidisciplinary independent research institute focusing on the causes and prevention of major problems affecting children and young people. She sits on the Prime Minister's Science, Engineering and Innovation Council as well as the Australian Statistics Advisory Council.

Download Professor Stanley’s presentation or listen to an audio recording.

Mick Dodson is a member of the Yawuru peoples, the traditional Aboriginal owners of land and waters in the Broome area of the southern Kimberley region of Western Australia. He is currently Director of the National Centre for Indigenous Studies at the Australian National University, and the 2009 Australian of the Year. He is a Professor of law at the ANU College of Law.

Professor Dodson is also Director of Dodson, Bauman & Associates Pty Ltd – Legal & Anthropological Consultants.

He is formerly the Director of the Indigenous Law Centre at the University of New South Wales. Mick Dodson was Australia 's first Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity, from April 1993 to January 1998.

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Senior lecturer in RMIT University School of Global Studies Dr Andrew Scott is an expert in Australia 's political past and present. Andrew is presently undertaking extensive research on the nature of the early childhood policy achievements of the nations of Nordic Europe and the possible feasibility of their transfer from northern European settings to English-speaking more neo-liberal settings, including Australia . Andrew is author of three books, four book chapters, five peer-reviewed academic conference papers or journal articles, and dozens of mainstream print media articles as well as several book reviews – all of which are extensively discussed in Australia and overseas. He has been a prominent contributor to public debate in Australia for more than twenty years.

Download Dr Scott’s presentation paper or listen to an audio recording.

Rob Moodie is Professor of Global Health at the Nossal Institute for Global Health at the University of Melbourne. Between 1998 and 2007 he was the CEO of VicHealth. He is the chair of the National Preventative Health Taskforce, and acting chair of the Commission of AIDS in the Pacific. He was the inaugural Director of Country Programs at the joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

Rob chairs the Technical Panel to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's HIV prevention program in India. He has worked for Save the Children Fund, Medicins Sans Frontieres, the Aboriginal Health Service in Alice Springs, the Burnet Institute and the World Health Organization.

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Ken Henry has been Secretary to the Treasury since April 2001. He is Chair of the Review into Australia's Future Tax System, Chair of the Standard Business Reporting Board, Chair of the Advisory Board of the Australian Office of Financial Management, Chair of the ANZSOG Research Committee and Joint Chair of the Trans-Tasman Banking Council. He is also a member of the Board of the Reserve Bank of Australia, the Board of Taxation, the Board of Infrastructure Australia, the National Broadband Network Panel of Experts, the Council of Financial Regulators, and the COAG Working Groups on the Productivity Agenda and Indigenous Reform. Dr Henry is Alternate Governor (for Australia) of the International Monetary Fund.

Dr Henry joined the Treasury in September 1984 following a short career in academia. He holds a first class honours degree in economics from the University of NSW (1979) and a PhD in economics from the University of Canterbury, NZ (1982). Dr Henry was awarded a Companion of the Order of Australia General Division (AC) in the Australia Day Honours 2007.

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The Right Honourable Alan Milburn has been the Member of Parliament for Darlington (UK) since 1992.

Alan was Minister of State for Health (1997-1998) and the following year became Chief Secretary to the Treasury (1998-1999). He was appointed Secretary of State for Health (1999-2003) where he was responsible for a major reform of health care.

As Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (2004 to 2005), he was responsible for the coordination of government policy and the Labour Party's successful 2005 general election campaign.

Before being elected to parliament, Alan worked in business development and for a trade union research centre

Download the Hon. Milburn’s abstract or listen to an audio recording.

Ross Homel is Foundation Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University, Brisbane, and Director of the Griffith Institute for Social and Behavioural Research Director.

He has held senior research management positions within Griffith University since 1993, including Director of the Australian Research Council Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance between 2004 and 2007.

Ross was responsible for establishing a national set of research priorities to advance the wellbeing of children and young people and for setting up a new Australian Research Council research network. Professor Homel was appointed an Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia in 1998.

Matthew Manning is an economist in the Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance, Griffith University. Matthew is currently an investigator on two nationally funded drug and alcohol-prevention projects. Matthew’s recent research also involved developing an economic methodology for measuring utility from outcomes associated with early childhood interventions across the life course, and the development of an economic model for analysing complex multiple criteria problems for the development of prevention policy. Matthew has also worked on the Pathways to Prevention project, where he compared community-based prevention programs with remedial programs.

Christine Smith is a Professor of Economics and Head of the Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics at Griffith University. She is an expert in the area of project evaluation, conflict analysis and regional modelling. She has worked as an economic consultant/adviser to a number of governmental committees and commissions of enquiry, local government authorities, state government departments and private sector organisations.

Dr Richard Denniss is the Executive Director of The Australia Institute. He is an economist with a particular interest in the role of regulation. Prior to taking up his current position he was an Associate Professor at the Crawford School of Economics and Government at the Australian National University where he continues to hold an adjunct appointment. Richard has also worked as Strategy Adviser to the Leader of the Australian Greens, Senator Bob Brown, Chief of Staff to the Leader of the Australian Democrats, Senator Natasha Stott Despoja, and lectured in economics at the University of Newcastle.

Richard has published extensively in academic journals and is a frequent contributor to national newspapers. He co-authored the best-selling Affluenza (with Dr Clive Hamilton) and the forthcoming An Introduction to Australian Public Policy: Theory and Practice (with Dr Sarah Maddison).

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The Honourable Catherine Branson QC commenced her five year term as President of the Australian Human Rights Commission on 14 October 2008.

At the time of her appointment to the Commission, Ms Branson was a judge of the Federal Court of Australia, a position she had held since 1994. She was the inaugural convenor of the Federal Court's Equality and the Law Committee.  She is a member of the International Association of Refugee Law Judges and was until recently the convenor of the Association's Human Rights Nexus Working Party.

Catherine is a former Crown Solicitor of South Australia and Permanent Head of the Attorney-General's Department (SA). She is a past President of the Australian Institute for Judicial Administration and a former member of the National Women's Advisory Council and of the Board of Management of International Development Law Organisation (a governmental organisation based in Rome enjoying observer status at the United Nations).

Associate Professor Ngiare Brown is an Aboriginal woman from the South Coast of NSW and one of the first few identified Aboriginal medical graduates in Australia. She has postgraduate qualifications in public health and primary care, and clinical training in emergency medicine. She is currently undertaking doctoral studies in health, law and human rights, and her professional interests focus on Aboriginal child health and the health of the world’s Indigenous peoples. Ngiare is a founding member, and was Foundation CEO, of the Australian
Indigenous Doctors’ Association; was Assistant Director at the Menzies School of Health Research in Darwin; and has recently been appointed as Director of the Poche Centre for Indigenous Health at the University of Sydney

Download Associate Professor Brown’s abstract and powerpoint presentation or listen to an audio recording.

Dr Don Edgar is an academic, policy adviser and published author. Don was inaugural Director of the Australian Institute of Family Studies, is a Professional Fellow at Monash University's Key Centre for Industrial Relations, and an Adjunct Professor with RMIT's Centre for Workplace Culture Change. He has authored several books on issues relating to societal cultural change and the place of children in modern society, with his recent book co-authored with wife Dr Patricia Edgar. Dr Edgar is a member of the Victorian Children's Council and occasional social commentator for The Age and The Australian.

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Rob Donovan is Professor of Behavioural Research in the Faculty of Health Sciences, and Adjunct Professor of Social Marketing and Director of the Social Marketing Research Unit in the School of Marketing in the Curtin University Business School.

Rob has held overseas academic positions in Marketing at Pace University, New York University, and the University of Georgia, and has been a Visiting Scientist at the Centres for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia.

He has also had extensive commercial experience in marketing and advertising and founded Donovan Research, a social and market research consultancy which was recognised as one of Australia's leading market research companies prior to its incorporation into first the NFO Worldwide Group and then the TNS Research Group.

Download Professor Donovan’s abstract and powerpoint presentation or listen to an audio recording.

Tim Moore is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Community Child Health (CCCH), Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne. He trained as a teacher and psychologist at the University of Melbourne, subsequently completing his Doctoral studies at the University of Surrey on self-esteem and self-concept in children.

He has worked as an educational and developmental psychologist for more than 30 years, both in Australia and England.

Based at CCCH since 2000, Tim works in CCCH's Programs Unit, one of the Centres' three operational units. The Programs Unit works closely with communities to support and strengthen their work with families to bring about the best outcomes for children.

Download Dr Moore’s abstract and powerpoint presentation or listen to an audio recording.