Upcoming Speakers
Jill Emberson
Jill Emberson is currently making a podcast about her experience of ovarian cancer for ABC Regional Radio. The project is her return to work after two years on leave since diagnosis in February 2016.Jill started her broadcasting career in community radio at 2SER FM after graduating from the BA Communications, University of Technology Sydney.
She moved to the newsroom at ABC Radio’s 2 JJJ and from there launched the station’s first morning talk program with co-host Stuart Matchett. She became a well-respected member of the Triple J line up in the late 80s.
Jill worked for ABC TV on the science show Quantum where she reported the program’s first stories on Aboriginal science and technology.
As Mornings presenter at 1233 ABC Newcastle Jill hosted the podcast Meet the Mob, interviewing 100 local indigenous people. In 2012 she was a Walkley finalist for the radio series Hooked on Heroin about heroin addiction in the Hunter.
Jill has also worked as a communications specialist for global organizations as diverse as Greenpeace and General Electric. She was public relations manager for Wizard Home Loans founder Mark Bouris.
In New Caledonia, at the South Pacific Commission, Jill worked as a development communications specialist supporting regional women’s organisations. She published information resources for Pacific women and academic reports about Pacific women and communication.
Jill has produced a range of radio documentaries about the South Pacific including a first-hand account of the inauguration of the King of Tonga in 2009. Called The Ties That Bind, the program documents Jill’s ties to her paternal family of origin in Kingdom of Tonga.
Since her diagnosis with ovarian cancer in 2016 Jill has undergone intensive medical treatment and become an advocate for the disease, speaking publicly and raising desperately needed funds for research.
Nicole Livingstone
Beginning her swimming career at 14, Nicole Livingstone (formerly Stevenson), is one of Australia’s most successful female swimmers. With a career spanning over 10 years, Nicole’s achievements include one silver and two bronze medals from three Olympic appearances; six gold, two silver and one bronze medal from three Commonwealth Games; and four gold, two silver and one bronze medal from competing in six Pan Pacific Championships. She also broke a world record in the 200 m backstroke (short course) in 1992. Nicole has placed her name in the record books by starting the longest winning sequence of any Australian swimmer in history at the national titles winning 10 consecutive 100 m backstroke titles between 1987 and 1996.A great ambassador for Australian sport, Nicole has received many other awards during her career outside the pool. These include the Medal of the Order of Australia in June 1997 and the Australian Sports Medal in July 2000. Nicole was inducted into the Victorian Women’s Honour Roll in 2006. Nicole has recently joined Network Ten as an expert commentator on the new ONE channel and as co-host of Thursday Night Live.
Nicole helped found Ovarian Cancer Australia with her sister Karen Livingstone after their mother passed away from the disease. She is now the Patron of the organisation.
The world is undergoing a huge transformation and we are just seeing the start of the technology and innovation rise of Asia and particularly China. Looking at the table of patent applications each year, Chinese companies like Huawei top the list, no longer are Chinese companies, cheap copycat producers. More and more they are leading in their field of business. Huawei is of course the largest and pioneer of these types of companies. But more Huaweis are coming. Australia can’t pretend the rise of smart China isn’t happening.
Australia cannot sit back and think it can isolate itself from this fundamental change. To do so would impact the country economically and deprive us from world leading technology. While at the same time our trading competitors are taking full advantage of better technology, cheaper costs for that technology and benefit from the productivity gains that flow from 5G and IoT technologies that power smart agriculture, smart mining, smart cities, driverless cars etc.
UK, Canada & New Zealand are tackling the problem head on, they work with companies like Huawei to ensure they have the benefits that come from open and competitive markets but also enabling the ability to have safe and secure infrastructure.
Banning Huawei will not make the Australian telecom ecosystem safer, but will have a huge impact on the industry and the prices and services Australians receive. It will be a great policy failure and demonstrate to the world that we are not ready for the new reality of a smart and innovative China.
John Lord, AM FAICD
John was born in Perth, Western Australia and has had high profile careers in the Australian Navy, the Commonwealth and State public sectors, and private enterprise. In recent years he has provided strategic planning, risk and corporate governance advice to the commercial sector specialising in international relations, government business and the maritime industries.He served with the Royal Australian Navy for over 36 years and retired with the rank of Rear Admiral. During his defence and naval career he served in Vietnam, commanded two major warships, and directed naval operations to support East Timor during 1999-2000. As a senior officer John was the Commander of Northern Command in Darwin and the inaugural Head of Defence Education and Training responsible for all civilian and military education. In his last appointment he was the Fleet Commander responsible for Navy operations worldwide including the 8000 personnel under his command.
John was independent Chairman and on the Board of DMS Maritime Pty Ltd from 2003 to 2013, an Executive Director of P&O Maritime Services from 2003 to 2007, and a Director of Australian Maritime Systems, Austen Maritime Services Pte based in Singapore, and P&O Maritime Services UK and South Africa. Within the Victorian public sector John has been Chairman of the Victorian Veterans Council, a Director of the Victorian Metropolitan Fire & Emergency Services Board, a member of the Victorian Defence Council and was Chief Executive and Director of the Marine Board of Victoria and a member of the Australian Maritime Group and the National Plan Committee for maritime emergency responses around Australia from 2000 to 2003. John was on the Board of Huntingdale Golf Club for ten years and its Captain and Chairman from 2010 to 2013.
John is presently Chairman of Huawei Technologies Australia Pty Ltd, and a member of the Minister’s Corrections Advisory Committee. In a voluntary capacity he is Chairman of the Defence Bank Foundation Trust and Patron of the Darwin Defenders 1942-45 Melbourne Branch.
As part of The Australian National University’s First Nations Governance Forum, three of the world’s preeminent Indigenous rights experts will discuss pathway options for First Nations governance reform in Australia. Sharing their vast international experiences of Indigenous people around the world including Aotearoa (New Zealand), Canada, USA and Scandinavian countries, the panel will look at what options are available for one of the most important issues facing the country.
Victoria Tauli-Corpuz
Victoria is an indigenous leader from the Kankanaey Igorot people of the Cordillera Region in the Philippines. She is a social development consultant, indigenous activist, civic leader, human rights expert, public servant, and an advocate of women’s rights in the Philippines.She was the former Chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (2005‐2010). As an indigenous leader she got actively engaged in drafting and adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007. She helped build the indigenous peoples’ movement in the Cordillera as a youth activist in the early 1970s. She helped organize indigenous peoples in the community level to fight against the projects of the Marcos Dictatorship such as the Chico River Hydroelectric Dam and the Cellophil Resources Corporation. These communities succeeded in stopping these.
She is the founder and executive director of Tebtebba Foundation (Indigenous Peoples’ International Center for Policy Research and Education). Ms. Tauli‐Corpuz has founded and managed various NGOs involved in social awareness raising, climate change, the advancement of indigenous peoples’ and women’s rights. A member of the Kankana‐ey Igorot peoples, she was the chairperson of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. She is an Expert for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and has served as the chairperson‐ rapporteur of the Voluntary Fund for Indigenous Populations. She is also the indigenous and gender adviser of the Third World Network and a member of United Nations Development Programme Civil Society Organizations Advisory Committee.
Mr Lars-Anders Baer
Lars-Anders Baer, 65 years, former president /chairman of the Sámi Parliament in Sweden and former president of Sámi Parliamentary Council. He has studied law at the Uppsala and he and his family are also involved in traditional reindeer herding.He was engaged in the Sámi and international indigenous movement early years. In the early 1970s he was the chairman of the Sámi youth organisation Sáminuorra and also involved to organise the pan-Sámi youth movement. Since the beginning of the 1980s he was engaged in Union of the Swedish Sámi, the main Sámi organisation in Sweden. He was the chairman of the organisation between 1993- 2001.
Between year 2001 and 2009 he was acting at the president/chairman of the Sámi Parliament in Sweden. On the national level he has participate in several governmental commissions, for instance the commission that suggested that ILO Convention no 169 should be ratified by Sweden in 1998. He has also served as an expert and Sámi representative in Swedish official delegations in different UN, European Union and other regional and international events.
Professor Mick Dodson AM
Professor Mick Dodson AM is a member of the Yawuru peoples – the traditional owners of land and waters in the Broome area of the southern Kimberley region of Western Australia. He is the former Director of the National Centre for Indigenous Studies at The Australian National University.Mick Dodson was Australia’s first Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner with the Human Rights Commission.
Born in Katherine in the Northern Territory, Mick was educated in Katherine, Darwin and Victoria. He completed a Bachelor of Jurisprudence and a Bachelor of Laws at Monash University.
Mick was Counsel assisting the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
Mick Dodson has been a prominent advocate on land rights and other issues affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, as well as a vigorous advocate of the rights and interests of indigenous peoples around the world.
In 2009, Mick Dodson was named Australian of the Year by the National Australia Day Council.
Professor Dodson was formerly the Malcolm Fraser & Gough Whitlam Harvard Chair in Australian Studies at Harvard University Cambridge USA.
In the 1990s, Mark Lynas was at the centre of the anti-GM movement, organising huge groups of campaigners to take political action, wrecking GM crops and even attempting to steal Dolly the Sheep. Two decades later, and the legacy of Mark and his environmental colleagues work still lives on and the general public still assume ‘GMO’ foods are bad for your health or likely to damage the environment.
But Mark changed his mind, and his latest book, ‘Seeds of Science’, explains why.
In 2013, in a world-famous recantation speech, Mark apologised for having destroyed GM crops. He spent the subsequent years touring Africa and Asia and working with plant scientists who are using this technology to help smallholder farmers in developing countries cope better with pests, diseases and droughts.
His book lifts the lid on the anti-GMO craze and shows how science was left by the wayside as a wave of public hysteria swept the world. Mark will take us back to the origins of the technology and introduce the scientific pioneers who invented it. He explains what led him to question his earlier assumptions about GM food and talked to both sides of this fractious debate to see what still motivates worldwide opposition today. In the process he asked – and answered – the killer question: how did we all get it so wrong on GMOs? and will take a look at how it could help solve the global food crisis.
Mark is the author of three major popular science environmental books: High Tide (2004), Six Degrees (2008) and The God Species (2011), as well as the Kindle Single ebook Nuclear 2.0 (2012). High Tide was long listed for the Samuel Johnson Award for Non-Fiction, and short-listed for the Guardian First Book Award. Six Degrees was long-listed for the Orwell Prize in 2008, and won the prestigious Royal Society Prize for Science Books in the same year. Six Degrees became a TV hit for National Geographic, whose Six Degrees Could Change the World – voiced by Alec Baldwin – has been watched by tens of millions around the globe on the National Geographic Channel. The book has now been translated into 22 languages around the world.
Mark was advisor to the President of the Maldives on climate change from 2009 until the coup in 2012. He has contributed extensively to global media, writing for the Guardian, New York Times, Washington Post, Bangkok Post and numerous others. Until 2017 he was a visiting fellow at the Cornell Alliance for Science, Cornell University.
Dr Anthony (Tony) Bartone was elected Federal President of the AMA in May 2018, having served as Vice President since May 2016. He served as President of AMA Victoria (AMA VIC) from 2014 to 2016, and as Vice President of AMA VIC from 2012 to 2014.
Dr Bartone is an experienced General Practitioner and management executive, working in two General Practices in the northern suburbs of Melbourne. His principal specialty interests include men’s Health, mental health counselling, care co-ordination of patients with multiple chronic illnesses, and aged care. Dr Bartone graduated from Melbourne University in 1984 after completing his residency at St Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne, and obtained his fellowship with the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners in 1990.
Dr Bartone also completed a Master of Business Administration from the Melbourne Business School in 2004 with First Class Honours average.
Dr Bartone has held many Federal AMA Council and Committee positions since 2008, including serving as a member of the AMA Council of General Practice.
At the 2016 AMA National Conference, Dr Bartone was awarded Fellowship of the Association in recognition of his outstanding services to the AMA and as a mark of the high esteem in which he is held by Fellow members.
To propose a speaker please contact npc@npc.org.au with a brief bio and photo of the speaker, speech title and brief outline of the speech, along with a proposed date. Your speaker proposal will be presented to the board at the next board meeting for their decision. Please allow up to 8 weeks for notification.