Rosie Batty knows pain no woman should have to suffer. Her son was killed by his father in a violent incident in February 2014, a horrendous event that shocked not only the nation, but the world. Greg Anderson murdered his 11-year-old son Luke and was then shot by police at the Tyabb cricket oval. Rosie had suffered years of family violence and had intervention and custody orders in place, in an effort to protect herself and her son. Rosie became an outspoken and dynamic crusader against domestic violence, which led her to be named Australian of the Year in January 2015. Since then, Rosie has made the most of her position of influence, campaigning and advocating for necessary systemic and attitudinal change, to address the family violence epidemic. Rosie was Chair of the first ever Victim Survivor’s Advisory Council for the Victorian Government for over 3 years in response to the country’s first Royal Commission into Family Violence. She was named by Fortune Magazine as one of its top 50 world’s greatest leaders in 2016 and the most influential person in the Not-for-Profit sector on Pro Bono Australia’s Impact 25 list. She has also been inducted into the Victorian Honour Roll of Women and is a recipient of The Pride of Australia National Courage Medal.Rosie received an Honorary Doctorate in 2017 from the University of the Sunshine Coast for her contribution to raising national awareness and action concerning Family Violence and received an Order of Australia in the Queen’s Birthday 2019 Honours List.

Lula is a gender relations and anti-patriarchal systems change specialist. She is a passionate survivor advocate, for childhood sexual abuse, and domestic and family violence victims. Combining lived experience and professional expertise, Lula is national leader driving structural and cultural change to end violence against women. She established the Accountability Matters Project to re-frame DFV as a men’s violence issue and drive the reduction of this violence. Lula is co-founder of the national Independent Collective of Survivors, a National Plan Advisory Group member, Bravehearts Ambassador, and Director of Lived Expertise and Advocacy for the Illawarra Women’s Health Centre – Women’s Trauma Recovery Centre.

Micaela Cronin commenced as Australia’s first Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner on 1 November 2022. Micaela began her career as a social worker in family violence and sexual assault services, and has held leadership roles across the social service sector in Australia and internationally, including President of ACOSS. Micaela was the CEO of an international non-government organisation based in Asia, working to build global service delivery and strategic partnerships to tackle human trafficking and human rights abuses. In 2014, Micaela was awarded the Robin Clark Leadership award, Victoria’s most prestigious Children’s Protection award, recognising a leader who inspires others in achieving the best outcomes for children, young people and their families.

Karen Iles is a lawyer, accredited mediator, consultant, board director, sexual assault survivor and Dharug Aboriginal woman. She is the Founder and Principal Solicitor of Violet Co Legal & Consulting, a social enterprise with the purpose to create radical solutions and just outcomes for women, gender diverse and First Nations people. Karen speaks about her personal lived experience of sexual assault, police accountability and the justice system to inspire social change and promote healing. In 2022, Karen was featured in the Guardian Australia, A Current Affair, ABC 7.30, ABC Radio and Mamamia and was the recipient of the Law Society of NSW 2022 Pro Bono Service Award.

Jane is a Founder and Practice Leader of the Sisters in Law Project (SILP), an advocacy group focused on person centric solutions to legal issues. SILP works with media, and lobbies state and federal jurisdictions to change injustices in the Australian legal systems. With SILP, Jane has developed legal case management support for survivors called 'guided advocacy' to create safer outcomes for victim survivors, especially in family law. SILP recently worked with the NSW Parliament’s Children's and Young Persons Committee resulting in fifteen new recommendations to improve the protection provided to children and review how the Department of Communities and Justice interacts with Federal Circuit and Family Court.

Dr. Karen Williams (she/her) is a Consultant Psychiatrist who specialises in PTSD and other trauma syndromes, particularly those caused by sexual abuse and domestic violence. Dr Williams is the medical superintendent of Australia's first Womens-only Trauma Specific Mental Health Service, Ramsay Clinic Thirroul. Dr Williams is a member of the Family Violence Network Committee in the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists and the Founder of national advocacy organisation Doctors against Violence towards Women and a renowned international speaker on supporting women to recover from trauma experienced domestic, family and sexual violence.

Sally is the Executive Director of the Illawarra Women’s Health Centre and successfully led the campaign to establish Australia’s first Women’s Trauma Recovery Centre. She has positioned the Centre as a voice of authority in the Illawarra, based on community trust and respect for its services. With qualifications in finance and public health, Sally has worked for Médecins sans Frontiers in conflict zones as Head of Mission and as public health finance expert for the World Health Organisation and the World Bank. Sally was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia for her national and international service to the community in 2014 and is Wollongong Citizen of the Year 2023

Janina Fisher, Ph.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist and a former instructor, Harvard Medical School. An international expert on the treatment of trauma, she is an Advisory Board member of the Trauma Research Foundation. Dr. Fisher is the author of Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors: Overcoming Self-Alienation (2017), Transforming the Living Legacy of Trauma: a Workbook for Survivors and Therapists (2021), and The Living Legacy Instructional Flip Chart (2022). She is best known for her work on integrating mindfulness-based and somatic interventions into trauma treatment. More information can be found on her website: www.janinafisher.com.

Carolyn Robinson is an Educator and is also the Founder/Managing Director of Beyond DV Ltd, a Brisbane-based charity established in 2017 after her younger daughter was impacted by domestic violence. Beyond DV is focused on supporting women and children as they rebuild their lives through innovative recovery programs and services centred around their “Five Pillars of Recovery” and delivered from multiple locations across Brisbane. Carolyn is also the creator of the highly innovative “Love&Learn” Teen Relationship App which helps young people to identify healthy/unhealthy relationships. In 2022, Beyond DV established the first “HOPE Hub” at Westfield Carindale- a highly-secure, accessible space where community members can access support around social issues, with a focus on domestic violence and mental health.

Mel’s lived experience of the gaps in services and support and the structural violence and victim blaming faced by survivors of domestic and family violence fuelled a drive to transmute that pain story into positive change. As a resident of UOW’s iAccelerate business incubator program, she co-founded a start-up working on an early intervention, integrative and holistic model of support and services for women and children impacted by DFV. That experience led to recognising a need to better understand the barriers, systems and structures intersecting with this cohort. Mel is currently completing a Bachelor of Social Work at UOW. Since 2020, she has lent her voice to the campaign for the Women’s Trauma Recovery Centre and is a member of the Establishment Team. Mel was the founding co-ordinator for the Australian Domestic, Family & Sexual Violence Recovery Alliance.

Talie Star is a Singer/Songwriter, Consultant/Speaker specialising in Trauma, Trauma Informed Training (both developing and delivering), Domestic and Family Violence, Homelessness and Disability. Her Consultancy work sees her working with Peak Bodies, Health, Governments, Universities and NGO's both state-based and nationally and as a member of COVID-19 pandemic Taskforce Working Group. Talie is a member of Advisory Groups for DV Assist, DVNSW, Local Council, Homelessness NSW (and the Policy Council) Our Watch and PIAC as well as steering Committees and has been involved in research and Co-Chairing CSI's Advisory Group and Homelessness NSW Lived Experience Group. She uses her training in Youth, the creative arts and Counselling as a Lovebites Facilitator and partners with Our Watch in training Journalist and the media on safer and more effective reporting. Her heart is for educating, empowering and challenging systems in a way that inspires collaboration and collective healing. Talie was awarded the New South Wales SHS Sector Consumer Achievement Award in recognition of her outstanding work.

Dr. Lata Satyen is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Deakin University and a Registered Psychologist. She is the Co-Convenor of the Deakin Network Against Gendered Violence. Her research focuses on intersectionality in family and domestic violence. As a pro-bono psychologist, Lata assists victim-survivors of family violence and services involved in victim and child protection. In 2017, she received the Government of Victoria Award for Excellence in Multicultural Affairs; in 2019, she won an Australian Crime and Violence Prevention Award; in 2021, she was awarded the Janet Blackman Prize for her paper addressing gender norms in the Indian migrant community.

Dr. Patricia Cullen is the Director of Implementation for the Illawarra Women’s Trauma Recovery Centre. In 2020, Patricia initiated the co-design process to develop the Trauma Recovery Centre model of care. Patricia is also a psychologist and a senior lecturer at UNSW where her teaching and research focus on public health aspects of mental health and advocacy. Her research is informed by her learned and lived experience, which drives her to advocate for embedding trauma and violence informed care within our public health and social care systems. She is a Lived-Experience Research Co-Lead in the ALIVE National Centre for Mental Health Research Translation. Patricia is passionate about supporting the next generation of public health professionals, she delivers trauma-aware training for staff and students in the Faculty of Medicine at UNSW.

Kym became a Victim Survivor Advisory Council (VSAC) member in 2020 and was appointed as the Chair in September 2022. Kym has extensive experience as a television and theatre actor, as well as in teaching. These skills help her facilitate nuanced conversations in her leadership role on the Council. Mother of two children, Kym is well known for her long-running and much-loved role on Neighbours. As VSAC Chair, Kym is passionate about building a culture where people engage with VSAC in ways that focus on building trust and space for healing. She firmly believes these values can lead to lasting and meaningful change to transform the family violence system.

Rebecca founded the Centre for Women’s Economic Safety (CWES) to support women experiencing economic abuse in the context of domestic and family violence, and advocate for structural and systems change to better support women’s economic safety. The Centre builds on her work in domestic violence and financial wellbeing; most recently at Insight Exchange, a social change initiative of Domestic Violence Service Management. Before that she worked in financial wellbeing at the Commonwealth Bank (CBA) where she was a key member of the Domestic and Family Violence Working Group, and at not-for-profit organisation, Financial Literacy Australia, where she was the founding CEO. In 2019, Rebecca was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to investigate service responses to women experiencing or escaping economic abuse in the UK, USA and Canada. In 2021, she was named an AMP Foundation Tomorrow Maker.

As CEO of Women’s Community Shelters, Annabelle Daniel OAM, has worked with local communities around NSW to establish and open eight shelters at Hornsby, Forster, Castle Hill, Penrith, Bayside, Parramatta and Revesby. She has also been instrumental in the ongoing success of the very first WCS shelter which opened in Manly in 2010. (Now known as Northern Beaches Women’s Shelter.)
She has collaborated with a range of organisations, individuals and stakeholders, from the community and all levels of government to achieve change in the field of homelessness for women and children. Annabelle is continuing this work to establish further shelters throughout NSW and is currently working with the community in Camden to open shelter number nine in the WCS network.Annabelle is also the Chair of DV NSW.

Yumi Lee has worked on women's rights and violence against women for over 30 years. She began with advocacy for nuclear disarmament and women's rights in armed conflict, and led the Australian NGO response for one of the 5 Critical Areas of Concern in the Beijing Platform for Action. More recently, she worked for an anti-trafficking organisation in Vietnam which rescues street children and women trafficked to the sex trade. She now works for OWN NSW to advocate and lobby on issues of impacting older women. The two main issues the organisation is focusing on are housing insecurity and homelessness of older women; and violence against older women including in aged care. There are 50 sexual assaults taking place in aged care every week and the response has been totally inadequate.

Tanya Elson has worked extensively across the community services and public sector in the areas of family and domestic violence, gender equality, women’s interests, children and youth, and human rights. Tanya led the development and rollout of Path to Safety: WA’s Strategy to Reduce Family and Domestic Violence 2020-2030, and Stronger Together: WA’s 10 Year Plan for Gender Equality. She is the General Manager Strategy with Ruah Community Services and a key member of the team creating the Ruah Centre for Women and Children to enable long term healing and recovery. Tanya is a board member with WA peak body the Centre for Women’s Safety and Wellbeing and believes deeply in the transformative powers of collective action and diversity.

Nemat Kharboutli is the Linking Hearts Service Manager at Muslim Women Australia, which is a representative body for Muslim women working to enrich humanity, advocating for equality and the rights of all women. Established in 1983, MWA now provides frontline specialist domestic violence, homelessness and settlement support for multicultural communities as well as community development, educational and recreational initiatives for Muslim communities.Nemat works collaboratively across the womens’ sector to advocate for a sexual, domestic and family violence free and inclusive Australia. Her key areas of interest are the gendered nature of violence and Islamophobia. As part of her work at MWA, Nemat hopes to contribute to policy reform that enhances culturally, linguistically and religiously appropriate service provision to facilitate women's agency and greater accessibility of support to women. Nemat has a Bachelor of Social Science (Criminology and Social Policy) from University of New South Wales, she is passionate about social justice, social inclusion, diversity, policy and women's issues.

Dr. Hannah Tonkin is the inaugural Women's Safety Commissioner for New South Wales, providing leadership and oversight on whole of government women’s safety policy development and law reform. Previously Hannah worked as an international human rights lawyer and policy adviser at the United Nations, as Director of Disability Rights at the Australian Human Rights Commission, and as a barrister in London and Adelaide. While at the United Nations, Hannah worked in a range of conflict and post-conflict contexts around the world including Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Gaza, Ukraine and the former Yugoslavia. She holds a master's degree and PhD in international law from the University of Oxford, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar, and Honours Degrees in Law and Science from the University of Adelaide.