Council

Jayde Geia is an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander woman and her family are Gunggandji, Bwgcolman and Mualgal.

Jayde is a commercial lawyer and currently works at the Aurora Education Foundation and has held previous roles as manager at Ernst & Young, In-house legal counsel at the Queensland Investment Corporation, solicitor at Allens Linklaters and Judge’s Associate.

Mark Yettica-Paulson is an Intercultural Leadership specialist from the Birrah, Gamilaroi and Bundjalung peoples with connections to Tanna Island (Vanuatu) and Scotland.

Mark is currently the Deep Collaboration Practice Lead for Collaboration for Impact and is a leadership and cultural facilitator for a number of national leadership development programs. Mark brings decades of wisdom from his career in leadership development, diversity and inclusion, and community education across the corporate, NGO, community, government and faith sectors.

Rodney Dillon is a distinguished Tasmanian Aboriginal leader, Cultural Knowledge Holder, and Elder, hailing from the North East Nation of Trawlwoolway in Trouwerner/Lutruwita (Tasmania). Born into a family of resilience, Rodney's commitment to his People, Country, and Culture was instilled by his grandmother, a survivor of captivity on Flinders Island's Wybalenna. Raised in Nicholls Rivulet, Tasmania, he has devoted his life to dispelling myths of Aboriginal extinction and advocating for the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.

His advocacy spans decades, focusing on crucial issues such as land and sea rights, social justice, and the repatriation of ancestral remains. His efforts have significantly advanced Aboriginal sea rights, allowing Palawa/Pakana communities to sustainably harvest marine resources and promoting equitable water access and stewardship in Tasmania. Furthermore, he has worked with Amnesty International for the past 17 years, advocating for homelands and the rights of the child, successfully influencing the Tasmanian government to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14 years.

Rodney has played a pivotal role in establishing several community-controlled organizations that enhance the wellbeing and empowerment of Aboriginal Peoples through essential services in health and aged care and social enterprise. As the inaugural Chair of the Reconciliation Council of Tasmania, he was influential in shaping truth-telling agendas and reconciliation policies. Currently, he sits on the Tasmanian Truth-Telling and Treaty Advisory Committee, where he advocates for Aboriginal sovereignty, and the recognition of cultural identity and rights. In addition to these roles, he has served as Chairperson of the Aboriginal Heritage Council and as a Director on the Australian Heritage Council for two terms.

Professor Lynette Riley, AO, a Wiradjuri & Gamilaroi woman from Dubbo and Moree, working in the Sydney School of Education & Social Work, The University of Sydney; and Chair, for Aboriginal Education and Indigenous Studies.

Lynette trained as an infants/primary teacher. She has been a classroom teacher; an Aboriginal Education consultant; worked in TAFE; State Manager for Aboriginal Education; and an academic. Her career focus is improving educational delivery for Aboriginal students and ensuring non-Indigenous students gain accurate information about Aboriginal people’s their histories and cultures. Lynette’s PhD was conferred in 2017, looking at ‘Conditions of Academic Success for Aboriginal Students in Schools’.

Lynette has been involved in numerous research projects and in writing numerous chapters and journal articles, her most recent is a series of 7 ‘Wiradjuri Workbooks’ written with her sister Diane Riley-McNaboe.

Karl Hampton is a Warlpiri/Ngulakan/Mara man born in Alice Springs with a large extended family network stretching across the Northern Territory. Karl has just recently commenced work with Central Desert Regional Council as the Director of Indigenous Strategy and previously worked with the Northern Territory Government as the Regional Director for Yuendumu and has been in the position for the past 3.6 years.

Karl is a Senior Atlantic Global Fellow with the University of Melbourne; he completed his master’s in social Change Leadership in 2023 with his project being on Warlpiri traditional governance. Karl also has experience on a number of Boards over many years and is currently a councillor on the AIATSIS board (National) and a member of the Museum, Galleries of the Northern Territory Aboriginal Advisory Group, and a member of the Northern Territory Government Repatriation Committee.

Karl’s has worked in many jobs in Central Australia over the past 37 years and has a background in politics that extended across 11 years both as a political adviser and a Member of Parliament.

Karl and his son Jamie Hampton co-founded the Warlpiri project 5 years ago and recently took a Warlpiri delegation to Germany.

Brenda L Croft is a First Nations woman from the Gurindji/Malngin/Mudburra Peoples from the Victoria River region of the Northern Territory of Australia, with Anglo-Australian/Chinese/German/Irish/Scottish heritage. Brenda is Nangari skin, with totems being Ngarlu (‘sugarbag’ or native honey) and Tikirrija (red-backed kingfisher).

For four decades she has undertaken a leading role in national and international First Nations and broader contemporary arts/cultural sectors as a multi-disciplinary creative practitioner (academic, administrator, artist, curator, educator, researcher, scholar).

Brenda’s creative-led research encompasses Critical Indigenous Performative Collaborative Autoethnography and Storywork methodologies and theoretical frameworks. For over three decades she has worked closely with her patrilineal family and community, and also with local and regional First communities in the ACT/NSW.

As an academic, artist, curator and project manager Brenda’s work with Australian and international First Nations/Indigenous communities spans more than four decades. These connections commenced during her involvement with her father, Joseph Croft’s cultural work in the federal Department of Aboriginal Affairs in the 1970s – 80s.

In 2024 Brenda was the Gough Whitlam & Malcolm Fraser Visiting Chair of Australian Studies, Harvard University, living and working on the Ancestral Homelands of the Massachusett.

Brenda is Professor of Indigenous Art History & Curatorship at the Australian National University with her ANU affiliation dating from 1982. She is privileged to live and work on unceded sovereign Ngambri/Ngunawal homelands.

Emeritus Professor Moreton-Robinson is a Goenpul woman from Quandamooka (Moreton Bay) with maternal blood lines to Kabi Kabi, Yuggera, Turrabul nations in southeast Queensland. She is Elder Scholar with ARC Centre of Excellence Indigenous Futures at University of Queensland.

Professor Moreton-Robinson's work within Australian higher education involved progressing, elevating and implementing Indigenous knowledges within universities and increasing the availability of higher education to our communities. Her academic work is primarily concerned with colonisation, Indigenous sovereignty, native title, Indigenous methodologies, racism and Indigenous women's inequality.

She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences, an honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Fellow of the Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is a member of the Minjerribah Moorgumpin Aboriginal Elders in Council (North Stradbroke Island) and a member of the Foundation for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research Action LTD (FAIRA).