Please note that this event has unfortunately been cancelled.
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We remain the only Commonwealth country without a signed treaty with our Indigenous people. Professor Cindy Shannon and Professor Larissa Berhendt imagine a way forward from this national shame.
Larissa Behrendt is professor of Indigenous Research and Director of Research at the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning at the University of Technology, Sydney. She is a regular columnist for The Guardian and has published numerous textbooks on Indigenous legal issues. She is also the author of two novels:Home, which won the 2002 David Uniapon Award and the 2005 Commonwealth Writers’s Prize for Best First Book (South-East Asia and South Pacific); and Legacy, which won the 2010 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Indigenous Writing. She is the Ambassador of the Gawura Aboriginal Campus at St Andrew’s Cathedral School in Sydney and a board member of the Sydney Story Factory, a literacy program in Redfern. She was awarded the 2009 NAIDOC Person of the Year Award and 2011 NSW Australian of the Year.
Associate Professor Sarah Percy is a political scientist at the University of Queensland. She has had a long-standing interest in unconventional combatants, and has published widely on mercenaries, private military companies, and pirates. Sarah is interested in issues of maritime security generally, including piracy and counter-piracy, maritime crime, and the role of navies as security actors. She also conducts research at the nexus between international relations and international law, and is interested in how and why the use of force is regulated, and the relationship between norms and international law.
Cindy Shannon is a descendent of the Ngugi people from Moreton Island. In 2011 she was appointed as the Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous Engagement) at The University of Queensland. She was previously the Director of the Centre for Indigenous Health at The University of Queensland and guided the development and implementation of Australia’s first degree level program that specifically targeted Aboriginal health workers. Cindy also has an ongoing affiliation with the Institute for Urban Indigenous Health in South East Queensland, having played a key role in its establishment. Professor Shannon has played a key role nationally in Indigenous health policy development and implementation and has undertaken a number of independent primary health care service reviews, including a major report for the 2003 interdepartmental review of primary health care service delivery to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
Cindy was a member of the National Health and Medical Research Council, and chaired its Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research Advisory Committee from 2005-2012. She also chaired the National Indigenous Australians’ Sexual Health Committee for the period 2001-2008. In 2008 Cindy was appointed chair of the Queensland Ministerial Advisory Committee on AIDS, Sexual Health and Hepatitis. She also participated in the 2020 Summit as a member of the group advising on a long term national health strategy.
