Angus Mitchell Oration 2021

ADJUCT PROFESSOR JOHN SKERRITT

Deputy Secretary, Health Products Division (NTGA, Office of Drug Control)

"The COVID-19 pandemic response in Australia and the region: vaccines, medicines and masks…where to from here?"

Dr Skerritt has a high national profile dealing with the pandemic and generously agreed to fly down to deliver the 2021 Angus Mitchell Oration. Not only is he an eminent public servant but he has strong personal links with Rotary making him doubly suitable to be our Centenary Angus Mitchell Orator.

He was awarded a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship (then known as a Rotary Foundation Fellowship) for post-doctoral work in pharmacology and neurology at the University of Michigan, USA to build on his PhD from The University of Sydney. In 2012 he was honoured internationally by Rotary International being the world wide winner of the ”Global Alumni Service to Humanity Award” for his contribution to greater understanding and peace through service to humanity. Only one other Australian has been so recognised – our former member Dr Alex Buchanan. John’s Global Alumni Service award was made for two streams of contribution – contributions in research in health, agricultural and environmental sciences plus achievements as a leader of Australia’s overseas development assistance (aid) program.

While Deputy Secretary in the Victorian Government from 2009-2012 – overseeing emergency management, biosecurity, fisheries, and regional economic development through agribusiness in the former Department of Primary Industries, he was a member of Hampton Rotary Club. Effectively he remains an Honorary Member of that Club, as while he works in Canberra during the week, his weekend home is in Melbourne. He comes down for a number of weekend Rotary activities, including their popular monthly Farmers Markets. His wife, Amanda Hill is current President of the Rotary Club of Hampton.

He has an extraordinarily broad range of experience in medical, agricultural and environmental policy as well as regulation, research management, technology application and commercialisation. In the 1990’s he held senior management positions in CSIRO and Cooperative Research Centres. Dr Skerritt has been involved in international development assistance projects from the mid-1980s until the present, and from 1999-2009 he was Deputy CEO of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, and had overall management of about $2 billion in international aid projects.

He has significant experience on boards of international and national organisations. From 2005-2012 he was Board member and then Chair of the International Water Management Institute, and he is currently Vice Chair of the International Coalition of Medicines Regulatory Authorities and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Council of the Centre for Innovation in Regulatory Science.

As well as his PhD in Pharmacology from Sydney University where he was the first University Medallist in that discipline in 150 years, he is an adjunct Professor of the Universities of Sydney, Queensland and Canberra – in medicine, agriculture/food and pharmacy respectively. He was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering and a Fellow of the Institute of Public Administration (Victoria).

With such an extraordinary range of skills, experience and plus his sustained connections to Rotary, we are privileged that John Skerritt is the Centenary Angus Mitchell Orator.

"Adolescent mental health, school failure and the juvenile justice system: where are the integrated support services?"

Dr Magdalena Simonis, President, Australian Federation of Medical Women (AFMW), MBBS FRACGP DRANZCOG MHHS

Magdalena Simonis is a GP, government health advisor, primary care researcher with the University of Melbourne, and a leading women's health expert and advocate.

Magdalena holds positions on several not-for-profit organisations, bridging gaps across the health sector, whilst informing their health initiatives. She is on the Expert Committee of Quality Care for the RACGP, President and National Coordinator of the Australian Federation of Medical Women, Medical Women's international Association (MWIA) Scientific and Research Subcommittee co-Chair and chair of the MWIA Mentoring group.

Magdalena's interests are in community health, chronic disease prevention, and the development of sustainable, equitable healthcare services.

Rosie is a passionate advocate for human rights, gender equality and universal access to water, sanitation and hygiene. She has two decades of international development experience, having lived and worked in Indonesia for six years before joining WaterAid Australia at its inception in 2004. She was Director of International Programs prior to becoming Chief Executive in 2016. Rosie’s leadership manifesto focuses on being an authentic, servant leader who always pushes herself beyond her comfort zone; this is where Rosie believes she learns most and performs at her best.

Rosie serves on the Board of the THREE Foundation, ACFID and is a Founder and Committee Member of Not in My Workplace, a group of executive leaders working to address workplace harassment and abuse across all industries in Victoria. Rosie has recently discovered obstacle racing and electric bikes, which keep her sane and healthy. She is a shamelessly proud mother of two boys.

Andrew Crisp, Emergency Management Commissioner

2019/20 Victorian Bushfires - One year on - Partnering with East Gippsland Rotary Clubs.

Andrew Crisp APM is Victoria’s Emergency Management Commissioner. The Emergency Management Commissioner has responsibility for coordination before, during and after major emergencies, including the management of consequences of an emergency.

During his career, which includes experience in senior emergency management and policing leadership positions, Andrew has developed a passion for community safety across metropolitan and regional Victoria and while working overseas in Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste.

He has been involved in responses to a number of major incidents, such as the Ash Wednesday Bushfires, the 2009 Victorian Bushfires, Christchurch earthquake, Queensland floods and the 2017 Bourke Street Tragedy.

Andrew has, and continues to, work closely with emergency management organisations, agencies, government departments, and communities, focusing on building and maintaining strong relationships and capability across the emergency management sector.

He is passionate about connecting communities, with a focus on building an emergency management sector that is sustainable, and reflects and meets the needs of communities.

Advocating for people and communities has, and will always be, a priority for him. Andrew believes everyone has valued perspectives and a positive contribution to make. He is committed to learning and listening so our emergency management sector and communities can work together to keep people safe.

Andrew Crisp APM @CommissionerEMV

Dr Tania Miletic Assistant Director Centre for Peacebuilding at University of Melbourne.

Recently appointed Assistant Director working to establish a new interdisciplinary Centre for Peace building at Melbourne University. Dr Tania Miletic is an experienced academic and practitioner with a commitment to working collaboratively on real-world challenges from conflict prevention, social cohesion to good governance, with an ambition to influence positive change.

Since May 2015 she has been engaged on the Australian International Conflict Resolution Project, which seeks to enhance the role of conflict prevention and peace building in Australian foreign policy with the School of Social and Political Sciences, formerly with the Melbourne School of Government, University of Melbourne. She also teaches and supervises students on postgraduate peace and conflict studies programs with Victoria University and the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, based in Cambodia.

Tania has been engaged as a consultant and facilitator to a range of government and non-government organisations and stakeholders in the areas of peace building, political affairs and community engagement.

The Journey to the Toilet: How Mark Balla is getting girls to school by solving a problem no one else saw.

Mark Balla, Vice Chair at Water and Sanitation Rotary Action Group, is President of Rotary Box Hil, a philanthropist, TED speaker and Author.

Cassandra Goodman, Thrive Global Facilitator, Coach and Author.

In addition to running her own business focused on helping people in organisations and their leaders understand that true success and happiness in life flows from being who we are, not changing who we are. She also works with Thrive Global, an organisation founded and led by Arianna Huffington with the mission to end the global epidemic of stress and burnout.

Cassandra will speak on the importance of social connection and how the practice of self-fidelity can improve individual and community welfare.

"The Ethical Advantage: The Economic and Social Benefits of Ethics in Australia"

Dr Simon Longstaff, AO, Executive Director, The Ethic Centre, Sydney

If ethics is defined as “a way of structuring human reasoning to help choose what is right or best”, how ethical is Australia? Only 56% of Australians think that most people can be trusted. In 2019, Australia achieved an overall score of +37 on a scale of -100 to +100 (‘somewhat ethical’) on the Governance Institute of Australia’s Ethics Index survey. A 2018 review found that while most ASX200 companies disclosed a code of practice, only six percent had leading practice.

The recent scandalous allegations surrounding Australia Post, the Badgery Creek land transaction, branch stacking, ASIC, sexual misconduct within Federal Parliament House and many others have shone the spotlight on the lack of ethics within the public service.

Australia faces many significant challenges in the post-COVID era. Navigating the health and economic impacts, responding to emerging issues around the future of work and introduction of new technologies, preparing for an increasingly risky geopolitical environment and addressing long-standing social and environmental challenges including climate change and reconciliation with Indigenous Australians are some of them. Improving trust and social capital allows for smoother functioning of markets and reduces the cost of regulation and compliance.

A recent report by Deloitte Access Economics projects an increase in GDP of AUD 45 billion if Australia lifts its trust level to that of global leaders.

BIO

Dr. Simon Longstaff, Executive Director of the Ethics Centre, discusses the economic and social benefits of ethics to Australia.

Simon Longstaff began his working life on Groote Eylandt in the Northern Territory of Australia. He is proud of his kinship ties to the Anindilyakwa people. After a period studying law in Sydney and teaching in Tasmania, he pursued postgraduate studies as a Member of Magdalene College, Cambridge. Simon has been Executive Director of The Ethics Centre for 30 years.

In 2013, he was made an officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for “distinguished service to the community through the promotion of ethical standards in governance and business, to improving corporate responsibility, and to philosophy.” Simon is an Honorary Professor at the Australian National University, a Fellow of CPA Australia, the Royal Society of NSW and the Australian Risk Policy Institute.

"Is it detrimental to Australia's strategic national interests?"

Salvatore Babones is 'Australia’s globalization expert'. He is an associate professor at the University of Sydney whose research takes a long-term approach to interpreting the structure of the global economy, with a particular focus on China.

He is a fortnightly columnist for Foreign Policy and a regular contributor to The National Interest. His new 'Philistine' column for Quadrant magazine debuted this year. Salvatore is an elected member of the National Committee on US-China Relations.

The proposed Australian Foreign Relations Bill (AFRB) will establish "a legislative scheme for Commonwealth engagement with arrangements between State or Territory governments and foreign governments" -- and is clearly targeted at Victoria's state-level Belt & Road diplomacy with China. Sub-national diplomacy is a unique feature of China's international relations.

While other countries negotiate almost exclusively at the national level, China has no qualms about going down a level or two if it does not get its way at the top. It does this both through centrally-negotiated agreements (like the Victorian Belt & Road compact) and by directing sub-national Chinese entities like provinces, cities, universities, and corporations to pursue national goals in their relationships with peers in other countries.

Australia has many institutional mechanisms for addressing these Chinese diplomatic incursions, but they have often acted at cross-purposes, with the 2015 Darwin port fiasco illustrating the shortcomings in Australia's approach.

The AFRB would allow the Commonwealth to abrogate Victoria's Belt & Road deal, but it won't fix the bigger flaws in Australia's management of its complex relationship with China.

"Teen Mental Health First Aid - A program to train adolescents to better support their peers."

Teen Mental Health First Aid is an age-appropriate training program for teaching secondary school students how to help their friends with mental health problems. Young people prefer to seek help for mental health problems from their peers, and teen MHFA was developed with this in mind, from scientific research on barriers to help-seeking in young people, suicide prevention and effective stigma reduction. The program is now available across Australia and internationally and owes much of its’ success to early research funding to Australian Rotary Health.

Dr. Laura Hart is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Mental Health within the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health at the University of Melbourne. Dr. Hart has been working in population mental health for over a decade. Her research focuses on developing, evaluating and disseminating training programs for the public to improve prevention, awareness and help-seeking for mental illness. Her research has been recognized with multiple awards, including a 2019 Society for Mental Health Research and Australian Rotary Health Research Impact Award, and a 2017 Australia Endeavour Award to spend 6-months working with Harvard University’s Strategic Training Initiative for the Prevention of Eating Disorders in Boston, USA.

She is currently working on two programs. Confident Body, Confident Child is a parenting program to promote body satisfaction, balanced eating patterns and physical activity in children aged 2-6 years. The teen Mental Health First Aid program is training course for secondary school students to learn how to assist a peer who is developing a mental health problem or experiencing a mental health crisis, such as thinking about suicide. Laura is also a mum to two young boys who are constantly teaching her about child development.