Safe and Equal @ Work Program Event: Workplace supports for family violence victim-survivors

Front from left to right: Rosie Batty, Harshita Rupanagudi, Eliza Venville, Dr Rebecca Stewart and Liana Papoutsis.

Back from left to right: Jasmine Mead, Dr Ellen Reeves, Professor Kate Fitz-Gibbon and Dr Emma McNicol.

We were absolutely thrilled to host our inaugural Safe and Equal @ Work program event on 14 October 2022.

Our event examined ‘Workplace supports for family violence victim-survivors’ and had a brilliant line up of keynote speakers and panellists including leading advocates, practitioners, and academics.

EVENT PROGRAM

Click here to download a copy of the event program.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS View

We are thrilled to announce two keynote speakers for this event:

Catherine Fitzpatrick works with businesses to make products and services more flexible, safe and equitable for customers. She has established and led specialist customer vulnerability teams at two of Australia’s leading banks, following diverse roles across ASX-listed companies, the not-for-profit sector, government and journalism. After instigating analysis that found patterns of abuse in payment descriptions, Catherine successfully advocated for the Australian banking industry to take collective action to respond. She is known for her passion for gender equality and the role business can play to end domestic violence and was recognised nationally in 2018 as an AFR 100 Women of Influence.

Catherine advises the Commonwealth Government on workplace and customer responses to domestic and financial abuse, as the only business representative appointed in 2021 to the National Plan Advisory Group. She was also appointed as a member of the Monash Safe and Equal @ Work Advisory Board in 2022. She is currently writing a series of issues papers for the Centre for Women’s Economic Safety on reimagining products to improve financial safety.

Commissioner Niki Vincent is Victoria’s first Commissioner for Gender Equality in the Victorian Public Sector and indeed the only such Commissioner in Australia. She is responsible for overseeing the implementation of the Gender Equality Act 2020 and plays a key leadership role in promoting gender equality in the Victorian community and workplaces.

Prior to her role as Commissioner, Niki served as the Commissioner for Equal Opportunity in South Australia from May 2016 to September 2020 and as Chief Executive Officer of the Leaders Institute of SA. Across a number of roles Niki has demonstrated a keen interest in, and commitment to a wide range of local, national and global issues – particularly those involving gender equality, equal opportunity and human rights.

PANELLISTS View

In addition to our two keynote speakers, the event will provide a platform for leading experts to discuss different aspects of workplace supports for family violence victim-survivors across four panels.

Confirmed panellists for the event include:

Ludo McFerran AM

Ludo McFerran A.M. has worked in the Australian domestic violence sector since 1978. She pioneered policy on support systems to enable women and children to stay safely in their homes, and the introduction of domestic violence rights and entitlements in Australian industrial and discrimination instruments, managing the national Safe at Home, Safe at Work program funded by the Commonwealth Labor Government from 2010-2013. Ludo was attached to the Women and Work Research Group at the University of Sydney Business School. She is currently advising a Chinese project on implementing new legislated requirements to protect DV affected Chinese workers and recently contributed to international bulletins on managing DV during the COVID pandemic.

Carolyn Bond: Project Manager Economic Abuse Reference Group, Women's Legal Service Victoria

Carolyn Bond has worked in consumer policy and advocacy roles for over 30 years, mainly within the community legal services sector. For the past 5 years she has co-ordinated the Economic Abuse Reference Group (EARG), an informal network of over 20 community organisations which aims to influence industry responses to economic abuse. EARG was initially established in Victoria following the Royal Commission into Family Violence. The network is now national and includes community legal services, financial counsellors and family violence organisations.

Lisa Pusey: Program Director, Champions of Change

Lisa Pusey is an independent consultant on gender equality currently working with several organisations including Elizabeth Broderick & Co, the University of Sydney, and the Champions of Change Coalition leading the Coalition’s work on workplace responses to domestic and family violence.

Patty Kinnersly: CEO, Our Watch

Patty Kinnersly is a leading health, welfare and education professional and has extensive governance experience, serving on the boards of Ballarat Health Services, the Australian Women's Health Network, Rural Northwest Health, and Child and Family Services Ballarat. She is currently Vice President of the Carlton Football Club Board, the first Board Director to oversee its women’s football programs.

Jacqui Watt: CEO, No To Violence

Jacqui Watt is the Chief Executive Officer of No to Violence, Australia’s largest peak body for organisations that work with men who use family violence, and the operator of the Men’s Referral Service. Jacqui specialises in leadership development, coaching, workshop facilitation, and change management.

Lula Dembele: Manager Gender Equity, Women’s Health in the South East

Lula Dembele is a specialist in gender relations and anti-patriarchal systems change. Combining lived experience and professional expertise in strategic policy and gender mainstreaming, Lula is dedicating her efforts to working on systemic and cultural change to prevent and reduce violence against women.

Professor Alan Duncan: Director, Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre, and John Curtin Distinguished at Curtin University.

Alan ranks among the top 5% of economists worldwide and is published widely in both academic and policy outlets of the highest international reputation. His research is motivated by a passion to influence public debates on economic and social issues through rigorous, evidence-based research.

Dr Peter Streker: Director, Community Stars

Dr Peter Streker is a community psychologist who has primarily worked with complex trauma in various sectors, such as family violence, anti-racism, homelessness, street sex work, alcohol and drug use for over 25 years. He is currently exploring how new technologies (Virtual Reality) can be used to prevent and reduce violence.

Dr Emma Fulu: Founder and Executive Director, The Equality Institute

Dr Emma Fulu is a feminist activist, social entrepreneur and one of the world’s leading experts on violence against women and girls. Emma has worked all over the world including for the United Nations and other large global programs dedicated to advancing gender equality.

Emily Maguire: CEO, Respect Victoria

Emily is a passionate leader dedicated to ending violence against women. Emily is the former CEO of Domestic Violence Resource Centre Victoria, and has also held a number of policy roles across the Department of Education and Office for Women.

Lisa Darmanin: Branch Secretary, Australian Services Union, Victorian and Tasmanian Authorities and Services Branch

Lisa has worked across local government, the community sector and public service in roles including advancing gender equality and family violence prevention. Lisa was inducted into the Victorian Honour Roll for Women in 2016 in recognition for significant contribution to the Victorian Community, specifically in achieving gender equity for women, along with being the inaugural winner of the Zelda D’Aprano Activist Award by Victorian Trades Hall Council in 2015 as most outstanding female activist for her work in the Community Services Equal Pay case and leadership in delivering world first family violence workplace entitlements.

Fiona Austin-Weber, Senior Manager, Member Relations

Fiona supports Diversity Council Australia’s (DCA) member organisations in building their workplace Diversity and Inclusion capability through optimising DCA’s vast range of Diversity and Inclusion best practice resources. Fiona is also a facilitator of DCA’s popular Knowledge Programs and creates virtual learning and communications content. With a background in both not-for-profit and corporate sectors in Australia, the UK and Germany, Fiona’s professional experience includes a wide range of operational areas for a diverse range of organisations.

Dr Rebecca Stewart: Gender Equality Research Fellow, Safe and Equal @ Work Program, Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre

Rebecca is an interdisciplinary researcher whose experience and interests focus on primary prevention and behaviour change in the gender equality field. Her recently submitted doctoral thesis investigated healthier masculinities from a gender equality perspective, focusing on primary prevention interventions.

Dr Emma McNicol: Gender Equality Research Fellow, Safe and Equal @ Work, Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre

Emma has published widely on feminist theory, intersectionality, violence against women, feminist literature and cinema, and the recipient of the Cecile Parrish Memorial Scholarship. Emma has also developed and implemented gender equality and LGBTQI+ inclusive educational suites at secondary schools in the UK and Australia.

Liana Papoutsis: Expert in Family Violence, Lived Experience & Human Rights, Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre

Liana Papoutsis is a highly experienced human rights, international relations and law academic, family violence and social change advocate. Liana draws on her own lived experience of surviving and starting life again after family violence to inform foundational key family violence reforms and is committed and determined to improving safety and support for women who are leaving violent or abusive relationships.

Professor Kate Fitz-Gibbon: Director, Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre

Kate is an internationally recognised researcher in the field of family violence, criminal justice and service system responses to violence against women, and the impact of criminal law reform in Australia and internationally. Kate is also the Chair of Respect Victoria.

EVENT FACILITATORS View

All panels will be facilitated by Kate Fitz-Gibbon and Rosie Batty.

Professor Kate Fitz-Gibbon is the Director of the Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre and Professor of Social Sciences in the Faculty of Arts at Monash University

She also holds affiliated research appointments with the School of Law and Social Justice at University of Liverpool (Honorary Research Fellow, 2016-2020) and the Research Center on Violence at West Virginia University (2019).

Kate’s qualifications include a PhD in Criminology (2012), Masters of Human Rights Law (2019), Graduate Certificate of Higher Education (2013) and she is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Kate has been a visiting scholar in the Centre for Criminology at Oxford University (2013), The Faculty of Law at University of Auckland (2015) and the School of Justice at Queensland University of Technology (2015).

Kate conducts research in the area of domestic and family violence, femicide, responses to all forms of violence against women, and the impacts of law reform in Australia and internationally. This research is undertaken with a key focus on issues relating to gender, constructions of responsibility and justice. The findings of Kate’s research have been published in books, academic journals, funded reports and presented at national and international criminology conferences.

Kate has received over $11 million in external research funding to support her research. This includes from the Australian Research Council, Australian National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety, Australian Institute of Criminology, Commonwealth Department of Social Services, Commonwealth Office for Women, Victorian Government, and Victoria Police. In 2015 Kate was awarded the prestigious Peter Mitchell Churchill Fellowship to examine innovative and best practice legal responses to the prevention of intimate homicide in UK, United States and Canada.

Kate has advised on homicide law reform, family violence and youth justice reviews in several Australian jurisdictions. Kate’s 2014 sole-authored book, Homicide Law Reform, Gender and the Provocation Defence: A Comparative Perspective (Palgrave Macmillan), was cited by the High Court of Australia in Lindsay v The Queen [2015] HCA 16.

In 2021 Kate was appointed Chair of Respect Victoria by the Victorian Government. She is the former Chair of the Barwon Centre against Sexual Assault, Monash City Council Gender Equity Committee, and the Victorian Government’s Expert Advisory Committee on Perpetrator Interventions.

Rosie Batty became an outspoken crusader against family violence following the murder of her son, Luke, in February 2014. Through her personal tragedy she stepped into a leadership role to advocate for victims impacted by family violence and to challenge the victim-blaming narrative. She was named Australian of the Year in January 2015 and made the most of her position of influence by advocating for systemic reform and gender equality. During her tenure as Australian of the Year, Rosie was made Deputy Chair and Foundation member of the COAG Advisory Panel on Reducing Violence against Women and in 2016 became the inaugural Chair of the Victim Survivor’s Advisory Council for the Victorian Government.

Rosie has been inducted into the Victorian Honour Roll of Women and is a recipient of the Pride of Australia National Courage Medal. She received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of the Sunshine Coast for her contribution to raising national awareness and action concerning family violence, and an Order of Australia in the 2019 Queen’s birthday honour’s list. Rosie is also a Board Director for the Royal Women’s Hospital, Patron of both the Australian Childhood Foundation and Doncare Community Services, and Co-Chair of the White Ribbon Advisory Council.