Over my working life, I have had many and varied jobs, some ordinary, mainstream positions, and some have been specifically designed for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander community members. In my late 30s I decided to go university and seek other work which would offer greater long term employment opportunities. I did not complete that degree but I did enter into the Commonwealth public service.
During my entry level time in the public service I volunteered as a union delegate, and this was a master class in management as I got to hear, see and review hundreds of management decisions from a vast array of management styles, informing my own interest in people management as a practice. This was also at a time when the public service had rigorous in-house management training. I ultimately obtained a position in quality management, overseeing an adjusted frontline management course to be delivered to junior managers and developing leaders.
Koori Court, University & Advancing Community Need
In the early 2000s, I took up a role as the Koori Court Manager at the Melbourne Magistrates Court. It was the first time I had taken up a role identified specifically to be filled by a person from the Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander community, and represented a very different world. Just prior to that time, the public service organisation I was working with had ‘fast tracked’ me to leadership development, and I had obtained a scholarship to attend university and undertake an undergraduate degree in coaching. When the Koori Court opportunity came up, I was interested in applying the skills I had learned through my work in the public service to Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander programs, and participate in advancing the needs of the community I belonged to.
My first experience of that was the day I started working, when I asked, as any Manager does, what my staffing profile, budget status and project status was, and to book me into meetings with HR and finance admin. I recall being perplexed when told not to worry about finance management as that was handled outside my position, even though my position description said budget management. I had also come from a similar position with a similar budget to manage. I was interested in this resistance. Why was I not being tasked with something every manager is expected to manage?
It was the first experience I had in my working life of what I would call systemic racism, where there were assumptions about my capabilities and capacity without me being involved in the conversation. These assumptions were not based on my work history or track record, which was exemplary. I identified that fundamentally they were based on my identity. And they were immovable. Ignoanugo (2022) discusses the need for demonstrable fairness and access to opportunities for a workplace to be inclusive and supportive of diversity. This research further goes on to discuss the highly negative impacts scrutinising of marginalised staff can have in workplaces, where poor leadership leads to diminished self-efficacy and confidence, sometimes resulting in physical and mental health issues. Sadly though, poor management practices persist in workplaces which specifically recruit Aboriginal community members in to achieve outcomes the organisation could not achieve without them.
Cross-Cultural Workplace Issues
It remains a vexed issue and at times it seems that organisations actively support managers to manage in a way that is outside the organisation’s own best interests and strategies intended to achieve its goals. Or to put it more simply, in my experience, when Aboriginal staff complain about cultural incompetence in their Managers, the organisation very often has no idea of how to appropriately respond to that. So much so that I started a HR consultancy purely based on providing cross-cultural mediation to support effective conflict resolution where cultural issues were raised as performance issues.
Embedded Racism
With regard to embedded racism, I had had a similar experience many years before, with one of my favourite cousins, Roslyn. Roslyn lived in Portland and was a similar age. In our early 20s, I often travelled to stay with her, or she would catch up with me when she was in Melbourne. On one beautiful, sunny spring day in Melbourne, we both found ourselves at a pub in Fitzroy for lunch, which extended to a lazy afternoon in the pub’s beer garden. I noticed when I went to get drinks I was served promptly, but when Roslyn went, she could be 15 minutes or more to be served in a nearly empty bar on a Monday afternoon.
I started to watch when Roslyn went to get drinks and noticed the bar person would move away and turn their back to her. I went to the bar to enquire as to the problem with getting service and Roslyn clearly indicated to me to not make a fuss. When we got back to the table she was laughing, asking me why I thought it would be any different, sitting where we were, in a pub in the heartland of Aboriginal community from the 60s and 70s, looking the way she looked.
Then I was startled and realised the difference. To that bar staff member, I was a white person, fair skin, brown hair, green eyes. Roslyn was markedly dark skinned with a chocolate eye colour and black hair. Growing up as a mixed bag of Aboriginal cousins, I never really noticed the differences in our various appearances. We were all treated equally, and I don’t recall anybody talking about our different appearances. I was not ready for blatant racism,
Privilege and Bureaucracy
I had not really had to see it so obviously and unashamedly visible and I was outraged. It marked a specific time in my life when I realised there were people in the world who were so privileged they felt comfortable judging someone else based on arbitrary standards of their own. And I experienced that again in my work at Koori Courts. The same oblique thousand-yard stare when I tried to navigate the bureaucracy, and the implacable lack of insight and understanding as to the issues. The purity of the lens of privilege was extraordinary. And I learned that people who have lived in that world and developed that capacity do not have catalyst moments where they see the need for change. They bemoan and mourn a lost world whenever the rights of marginalised people are advanced, and they are not useful or helpful to any social justice cause.
After Koori Courts I worked in Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations at a time when the Boards were still very ‘old school’ and Board nominations were largely determined by personal relationship. Bringing good governance into these organisations was a matter of patience and determination. They were reluctant to leave their ways of doing things because they feared becoming too mainstream.
Applying a Cultural Lens and Cultural Authority
Many organisations have since done some good work on cultural authority and cultural governance practices which make them suitable to undertake the systems change work and advocacy required to address the impacts of colonisation. Scrutiny from Government in my experience was either over the top or barely present. Governments struggle to apply a cultural lens over procurement, contract management and relationship management and seem to bound and rebound in equal parts between being frightened and intimidated by cultural authority and being arrogant and blasphemous about it.
This lack of capability creates an uneven approach to the work and leaves some Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations exhausted and resource poor from trying to meet Government expectations. The impact of poverty and disadvantage is a stress response in your brain and body, telling you to take flight, fight, flop or freeze. Sadly at times, Governments bring that experience of living in poverty and disadvantage to their contract management processes. The feeling is one of alarm and/or distress where you feel your safety or survival is at risk.
The Business of Addressing Over Representation, Intergenerational Trauma and Disadvantage
Because Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations are funded differently and managed differently to other contracts, there can be confusion and obscurity over how contracts are managed, and there exist no comparison measure for Aboriginal Community Controlled organisations to test that they are being treated fairly.
This feeling of fighting for the organisation’s survival at every meeting eventually wears you down.
Are we in the business of reconciliation and addressing over representation, intergenerational trauma and the consequent disadvantage or are we not? This work is also highly political, so it is not just bureaucracy that will impact on your ability to achieve outcomes, changes in Government can erase all gains you have made by abrupt changes in policy. Our allies and friends who stand with us in this work are few, and valuable as a result. These are organisations who work with us on joint funding submissions, take the lead in contracts and then ensure the contract can be transferred to Aboriginal Community Control, ask questions in forums and conferences that would attract punitive consequences if it were put forward by an Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisation. Racism is present in this country. If you have got this far in reading and don’t believe that to be true, I would not recommend reading further. This is not the article for you.
Allies and Calling Out Racism
The forms which racism takes are surprising and inconsistent. Allies are those who stand so close to us there is no daylight between us and are outraged in calling racism out and swift in taking action against it. In my days of working in Aboriginal Community Control I found my strongest ally at Jesuit Social Services, and I would often visit there for a rest or relief from the day to day brutal survival tactics required when working in Aboriginal Community Control. I will always be grateful and remember fondly the picnic tables out the back of the Brosnan Centre and the grace and warm regard I received from Daniel Clements and Julie Edwards.
Through all these varied exploits across an array of workplaces, I was learning, refining and defining my understanding of effective management and applying all of my own intersectionality to the practice of management. Eventually I completed an undergraduate qualification in people management and post graduate certificates in psychology and education. I had still not found a workplace where my intersectional self could be fully visible, and where I was seen, heard and accepted.
A Journey into Mainstream Leadership
After more than 10 years in the Aboriginal Community Controlled sector and 15 years working in Aboriginal community an opportunity came up to apply all the skills and capability I had developed on trauma informed service delivery to a mainstream organisation. I applied for the job wondering if I would even get an interview. I apply for jobs the same way others might shop for clothes, so I’m always reasonably aware of the market for my skills and opportunities available. I consistently did not get interviews for mainstream roles, and where I did, I was not successful. I wondered about whether I needed more skills, if I was not demonstrating my capabilities well enough, and that pesky thought, was it something about my intersectionality, my gender, Aboriginality, disability, age?
Once I got the interview, I was curious to see what the opportunity was. As much as I enjoy being interviewed for a role, I am similarly interviewing the organisation for suitability for me. At this interview, I got to meet some Board members and I was immediately fascinated, inspired and energised. This was a different experience. I have literally undertaken hundreds of job interviews because I enjoy the process and its a bit of a hobby.
This Board immediately demonstrated sincerity, curiosity and were clear in their expectations. This was not a test of whether I could answer arbitrary questions such as ‘tell us about a time when you resolved a conflict at work’ and whether I could provide neat answers that met the legal responsibilities for safety at work. The interview was more of a yarn, across topics far ranging.
The safety of the environment created at interview provided a space to engage about my beliefs, my world views, my aspirations for the work and what I thought was realistic to achieve. My Aboriginality was neither amplified or minimised, it simply was. The Board were interested to hear my experiences living with a disability, as an older leader and manager, as an Aboriginal community leader, as a female leader. It was a rewarding and enriching experience, I think because the Board members were genuinely interested in getting the right person and were wanting to test candidates knowledge and capability quite thoroughly.
I think also it was the first Board interview I had had which focussed on the person as much as the skillset being demonstrated. I say that to young and developing managers all the time, that you manage the person, not the position and you have to be curious and interested as a manager, being competent just won’t cut it. I found the Board reflected this belief well and I had a number of interviews with them where we explored and shared our understanding of leadership, and overall we seemed to have a strong alignment.
I was at an event recently and the guest speaker eloquently said you should never have to come to work feeling you need to hide part of yourself to be accepted, and your clients should never come to your service feeling they have to hide part of themselves to be able to access support. It was one of those lovely, rare moments in life when a truth is spoken and resonates with everyone present. My wish for everyone is that we could all have that level of inclusion and safety. If your workplace is built to accommodate the most disadvantaged and marginalised, it will be built to ensure everyone thrives.
Embedding Intersectional Justice in the Workplace
As an employer seeking to take genuine steps towards reconciliation, ensuring respectful and safe workplaces which celebrate and embrace intersectionality, it is an essential action to take to address the systems of domination (patriarchy, capitalism) and institutionalised processes (racialisation, gendering) that compound multiple forms of discrimination, inequality and disadvantage (Luiz & Terziev 2024).
You may find yourself doing what your company’s advisors say is best practice with inclusion and diversity and not see that alive and applied in your workplace on a day to day basis, still be vexed by a high attrition rate for intersectional employees when you so genuinely believe in the need to take action on reconciliation. Reviewing your policies and procedures with regard to dominant systems and institutionalised processes will help you find a clearer path to achieving your goals.
I’ve been in my current role for 15 months, and my relationship with Board and staff is based on our shared understanding of our goals, to eliminate sexual violence in western metropolitan Melbourne and to uphold our values of compassion, inclusion, safety, empowerment and collaboration. The Board have been a great source of advice, guidance and direction under the strategic plan and our operational plans.
At no time have I ever felt a shift in the relationship, where my skills, capability or capacity are questioned because of an element of my intersectionality. Shore et al (2017) describe the ‘microinequities’ and ‘microaggressions’ which indicate subtle discrimination cues, and these can be verbal, behavioural or environmental and definitely communicate a devaluation of an individual’s contributions and inclusion. Aboriginal community members are hypervigilant and sensitively attuned for these cues, even if they do not appear to notice. A truism for Aboriginal community members in my experience is that they notice everything but rarely make comment. It is important to ensure an organisation vigorously protects against microinequities and microaggressions and demonstrates a zero tolerance for these behaviours.
It has been my experience that this intersectional feminist Board I report to and work with has developed a Board culture that seamlessly applies the fraught and potential downfalls of intersectional safety where elements of intersectionality and the systems that oppress or create blockers for people are unconscious and thus being not visible, are unable to be addressed.
Put more eloquently than I can muster, when we take the political intersectionality of identity, categories of difference, processes of differentiation and the systems of domination that exist, and compare it to the intersectionality brought to feminist strategies, recognising that privileged and disadvantaged groups exercise power in parallel at times, it is possible for true intersectionality to be applied, intentionally and thoughtfully in Board or employer practices and will produce a collective, shared power which enhances and elevates each person’s intersectionality without diminishing any other (Muñoz-Puig, 2021).
True Inclusion Requires Structural Change
Shore et al (2017) go on to discuss elements of inclusion as team building, information sharing, diverse thinking, providing mechanisms for voice and communication, participation in decision making, group discussion, fairness systems, caring and support from managers, tolerance for difference of points of view and allowing mistakes. These are all elements of an inclusive workplace, and if they are able to be embedded into policy and procedure and demonstrably practised every day at all levels, this will truly constitute an inclusive workplace. As a side note to this, inclusion also involves making no assumptions, thinking through your privilege (if any) and truly and sincerely taking steps to ensure no ambiguity or possible exposure for lack of mainstream understanding or expectations of behaviour are present.
This can be as simple as ensuring small groups don’t consistently have lunch together or go to coffee together. Lunches and coffees are expensive, expecting people to include themselves in these activities assumes disposable income they may not have. Similarly, after hours and weekend activities do the same. Collective communities have many responsibilities and rarely have time that can be allocated towards networking and relationship building after hours.
Building time for those things into a workday will support that person to build the same networks and relationships. It isn’t enough to follow the law as it relates to inclusion and safety, to do truly well at this you need to think of all aspects of working together and anticipate where any pitfalls might arise. A truly trusting and reciprocal working relationship will establish the safety for these and all other opportunities and potential pitfalls in a workplace to be planned and managed to ensure inclusion and safety for all. This Board does that in a way that elevates the notion of inclusion and safety to where it should always be.
The staff of the organisation do not treat me as other as well, for which I am grateful. There is a genuine warm interest in learning about my culture, but there is no expectation I am an expert, or that I have a responsibility to share information or knowledge about my culture. I am working in an organisation that has aspirations of a safer and better world for everyone, where the people I work with believe we can achieve our goals, and where everyone who comes to work is included and supported, as long as their values align with the goals of the organisation. This is refreshing and very similar to Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations.
Elevating Aboriginal Voices
Ignoanugo (2022) discusses key elements of inclusion in the workplace as belongingness and uniqueness. Both of these elements resonate with Aboriginal community members, as a people who are collective by nature, and as the oldest continuous living culture in the world. Ignoanugo goes on to discuss elements of a workplace that create inclusion and support diversity as having flexibility to accommodate family and cultural responsibilities. These are all important aspects of a workplace for Aboriginal community members to feel safe and supported.
However, when offering solutions, Ignoanugo (2022) suggests mentorship as one element that can develop more inclusive and diverse leadership. As an Aboriginal community member, I find this a challenge. In my mainstream workplaces, mentors were sourced organically. You did work for a colleague or manager and found them agreeable, as they did you, and your working relationship developed into a mentorship. The focus for Aboriginal community members to have to formally seek mentors and go through some sort of interview/approval process creates an artificial environment that does not promote inclusion and diversity. Government departments are often lured into thinking mentorships with senior government bureaucrats is a form of inclusion and actively demonstrates their commitment to reconciliation. In my experience, these mentorships are teaching Aboriginal leaders to assimilate into mainstream ways of being, rather than elevating Aboriginal voices in leadership. For that reason, these kinds of mentorships often nominally advance an Aboriginal leader’s career, but I have rarely seen a direct outcome to be improvement for Aboriginal communities.
This leads to a reflection on my experiences sitting on Boards, of Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations and mainstream organisations because you cannot talk about reconciliation without asking the question around visibility of and respect for First Nations people in your society. All of the above elements of reconciliation actions that can be taken apply to my experiences with Board as well.
Many Boards are still challenged in how to provide cultural safety and elevate First Nations voices without being tokenistic or superficial. There has been work done on cultural safety at Boards, and it is encouraging to see more First Nations leaders, particularly women and transgender folk in the community take up these roles and thrive in them.
Cultural Safety and Governance Responsibility
For me personally, I applied for one Board because I am compelled to do whatever I can and take whatever steps I can to reduce the impacts of trauma on children. I am a believer in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. What happens for me on Boards is that these major pieces of work are sometimes relegated to specific strategies or plans, or worse yet, media moments where the organisation takes the pain and shame of the cycles of poverty and disadvantage of our mob to shamelessly pursue funding, position or power.
On this Board, I found a safe place which allowed me to advocate for those things I was passionate about and firmly believed would create safe, secure connections for children without my contribution being seen as purely from an Aboriginal community lens. I had found this on other Boards, we would discuss strategic decisions regarding managing budget or risk and I would barely be recognised, but when it came to discussing Aboriginal specific budget or risk, suddenly I was the ‘expert’ in the room and the burden of representing the needs of all Aboriginal communities across a particular geographical area, especially when most of it is not your traditional area is a huge weight to bear, and also is not deliverable. I would find myself speaking less about Aboriginal specific matters because I did not want anyone to be able to take that as a solid truth of all people in the community.
I did find a Board that applies the same intersectionality as my workplace, all people at Board have their areas of expertise and special interests and are respected and heard. There is never competition to speak, or a feeling that there must be one way of doing things. In my first and second term I became so comfortable and safe at this Board I expressed interest in being the Chair. I was elected unopposed.
The natural, instinctive behaviour of this Board to take an opportunity to recognise and respect First Nations female leadership at Board level was a wonderful experience. There are people on this Board who have spent years working in or with Aboriginal Community Controlled organisations, and it shows in their expert knowledge. The ways of being in community where all voices are heard and the work is collective, and collaborative is recognised as an effective Board governance approach and time and space is made for conversations to be held this way. I can’t run a meeting any other way, so it has to be this way and I’m grateful I didn’t have to do any education or advocacy for people on this Board to just naturally adjust to this approach to our shared work.
Having strong allies on the Board who know the way mob works helps as well, because they advocate tirelessly for the elements of budget and risk management they know will bring the desired improvements for Aboriginal families. By creating safety at the Board table, by being so collegiate and inclusive, this Board found itself in the position of appointing the first ever Aboriginal community member to be a chair.
It’s impossible to truly articulate how it feels to be appreciated for your whole self without limitations or explanations. I had sat at Boards where people had made the most culturally deaf statements, hurtful and defeating, as an Aboriginal person you have to decide whether today is the day to address the comment, should you do it privately, raise it with the chair, how does it impact on good governance and what does it say about cultural safety in the organisation if there are Board members with little or no willingness to be inclusive and intersectional.
Avoiding having these issues negatively impact Aboriginal Board members starts at the way position descriptions are written, the constitution of the organisation (or the Act that governs it), the recruitment processes, board professional development and all of the other actions I have discussed above, ways to avoid microaggressions and microinequities, acknowledging the power imbalances in the room in a way that does not make the Aboriginal person responsible for making the changes or adjustments.
All the elements of cultural safety and active reconciliation that I’ve threaded through this reflection. It is also of great value to have a CEO leading the organisation who embodies these same principles of cultural safety and respect for intersectionality. This Board’s CEO is effortless in her capacity to apply an intersectional and inclusive approach to all of the work she does at Board. Working with a leader of the organisation who is genuinely and actively committed to true reconciliation is heartening and affirms my belief that I am on the right board, at the right time to achieve impact and outcomes for babies, toddlers, families and communities in western metropolitan Melbourne.
Safe Spaces and Trust: The Foundations of Cultural Wellbeing
Real and true reconciliation is the repairing and building of trust when trust is broken. For me, navigating Boards and organisations starts with trust, and then I work backwards. So I assume everyone has done the work required to ensure self determination for Aboriginal communities, and then if it is demonstrated otherwise, I lose trust and faith and ultimately I leave that organisation. Elders I have worked with are wonderful and generous in forgiveness.
Breaches of trust can be mended if the person is accountable for their actions, takes responsibility and makes the harm right as best they can. These Elders make me feel humble, because I have experienced far less aggressive racism and discrimination but I am slower to forgive and grant second chances. I learn every day better ways to be my true and authentic self and live in a culturally centered, and thus safe, way. Having safe places to work and make contributions to the community are essential for wellbeing and resilience, so I can continue doing these things.
In National Reconciliation Week 2025, artwork created by Kalkadoon woman Bree Buttenshaw uses native plants which are known for regenerating after fire and thriving through adversity − symbolising our collective strength and the possibilities of renewal. Feminism continues to thrive through adversity. Aboriginal communities continue to make advances in exercising self-determination. This is a time for growth, reflection, and commitment to working together.
References
Axes and fluidity of oppression in the workplace: Intersectionality of race, gender, and sexuality, Luiz and Terziev, 2024
Building a Framework for an Inclusive Workplace Culture: The Diversio Diversity and Inclusion Survey, Ignoanugo, Yang and Bigelow, 2022
Inclusive Workplaces: A review and model, Shore, Cleveland, Sanchez, 2017
Intersectional power struggles in feminist movements: An analysis of resistance and counter-resistance to intersectionality, Muñoz-Puig, 2021
Reflections on Reconciliation – The CEO’s Perspective – Liz Murdoch
I write this on the glorious land of the Wadawurrung people and acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land I am so fortunate to live, work and play on. I pay my deepest respect to Elders past and present.
In response to Annette’s compelling and generous piece, Reflections on Reconciliation, I initially questioned what value my own words could add. But that hesitation quickly gave way to gratitude—gratitude for the opportunity to reflect on matters so deeply connected to both my personal and professional life: reconciliation, leadership, equity, and inclusion. Contributing to this conversation, and holding up Annette’s personal account, is a profound privilege. Thank you, Annette.
So, I’m silencing the imposter voice and offering a stream-of-consciousness reflection on what working alongside Annette—as my Board Chair—has meant to me as a CEO. My personal and professional perspectives are deeply intertwined when it comes to reconciliation. I don’t believe they can—or should—be separated. There is another, much-needed piece still to be written: what Annette’s leadership has meant for our organisation’s reconciliation journey. But for now, these are my thoughts—perhaps a hint of that broader impact.
Annette’s writing touches on vital themes, and though rooted in personal experience, it speaks to universal truths. Her words taught, inspired, surprised, and even angered me—though not at her, but at the continuing injustice they describe. Without placing the burden of “fixing” systemic racism and ignorance on Aboriginal people, we must shift away from hollow gestures and tokenistic virtue-signalling (especially on social media during NAIDOC and NRW) and instead engage in deep listening and truth-telling. Annette’s account challenges us profoundly, urging us to create space in our predominantly white organisations for discomfort, reflection, and growth—critical steps toward genuine reconciliation.
I’ve been lucky to participate in immersive cultural education, led by an inspiring leader, which profoundly changed my perspective. Over several days, our executive team learned the omitted history of pre-colonial Australia and confronted our unconscious biases. It was a reckoning—and the beginning of a transformation. That journey has continued, thanks to the extraordinary Aboriginal women (and some men) I’ve had the honour of working with and welcoming into my life.
Annette’s story is one of professional grace and resilience, told with generosity and humility. Her experiences—of racism, microaggressions, biased assumptions about competency, and invisible emotional labour—are rarely visible to non-Indigenous colleagues, let alone fully understood. Yet she writes without bitterness. If I’d endured even a fraction of those experiences, I suspect my response would be far less measured. Annette’s way of provoking thought and reflection, however, is far more impactful than any outburst could ever be.
She uses her platform to relentlessly advocate for true reconciliation and for equity for vulnerable people. To do that, I’ve seen her navigate and tolerate the bureaucracy embedded in our systems—systems designed more for the comfort of the workforce than the communities they serve.
During a recent “yarn” with Annette—yes, the word appears joyfully in my calendar every few weeks—I clumsily shared some of my frustrations. The term “yarn” has come to replace the usual “Accountability Meeting with Board Chair” or “1:1,” and it makes a world of difference. These conversations are richer, more connected, and infinitely more valuable than structured, agenda-heavy meetings. They’ve influenced how I now lead my own team: less rigid agendas, more meaningful dialogue. And the important discussions always surface.
No matter the topic, Annette consistently brings us back to purpose—the “why” of our work. It’s too easy to lose sight of that in the minutiae of day-to-day tasks. Without purpose at the centre, our alignment weakens, and our impact suffers. While our organisation is committed to equity and inclusion, our reconciliation journey is still young. We tend to reference reconciliation in terms of a “plan,” a “week,” or a piece of artwork, rather than as a foundational value. There is a sincere desire across the team to “get it right,” but a lack of comfort in “getting it wrong first”—which, ironically, is often how deeper insight begins.
Annette reminds me that the sweeping, transformative change I long for must be tempered with patience. Incremental progress is not just acceptable—it’s necessary. I want our reconciliation commitments to extend beyond paperwork and social media posts. I’m fortunate to have a wise and connected Chair whose lived experience and advocacy strengthen our organisation’s efforts.
There’s an irony in Annette being the one to teach me about patience. Her community has had to summon reserves of patience far beyond what most of us will ever know, simply to endure the glacial pace of change in a society that calls itself progressive. Her strength and resilience are shared by so many Aboriginal people who continue to do the hard work of justice and healing despite everything.
What stands out most is the way Annette leads with quiet curiosity instead of justified outrage. Her actions and agency are deeply rooted in culture and community, and they offer a powerful antidote to the cynicism I sometimes feel about our fractured world. In contrast to the complacency of what I half-jokingly call “the entitlement generation,” Annette’s cultural reflex to care for her mob and maintain kinship is a form of leadership the world desperately needs.
What I’ve appreciated most is how she teaches through action—not instruction. Her cultural lens informs everything she does, from how she runs meetings to how she listens. She explains things accessibly, never patronisingly. For example, she once described why she runs meetings the way she does—emphasising the importance of everyone’s voice and taking the time needed to honour each contribution. I’ve heard the term “Aboriginal time” used disparagingly in other contexts, as if efficiency should always trump humanity. But Annette’s approach reminds me that our obsession with order and structure is more about our own comfort than about effectiveness.
Reconciliation isn’t about standardising processes; it’s about shared purpose. Yet we often get stuck clinging to familiar patterns, assuming the majority way must be the “right” way. As the saying goes, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
My proximity to Annette, in my role as CEO, is one of the aspects of my job I value most. She models the kind of leader I aspire to become. In just 18 months, I’ve watched how she chairs our Board—every voice heard, every contribution valued. She skilfully draws out the strengths of individuals to benefit the collective, often simply by listening and creating a safe space for hard conversations. It’s not always easy—anyone who’s worked with a Board knows that—but she does it with humility and grace.
There is always a moment in our meetings where someone acknowledges and thanks another person for their contribution. There is always a return to purpose. Our meetings may run long, but they work. That is diversity and inclusion in action.
Liz Murdoch Tweddle CEO
