Sarah Leary is the Assistant Commissioner for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander policy and reporting at the Productivity Commission (PC). A proud Palawa woman, she is the first Indigenous person to be appointed to the PC’s Senior Executive Service.
In this role, Sarah provides leadership to three teams responsible for the PC’s Closing the Gap research and data reporting programs, including the Closing the Gap Information Repository and the delivery of three-yearly reviews of progress on the National Agreement.
Prior to joining the Commission, Sarah completed postgraduate research at the London School of Economics in the field of International Strategy and Diplomacy. She is an Honorary Fellow in First Nations Foreign Policy at the Perth USAsia Centre.
She is a former journalist and diplomat who worked at Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) for 14 years. As a diplomat she served on multiple postings to Solomon Islands, Vietnam, Cambodia and the US and as an advisor to Australia’s Ambassador for Women and Girls. Between 2022 and 2023 she served as Director at the Australian Attorney-General’s Department, where she led the development of a $100m initiative to reduce First Nations incarceration rates through community-led justice reinvestment.