The Hatchery

Tania joined the Department of Health in 2015. With a background in social, environmental and economic policy, Tania has more than 20 years of experience as a leader in the Australian Public Service. Tania is currently the Deputy Secretary of the Primary and Community Care Group and is responsible for leading the Department’s work on policies and programs relating to mental health; primary care; population health, prevention and cancer screening; and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health. Most recently she has lead reform in mental health, primary care, women’s health, and taken a key role in the Australian response to COVID and natural disasters.

Tania has worked across several Commonwealth agencies, including the Departments of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Finance, Education and Employment, and Environment and Heritage. She has worked as a regulator in environmental protection and financial management.

She has extensive experience in developing innovative policies and programs, working with diverse stakeholder and industry groups to develop solutions that work. 

Tania holds degrees in Law, psychology and an Executive Master’s degree in Public Administration.

Jody Broun is an Yindjibarndi woman from the Pilbara in Western Australia, who has maintained strong connections to country, community and culture throughout her life. Jody is passionate about social justice, community led co-design, and making a difference through changing the way government does business with Aboriginal communities and stakeholders.

In February 2022, Jody was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the National Indigenous Australians Agency.

Previously Jody was Chief Executive of the Aboriginal Housing Office (AHO). Following the inclusion of the AHO in the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (DPIE), Jody then led work across the Department on Aboriginal Strategy, Our Place On Country, as Group Deputy Secretary Aboriginal Strategy and Outcomes. 

Over the past 30 years Jody has held various senior positions in the government and not-for-profit sectors including: Executive Director Aboriginal Housing and Infrastructure in WA; Director of Equal Opportunity in Public Employment in WA; Director General Department of Aboriginal Affairs in NSW; and Co-Chair of the National Congress of Australia’s First People and Director of NSW and ACT for Australian Red Cross.

Jody has been responsible for delivering community and state wide policy and programs, developing and contributing to national policy reforms, and negotiating national and state government agreements. She has a breadth of experience across housing, health, education, justice, land and culture.

Gemma Van Halderen is a member of the ABS’ Executive Team, leading the Population, Labour, Industry and Location Statistics Division. She joins the ABS after a three year placement with the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific where she led regional statistical capability programmes, was responsible for Inter-Governmental Meetings and initiated a popular Asia-Pacific Stats Cafe series in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2017, Gemma was seconded to the Commonwealth Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to prepare the Government’s response to the Productivity Commission Inquiry into Data Availability and Use.

Gemma is a professional statistician with extensive domestic and international experience. She has represented Australia at the United Nations Statistical Commission and United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management, led Australia’s contribution to OECD Guidelines on Research Ethics and New Forms of Data for social and economic research, and was inaugural Co-Chair of a United Nations Expert Group on the Integration of Statistical and Geospatial Information. Her interests are in improving the range, accessibility and visibility of statistics and data for research, analysis and public policy.

Gemma holds a Bachelor of Science with Honours from the Australian National University. She is an Accredited Australian Statistician and an elected member of the International Statistics Institute. She is a member of the International Association of Official Statistics (IAOS) Executive Committee, the regional editor of the Statistical Journal of the IAOS and an advocate for the IAOS Young Statistician Prize. In 2013, she was a Telstra Business Women finalist in the Community and Government sector (ACT).

Lisiane Barao MacLeod leads our Data Online Systems division, which is responsible for defining and implementing a unified digital experience and data analytics platform that will transform government service delivery.

Lisiane has a long history working in both business and ICT roles, and has unparalleled experience pursuing agency and whole-of-government solutions. This includes platforms like myGov, Digital Identity, and other online services. Lisiane also operates on the forefront of innovative work practices, having been a key player in introducing methodologies such as lean, agile, business modelling and process integration. Moreover, Lisiane is a highly visible multicultural champion for the agency and serves on the national multicultural advisory group. 

Natasha is the Deputy Secretary of the Better Regulation Division in the NSW Department of Customer Service and is also the NSW Fair Trading Commissioner.  

In this role, Natasha is responsible for an extensive portfolio of regulatory functions in place to protect and support businesses and communities in NSW. This includes NSW Fair Trading, SafeWork NSW, Liquor & Gaming NSW, Office of Racing, Office of the Registrar General, Professional Standards Authority, Long Service Corporation and Subsidence Advisory NSW. 

Natasha is an experienced regulator and public policy advisor with over 18 years’ experience leading significant regulatory and public policy reform in the NSW public sector. She has held various senior leadership roles across the government sector in the NSW Department of Communities and Justice, the NSW Department of Premier & Cabinet, NSW Health and the NSW Privacy Commission.

Natasha holds a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) and Bachelor of Laws from the University of Sydney.

Dr Maria Milosavljevic is the inaugural Chief Data Integration Officer at the Department of Defence. In this role, Dr Milosavljevic is responsible for delivering the Defence Data Strategy initiatives; creating and delivering the Defence Business Integration Program which supports the Associate Secretary in his role as Capability Manager for enterprise business systems; driving cultural change around data and business capabilities; and, supporting Defence to become a more data-informed organisation.

Before joining Defence, Dr Milosavljevic spent 3 years at Services Australia, first as the inaugural Chief Data Officer where she was similarly responsible for establishing a new Data and Analytics Division, defining and championing the agency’s data and analytics strategy, and then also as the Chief Information Security Officer where she worked to improve cyber security practices and capabilities. Prior to the above, Dr Milosavljevic worked at AUSTRAC, NSW Government and the

Australian Crime Commission where her roles focused on the creation of leading-edge data analytics/ AI technology, innovation and championing appropriate use of data across Government.

Dr Milosavljevic is an Honorary Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the Australian National University (ANU) and has completed a PhD in Artificial Intelligence on a prestigious scholarship from the Microsoft Research Institute. Dr Milosavljevic graduated from ANU with an Executive Master of Public Administration from the Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG), and is a graduate from the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD).

The Hon. Julia Gillard was the 27th Prime Minister of Australia and the first, and only, woman to serve in that role. In this energising and motivating presentation, Ms Gillard will reflect on her experience with coping under the pressure of leadership and working life, and finding the resilience to successfully manage Australia’s economy, the 12th biggest in the world, during the Global Financial Crisis.

The Hon. Julia Gillard was the 27th Prime Minister of Australia and the first, and only, woman to serve in that role. In this energising and motivating presentation, Ms Gillard will reflect on her experience with coping under the pressure of leadership and working life, and finding the resilience to successfully manage Australia’s economy, the 12th biggest in the world, during the Global Financial Crisis.

Alison Frame commenced as Deputy Secretary Social Policy in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet in August 2020.

Alison has led social policy initiatives and reform across both the Commonwealth and the NSW governments as a senior executive for over 14 years. Most recently, in NSW Government as Group Deputy Secretary, Property and Housing, Alison was responsible for 9 housing and property agencies, including Crown Lands, Property NSW and Land and Housing Corporation.

During her time in other NSW Government senior leadership roles – including as deputy secretary in both the Department of Planning and Environment and Department of Premier and Cabinet – Alison led reforms on child protection, domestic violence, Indigenous policy, disability policy, and Governance.

Prior to this, in the APS, Alison worked in a number of social policy roles, including First Assistant Secretary, Policy and Strategy, Department of Human Services.

Alison holds a Bachelor of Speech-language Pathology and a Bachelor of Political Science from the University of Queensland and a Master of Public Administration from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Rosemary leads the Agriculture and Food Policy and Research Group in the Commonwealth
Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. This Group undertakes research and develops policies and programs to support agriculture, fisheries and forestry industries toward their goal of being a $100 billion sector by 2030. The Group works closely with other Commonwealth, State and Territory agencies and with industry, given the cross-portfolio impacts of many issues facing agriculture, fisheries and forestry and the regional communities they support. These include the impact of climate change, workforce availability, innovation adoption, value adding, industry sustainability and supply chains.

Rosemary has been a senior leader at the Commonwealth level for over 15 years. She has extensive experience advising Ministers, addressing complex policy challenges and leading high performing senior teams, across central, policy and service delivery agencies. She has an Honours degree in Economics and is undertaking a Masters in Public Policy.

Fiona Dillon, CTA, is the ATO’s Chief Tax Counsel, accountable for the ATO’s public advice and guidance, litigation, and resolving the ATO’s most significant tax technical issues.

Fiona previously served as Minister-Counsellor (Taxation) in the Australian delegation to the OECD based in Paris and spent a number of years in private practice.

Fiona is an admitted Australian legal tax practitioner and holds a Bachelor of Commerce, Bachelor of Laws with Honours and a Master of Taxation.

Louise Clarke commenced her role as Deputy Commissioner, Private Wealth, on 23 August 2021 and her experience makes her well placed to lead the business line. Prior to Private Wealth, Louise was the ATO’s Deputy Commissioner for Policy, Analysis and Legislation for just over 3 years. During that time, Louise led the ATO’s contribution to the legislative design of the COVID-19 measures, including Jobkeeper, and contributed to their implementation. Louise has spent an extensive period of her ATO career working in the Tax Counsel Network: she spent 5 years leading ATO strategic litigation and ran significant cases in the Federal Court and the High Court including Chevron, RCF IV and RCI. Louise’s law design experience has spanned across her time in the ATO, including two years seconded to Treasury as a member of the Ralph Review Secretariat, more recently working closely with Treasury in developing redrafted transfer pricing law following the Commissioner’s loss in SNF, leading the ATO’s contribution to a number of legislative of Board of Tax reviews and working of the design and implementation of a raft of new measures including Division 7A and the alienation of personal services income rules.

Vanessa is the Deputy Comptroller-General of Customs in the Australian Border Force and leads the Customs Group, which is responsible for ensuring Australia’s customs and border policy settings allow for the unimpeded movement of legitimate goods across the border, preventing the movement of prohibited goods and detecting, deterring and disrupting criminal and national security threats at borders.

Vanessa also has responsibility for whole of agency ministerial, governance, risk and assurance functions to support and facilitate the ABF’s high-level governance forums, coordinate ministerial and parliamentary engagement and implement the risk management framework and program across the ABF.

Prior to this, Vanessa was the First Assistant Secretary of the National Coordination Mechanism (NCM) within the Department of Home Affairs.  The NCM was established to coordinate and facilitate non-health response measures to the COVID-19 pandemic, through strategic and operational engagement with stakeholders across the Commonwealth, states and territories, industry and the private sector.

Vanessa has also held the role of First Assistant Secretary, Aviation and Maritime Security Division, the security regulator for the aviation, maritime and offshore oil and gas sectors. In this role, Vanessa was responsible for providing advice and assurance to Government on transport security policy, regulation, compliance and practice. 

Vanessa has held other senior executive roles in the Australian Border Force including as the Assistant Commissioner responsible for offshore regional processing arrangements, including regional capacity building efforts, and the onshore immigration detention network. 

In January 2022, Vanessa was awarded a Public Service Medal (PSM) in recognition of her outstanding contributions in support of Australia’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Criminology and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.