Dr Richard Denniss

Executive Director of the Australia Institute, Dr Richard Denniss is a prominent Australian economist, author and public policy commentator, and has spent the last twenty years moving between policy-focused roles in academia, federal politics and think-tanks.

He was also a Lecturer in Economics at the university of Newcastle and former Associate Professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy at ANU. He is a regular contributor to The Monthly and the author of several books including: Econobabble, Curing Affluenza and Dead Right: How Neoliberalism Ate Itself and What Comes Next?

Antonia Burke

Antonia Burke in an independent, self employed community leader from the Northern Territory. She is a Yanyuwa/Garrwa woman from Borroloola, who grew up in Darwin and on the Tiwi Islands. Antonia dedicates her time to healing, guiding and educating First Nations communities across Australia to support people on their journey to empowerment and self-sovereignty. Antonia empowers and supports women through their leadership journey, mentoring women to start their own business and grow their local economy, ensuring cultural integrity and impact on future generations is at the core of decision-making processes. For the past 4 years Antonia has led her community and family on the Tiwi Islands located in the Timor Sea, to stand up for their human right to protect their home from the governments plan to allow fossil fuel companies to mine for gas off their coastline, which threatens their survival, and the survival of all life forms that depend on a healthy ocean.

Craig Foster

Craig Foster AM is a well-known Australian former athlete, broadcaster and social justice campaigner.

With 29 caps for the Socceroos including as the 40th National Captain, Craig was also Captain of Crystal Palace FC in England.

Veteran of a 20+ year broadcast career with SBS television, part of the triple Logie-winning SBS World Cup football coverage and now with Stan Australia.

Well known for his human rights advocacy, his high-profile campaigns include the rescue of a young Bahraini refugee from the Thai Government captured in the book 'Fighting for Hakeem' and the documentary film, 'The Defenders' on Amazon Prime.

Craig also helped many Afghan women and girls to flee the Taliban in 2021 including the Afghan women's National football team and a group of 15 young girls which is captured in the online, award-winning film, 'Die or Die Trying: Escaping the Taliban' and led the successful ‘Game Over' campaign with Amnesty Australia to free hundreds of refugees trapped in Australia's offshore detention regime.

He served as Chair of the Australian player's association where he led the push to gender equality and to recognise Matilda's and female footballers, was Co-Chair of the Australian Republic Movement, Australian Father of the Year in 2023 for his mentoring of youth from all cultural backgrounds, is the face of various anti-racism campaigns, an outspoken and committed advocate for multiculturalism and Member of the Australian Multicultural Council under the Department of Home Affairs, an author, speaker, holds a Masters in Sport, a Bachelor of Laws and in 2024 was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Laws by the University of Wollongong.

David Pocock

Senator David Pocock is Independent Senator for the Australia Capital Territory. Having migrated from Zimbabwe with his family as a teenager, David went on to captain the Wallabies and Vice-Captain the Brumbies as part of a stellar rugby career in which he has been awarded for leadership on and off the field. With a Masters in Sustainable Agriculture, David also has a track record as a powerful advocate on issues ranging from climate to marriage equality. He has been involved in multiple small businesses and has co-founded numerous not-for-profit community initiatives in Australia and overseas, including with his wife Emma. In 2021, David attended the COP26 climate summit and led The Cool Down campaign that saw over 470 Australian athletes from 40+ sports call on the Australian Government to lift its ambition on climate change. After campaigning on a platform of integrity, doing politics differently and making Canberra count, David was successfully elected at the 21 May 2022 Federal Election.

The Hon Doug Cameron

The Honourable Doug Cameron is a former trade unionist and Senator for New South Wales with the Australian Labor Party. He served his apprenticeship as a fitter in Scotland and immigrated to Australia along with his wife and young daughter in 1973. After working in the ship repair, vehicle and power industry he became a full-time union official for the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union in 1981. He has been active in many prominent industrial and political campaigns and became National Secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union in 1996, holding that position until 2007 and entered politics in 2009.

Under the Rudd Government, he served as Parliamentary Secretary for Housing and Homelessness and as Shadow Minister for Housing and Homelessness in opposition. He also served as Chair of the Environment and Communications Committee from 2010-2013, travelling to Antarctica as part of this service.

Dr Emma Shortis

Dr Emma Shortis is Director of the International & Security Affairs Program at The Australia Institute. Emma is historian and writer, focused on the history and politics of the United States and its role in the world. She uses her expertise in history to interpret and explain what is happening in the world today, and what it means for Australia, in a compassionate and accessible way. In a conversation often dominated by the same voices, Emma offers a fresh perspective on international relations grounded in moral questions about how we might imagine a post-American future.

Emma's first book, Our Exceptional Friend: Australia's Fatal Alliance with the United States, was published by Hardie Grant in 2021. She writes regularly for Australian and international outlets, and appears regularly on Australian radio and television.

Dr Helder da Costa

Dr Helder da Costa is the General Secretary of the g7+ Secretariat. He has held this position since 2014. The main role of the General Secretary is to act at the Secretary of the Ministerial Forum and Advisory Council Meetings. Dr. Helder also responsible in close coordination with the Chair, Deputy Chair and Member States for setting up the agenda of the Ministerial Meeting. Dr. Helder oversees the management of the Secretariat including enter into legal agreement on behalf of g7+. He was one of the 18 Sherpas representing the g7+ in the negotiation of the Busan Partnership Agreement for Effective Development Cooperation, OECD in 2011.

Da Costa earned his PhD in Trade Policy at the School of International Applied Economics, University of Adelaide, South Australia, in 2001. He has over 20 years of management experience in the academic and development fields in Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand.

Before joining g7+, He worked as an Advisor on Aid Effectiveness for 5 years to the Ministry of Finance, Timor-Leste. He has also consulted for various international development agencies over the past decade including United Nations Development Program, United Nations, Asia Development Bank, World Bank, AusAID and Australian Center for International Agriculture Research, and it leads him to be a regular contributor to refereed journals on development issues.

Dr. Da Costa's worked as Tertiary Education Manager and the Asia Programme Manager over 6 years with the Asia New Zealand Foundation and the Volunteer Service Abroad (VSA) based in Wellington, New Zealand which overseeing 5 countries in Asia (Bhutan, Lao PDR, Viet Nam, Cambodia, and Timor-Leste).

Her Excellency Ilana Seid

Her Excellency Ms Ilana Victorya Seid currently serves as the Permanent Representative of Palau to the United Nations, a position she has held since 2021. She is also the Sherpa Co-Chair of the High-Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy. In addition to her role at the UN, Ms. Seid has been the Non-Resident Ambassador of Palau to Israel since 2022 and co-chairs the Steering Committee of the Blue Economy and Finance Forum.

Ms Seid's diverse professional background includes founding and leading Sunday-Morning.com, a New York-based venture. Prior to this, she worked in investment banking with Nomura Securities and Lehman Brothers, holding various positions in New York, Mumbai, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. She also gained experience as a software engineer and tech project manager at Assembled Brands

In 2005, Ms Seid was an intern at Palau's Permanent Mission in New York, an early step in her distinguished diplomatic career. Her academic credentials include a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Stanford University.

Jennifer Robinson

Jen Robinson is an award-winning Australian human rights barrister at Doughty Street Chambers in London, specialising in human rights, media, public, and international law. Internationally renowned for her work on high-profile human rights cases, Jen has also acted in landmark climate cases, having dedicated part of her practice to addressing climate change and climate injustice. For the past five years, she has been counsel to the Government of the Republic of Vanuatu in its historic effort to bring states' climate change and human rights obligations to the International Court of Justice, and ‘taking the world's biggest problem to the world's highest court'. Her domestic cases in the UK include litigating to have fracking declared unlawful on climate change grounds and successfully challenged sweeping anti-protest injunctions being used by corporations to shut down climate change protests.

Here at home in Australia, Jen is a founding board member of the Grata Fund, Australia's first independent, public interest litigation fund. The Grata Fund is supporting climate change litigation in Australia, including the class action by Torres Strait Islanders against the federal government for its ongoing failure to take action to protect the islands and their communities from the adverse effects of climate change. More broadly, Jen continues to advocate for more ambitious climate action in Australia and around the world, in recognition of the fact that climate change is the greatest threat to peace and security, to human life and to human rights.

Jonathan Birchall

Jonathan Birchall is teaching Tools for Advocacy, a course focused on providing students with a practical and theoretical overview of cause-focused communication techniques and issues. Jonathan is currently a Lead Communications Officer at the Open Society Foundations, where he has spent the last 9 years engaged in promoting Open Society's work in justice and human rights, as well as advancing and defending the Foundations' reputation and that of its chairman and founder, George Soros.

Prior to joining Open Society, Jonathan spent some 25 years working as a journalist and foreign correspondent, including as a radio and TV reporter for the BBC from 1987 to 1997, and with the Financial Times in London and New York from 2000 to 2011. His journalistic work included periods based in Kuwait, Seoul, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Hanoi, Jerusalem and Tokyo, as well as reporting assignments on conflicts in Croatia, Djibouti, Somalia, Chechnya, the Arab Gulf, and Cambodia.

Mila Rosenthal

Dr Mila Rosenthal is a communicator and educator. At the New York Academy of Sciences, she runs the International Science Reserve, a network of researchers, technologists, and scientific institutions responding to climate-linked disasters. She also co-founded and manages the climate solutions nonprofit Planet Reimagined and teaches climate campaign strategy and human rights advocacy at Columbia University as an Adjunct Professor.

Mila previously served as Director of Communications and Advocacy for the United Nations Development Programme, playing a lead role in the global campaign to promote the Sustainable Development Goals. She held executive positions at Amnesty International, HealthRight International, and Concern Worldwide, and worked in several countries in Africa and Southeast Asia. In Vietnam, the women factory workers who generously shared their lives and labor with Mila for two years gave her the research basis for her PhD in social anthropology from the London School of Economics; and cemented her commitment to working with and on behalf of people and communities to claim their human rights.

Polly Hemming

Polly Hemming is Director of the Climate & Energy program at The Australia Institute. She has extensive experience working in policy, marketing and engagement roles in both not-for-profit and public sectors. Her current work focuses on carbon and environmental markets, climate integrity and greenwashing. Having previously led the development of a government eco-label recognising voluntary climate action by the private sector, she maintains a strong interest in non-state climate ambition and the policies and regulation that interact with this. Polly's previous roles have included academic publishing, remote Indigenous education, refugee advocacy and science communication, bringing a range of perspectives and experiences to her work.

Savenaca Narube

Savenaca Narube was the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Fiji for 9 years and Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance for 4 years. He worked both at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in Washington DC. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce Degree from Canterbury University, and a Master of Commerce with Honours from the University of New South Wales.

Savenaca was the Chairperson of the Reserve Bank of Fiji, Fiji National Provident Fund (FNPF), Fiji International Telecommunications Company (FINTEL), Fiji School of Medicine (FSM), Fiji Revenue and Customs Services (FRCS), Fiji Reinsurance Corporation, and the Rakavi Trust of Fiji. He was a Board Director of the Fiji Sugar Corporation (FSC), Amalgamated Telecommunication Holdings (ATH), Telecommunications Fiji Limited (TFL) and Fiji Electricity Authority (FEA).

Savenaca is the Principal of Narube Consult & Associates (NCA) which specializes in public financial management; economic, fiscal, and monetary strategies; climate financing; and organisational change. Since leaving the Reserve Bank of Fiji in 2009, he has worked extensively across the Pacific through the consultancies with the ADB, the IMF, World Bank, and major regional organisations.

Savenaca is currently a member of the Audit and Risk Committee of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and Chairman of the Audit and Risk Committee of the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA).

Savenaca is the Party Leader of Unity Fiji which is a registered political party in Fiji.

Dr Shanta Barley

Dr Shanta Barley is Chief Climate Scientist at Fortescue, a global green energy, metals and renewable technology company with a market capitalisation of over AU$60 billion, founded by Dr Andrew Forrest in 2003. Fortescue has Real Zero 2030 target which requires the elimination of fossil fuels, without the use of offsets. Shanta is also Chair of the Lethal Humidity Global Council, a body of 100 internationally renowned climate scientists and policy makers dedicated to driving climate policy through research. Shanta did her PhD and post-doctoral research in marine ecology and has a Masters in Oceanography from the National Oceanographic Centre in Southampton, where her research examined the impact of ice melt on seafloor fauna. Shanta studied Biological Sciences at Oxford University, where she was part of the Exploration Club's official kayaking trip to Bintuni Bay, West Papua, in 2002 to assess the impacts of BP's Tangguh gas project on local communities. Prior to working at Fortescue, Shanta was Editor at Minderoo Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic organisations in the Indo-Pacific. From 2007-2011, Shanta worked as a journalist at the BBC, New Scientist and the Guardian in London, in addition to writing for the science journals Nature and Nature Climate Change. She also spent a year and a half working in the remote southwest of Madagascar as a field scientist with a marine conservation NGO. Shanta is an Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Western Australia.

Yuki Tanabe

Yuki Tanabe joined Japan Center for a Sustainable Environment and Society (JACSES) in 2003, and became a Program Director in 2005. He oversees the Sustainable Development and Aid Program (SDAP) including policy and project research and advocacy activities on social and environmental issues in development projects funded by Japanese financial institutions. He also has been a campaign coordinator of Stop Japanese Fossil Finance coalition which is to urge the Japanese financial institutions to stop financing for overseas fossil fuel projects including the JBIC funded Barosa gas project in Australia. He is a member of Development Project Accountability Committee, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Japan, and a member of JICA's Advisory Committee on Environmental and Social Considerations.