Universal Health At Deakin. Global Health Unzipped Proudly sponsored by:
Speakers
Julian Burnside
Richard Di Natale
Julian Burnside is a Barrister of the Supreme Court of Victoria, and has played a pivotal public role through the advocacy for and defence of human rights, particularly with regard to domestic refugee policies. He has accumulated a long list of credentials through his impressive career. From the late 1990s onwards, Burnside began to undertake pro bono legal work on a range of human rights related issues. He acted for Victoria's chief civil liberties organisation in an action against the Australian Government over the Tampa affair and vehemently criticised John Howard’s Government for its mandatory detention of asylum seekers arriving in Australia. With his wife, artist Kate Durham, Burnside set up Spare Rooms for Refugees and Spare Lawyers for Refugees, programs which provide free accommodation and legal representation for refugees in Australia.
Burnside has also acted in several major cases on behalf of Indigenous Australians. Most notably, he acted for Bruce Trevorrow, a member of the Indigenous stolen generation, in which Trevorrow sued the South Australian Government for having removed him from his parents. For the first time in Australian legal history, an Australian government was found liable for such conduct, and the court awarded $500 000 in damages to Mr Trevorrow.
In 2004 Burnside was awarded the Human Rights Law Award by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and sponsored by the Law Council of Australia for his pro-bono legal work for asylum seekers and for his work in establishing Spare Lawyers for Refugees. Also in 2004, he was elected an Australian Living Treasures. In 2007 he received the Australian Peace Prize from the Peace Organisation of Australia.
Senator Richard Di Natale is the leader of the Australian Greens. He was elected to the federal parliament in 2010 and is the Greens' first Victorian Senator. His portfolios include health, multiculturalism, youth, gambling and sport.
Prior to entering parliament, Richard was a general practitioner and public health specialist. He worked in Aboriginal health in the Northern Territory, on HIV prevention in India and in the drug and alcohol sector. His key health priorities include preventative health, public dental care and responding to the health impacts of climate change.
Richard is also fighting hard for human rights in West Papua, greater transparency in the pharmaceuticals industry and timely access to cost-effective drugs through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. He believes in public health policies that put science and evidence above politics.
Richard is the Chair of the Senate Select Committee into the Abbott Government's Budget Cuts and Deputy Chair of the Senate Select Committee into Health. He is the co-convenor of the Parliamentary Friends for Drug Policy and Law Reform, the Parliamentary Friends of West Papua and the Parliamentary Friends of Medicine.
Richard, his wife Lucy and two young sons live on a working farm in the foothills of Victoria's Otway Range. The son of Italian migrants, Richard grew up in Melbourne. He played VFA football for six years and is a long-suffering Richmond Tigers fan.
Chantelle Baxter is the co-founder and CEO of One Girl – an organisation dedicated to giving 1 million girls across Africa access to education by 2020. She believes in the power of business to change the world.
Prior to One Girl, Chantelle studied Computed Science and went on to establish Mod Digital, a web design company who worked with clients such as ANZ and Melbourne University.
After a life changing Trip to Sierra Leone in West Africa, Chantelle was struck by the challenges that women and girls face across the world and committed herself to doing something about it (with the hope it would inspire others to do the same). From the humble beginnings, One Girl has raised over 1.6 million an supported the education of over 1,750 women and girls.
Chantelle has been recognised as one of Anthills 30 Under 30 Entrepreneurs (2014, 2012), Mamamias’s Most Clickable Woman (2013), Cosmopolitan Magazines 30 Influential Australian Women Under 30 (2013) and one of Melbourne’s Top 100 Most Influential People.
Come along to Global Health Unzipped to hear Chantelle's Story.
Chantelle Baxter
Patricia Rarau
Patricia Rarau, a MBBS graduate from the University of Papua New Guinea, then became a registered Medical Practitioner after the successful completion of two years of being a Resident Medical Officer at PNG’s referral and biggest hospital, the Port Moresby General Hospital. Privileged to be a recipient of the Nossal Scholarship and currently enrolled as a Phd Student with the School of Population and Global Health, at the University of Melbourne.
Commenced work with the PNG Institute of Medical Research (PNGIMR) in 2008 as a junior study physician working on the Intermittent Preventive treatment of Malaria in Infants (IPTi) study, initially based in Maprik, East Sepik Province then moved to Madang in 2009 as the overall study coordinator of the study. Results of the main IPTi study have been published in Plos Medicine and other papers from the trial have also been published in peer reviewed journals.
I Worked in Madang Province for 2 years and concurrently enrolled at the University of Papua New Guinea for post grad studies. Graduated with a Master of Medical Science by research in collaboration with the Maternal and Child Health department of the University of Papua New Guinea in 2012. For the master research I looked at respiratory viral infections in a cohort of IPTi children with malaria infection.
In 2011 I transferred to Port Moresby to coordinate and be a study physician on one of PNGIMR’s huge projects, the Health and Demography Surveillance System (HDSS). The project was set up to monitor the changes (in demography, social, economic and health) or impacts of a major mining development (PNG LNG project) in the surrounding communities of Hiri, Central Province and Hides, Hela Province, Papua New Guinea.
Using the HDSS platform we set up a study which looked at the Prevalence of NCD (CVDs, DM, COPD and Cancer) and the associated risk factors in 3 sites across PNG. I am one of the PIs of the NCD study and this study is a collaboration between various institutions namely PNGIMR, University of Papua New Guinea, University of Auckland, University of Queensland and University of Tokyo.
My Phd and main interest now is looking at prevalence of Non-communicable diseases and the associated risk factors in different populations across Papua New Guinea. It is a privilege to be supervised by Prof Brian Oldenburg who has a lot of experience and an expert in the field of NCD prevention and hopefully I will learn a lot from my studies here and help contribute towards a healthy PNG.
Dr Georgia Paxton
Dr Georgia Paxton is general paediatrician who has worked in paediatric refugee health since 2005. She is the clinical leader of the Royal Children’s Hospital Immigrant Health Clinic, which has around 1,000 attendances annually. She is actively involved in guideline and policy development in refugee health and related areas, at local, state and national level. Her research interests include health literacy and the health status of refugee children and young people in Victoria. She has recently completed a report commissioned by the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development on the Health status of refugee children and young people in Victoria, and was awarded the Windermere Health Services Fellowship for 2010 to develop an electronic health record and database for refugee health care in Victoria.
Health Faculty
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