Master of Ceremonies

Adam Spencer

Adam Spencer began his career in radio by winning the Triple J Raw Comedy championship in 1996. From there, Adam took over the Triple J breakfast time slot, co hosting with Wil Anderson from 1999 - 2004.
From 2006 to 2013 Adam was the host of the coveted radio slot ABC 702 Breakfast Show, building a cult following which saw him crowned the "best radio show" by ABC local radio in 2012 and 2013.
Adam holds a first class honors degree in Pure Mathematics and has an immense interest in science. These passions lead Adam to hosting the ABC program Quantum and FAQ from 1998 to 2001. Other TV credits include hosting Hit & Run for Foxtel’s Comedy Channel; Joker Poker for Channel Ten; two series of Sleek Geeks with Dr Karl Kruszelnicki for ABC TV and team captain on the ABC TV’s sports show The Trophy Room.
The author of The Little Book of Numbers, Adam explained his love of prime numbers and the magic of maths to an enraptured TED audience in early 2013. Since being posted online, his talk has had over a million views.
Adam is the ambassador for many charities including Redkite and in 2014 was appointed University of Sydney’s Ambassador for Maths and Science. He also co-hosts Australia’s No 1 podcast, Sleek Geeks with Dr Karl. Adam’s latest book, The Big Book of Numbers has also now been released.
Adam is in demand as a corporate speaker and especially as an MC and awards night specialist.

Adam Spencer appears by arrangement with Great Expectation Speakers and Trainers For and on behalf of: 12th National Allied Health Conference 
 
 
 

Speakers

 

Anchor Point Uncle Ray Davison

Welcome to Country: Uncle Ray Davison

Uncle Ray Davison is a proud Gadigal man, born on Country. He is a current director of the Board of the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Lands Council (MLALC) and a recently retired Aboriginal Health Worker from Redfern Aboriginal Medical Service.
Ray's early childhood was spent at La Perouse, where on weekends Ray would "drive for a penny" off the old pier for the tourists, collect golf balls and caddy on the golf course. A move to Burragarang Valley during the initial development of Warragamba Dam gave Ray and his numerous siblings the opportunity of living in the bush for a few years before briefly returning to La Perouse then settling in Liverpool.
The passing of both parents before adulthood sent Ray and his siblings to Redfern, Darlington, Forest Lodge, Annandale and other havens of the inner city. hard times were held by hard work and family, especially his brothers, friends, and extended family. Early adulthood gave Ray numerous work and career related experiences which all combined to build a social consciousness that strived for equity and equality for his fellow people.
For more than 30 years Ray worked for the Redfern Aboriginal Medical Service, as one of the founding health workers he was instrumental in the growth and development of the service - a service dedicated to the health and well-being of the local Aboriginal community.

Ray worked in collaboration with the community, governing boards, management and fellow health service providers to give the Aboriginal community of the heart of Sydney a culturally appropriate and professional health service. Ray advocates for social justice, community development and empowerment, equity and equality for all.
As an Aboriginal Health Worker, Ray promoted and accredited the necessary, yet fundamental qualities, capacities and capabilities that required delivery by all people involved in the health and well-being of the Aboriginal Community. Ray is married with three sons and has nine grandchildren. Retirements has given Ray the opportunity to spend more time with his family and the capacity to share his unique, informative and entertaining "Welcome to Country" with many people.

 

Anchor Point Tom Calma

Professor Tom Calma AO

Prof Calma is an Aboriginal Elder from the Kungarakan tribal group and a member of the Iwaidja tribal group whose traditional lands are south west of Darwin and on the Cobourg Peninsula in the Northern Territory of Australia, respectively.  He has been involved in Indigenous affairs at a local, community, state, national and international level and worked in the public sector for over 45 years and is currently on a number of boards and committees focussing on rural and remote Australia, health, education, justice reinvestment, research, leadership, reconciliation and economic development.
Prof Calma was the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission from 2004 to 2010.  He also served as Race Discrimination Commissioner from 2004 until 2009.  
Through his 2005 Social Justice Report, Prof Calma called for the life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to be closed within a generation and advocated embedding a social determinants philosophy into public policy around health, education and employment in order to address Indigenous inequality gaps.  This spearheaded the Close the Gap for Indigenous Health Equality Campaign resulting in COAG’s Closing the Gap response in December 2007.
Prof Calma has broad experience in the public sector, particularly in national policy development and programme management in the Indigenous health, education, community development and employment arenas.  He served as Senior Adviser to the Minister of Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs in 2003, and represented Australia's education and training interests as a senior diplomat in India and Vietnam from 1995 to 2002 and is Chancellor of the University of Canberra.
Professor Calma chairs Ninti One Ltd and the Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation, Atlantic Fellows for Social Equity and is Co-Chair of Reconciliation Australia.  He is also National Coordinator Tackling Indigenous Smoking, a consultancy to the Commonwealth Department of Health.

 

 

Anchor Point Jacqui

Dr Jacqui Lunday Johnstone O.B.E

Jacqui was appointed as the Chief Health Professions Officer in April 2006 and before that was the first Allied Health Professions Officer in the Scottish Government Health Department from September 2002. 
She has a professional leadership and policy lead role for the 13 AHP Groups and the 51 Healthcare Science Professions. She provides advice to Ministers and the Government on professional matters affecting all 64 disciplines including education, training, regulation and role/service development as well as leading on policy for adult rehabilitation and falls prevention.  She is also led the Scottish Government ‘Person Centred Health and Care Programme’.
In 2007 she was appointed as Technical Advisor to the World Health Organisation and has led an international programme of work in virtual networks for health professionals to support inter-professional learning and collaboration and is convenor of ICHPO, a network of international government officials leading on health profession development.  Jacqui was awarded an Honorary Degree of Doctor of the University from Queen Margaret University in recognition of her significant contribution to education and public service.
She is an Honorary Fellow of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy and in 2015 received an OBE in the Queens’ Honours list.

 

Anchor Point Jim

Jim Gillespie

James Gillespie is the Deputy Director, Menzies Centre for Health Policy, University of Sydney, and Associate Professor in Health Policy, Sydney School of Public Health.. 
He has been a chief investigator on National Health and Medical Research Council–funded projects researching management of chronic illness, care integration and research translation into policy. His recent projects have included evaluation of Partners in Recovery, Western and Inner Western Sydney (with Dr Smith-Merry) and around the better integration of health care, covering better connections between hospital and community-based services and the implementation of the ‘Health Care Home’.
His books include The Price of Health: Australian Governments and Medical Politics (Cambridge University Press 1991, 2002) and (with Anne-marie Boxall) Making Medicare: the Politics of Universal Health Care in Australia (2013). 

 

Anchor Point Luke

Luke Escombe

Luke Escombe is a songwriter, musician and comedian who has turned his ongoing health struggles into inspiration for his art. His 2011 one-man show “Chronic” took him to festivals around the world, including the Edinburgh Fringe and led to him becoming an ambassador for Crohn’s and Colitis Australia.  In 2014 he created an award-winning kid's show called The Vegetable Plot, which is now being used in schools around the world to teach children about music, storytelling and healthy eating. Luke has spoken on three occasions at Parliament House in Canberra, as well as at the New Zealand National Museum in Wellington, the 2012 and 2014 National Medicines Symposiums, the 2013 Pharmacy Australia Congress, the 2014 SARRA conference and at workshops, support groups and training seminars across the country. He has also written commissioned songs for a number of health-related causes, including antibiotic awareness, medicines safety, aged care and domestic violence. Luke was described by John Shand in the Sydney Morning Herald as a “rock-soul singer, raconteur, blistering blues guitarist, comedian and songwriter, and very good at them all”, and is most often described by himself as the Mick Jagger of inflammatory bowel disease. His talks are renowned for their honesty, humour and irrepressible humanity.



 

Anchor Point Saravana

Dr Saravana Kumar

Dr Saravana Kumar is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Health Sciences, University of South Australia. As a physiotherapist, he has 16 years of professional experience spanning clinical practice (in manipulative and sports physiotherapy), research (health services research, evidence-based practice, quality and safety, allied health) and teaching (undergraduate and postgraduate physiotherapy, evidence-based practice, and research methods). He is a passionate and committed teacher who teaches topics on evidence-based practice and implementing and sustaining change in health care to students and health professionals, nationally and internationally. As a researcher, he has published (180) and presented (125) extensively.  He works with a number of allied health disciplines and as he has expertise in transforming health and achieving best practice, he provides specialist advice to several local, national and international agencies in development, implementation and evaluation of new models of care, workforce role re-design and quality and safety initiatives. He is an active supervisor and a passionate mentor for students, early career researchers and academics. He is also the webmaster of Implementation Central (www.implementationcentral.com), the only free website in the world dedicated to the science and practice of evidence implementation.

 

Anchor Point Lucio

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lucio Naccarella

Dr Lucio Naccarella, PhD is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre For Health Policy in the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health at The University of Melbourne. 

He is a leading health care services researcher and evaluator, with interests in systems change, health system literacy, health care design, care coordination, team work, professional development, primary care organizations and health workforce reforms, from a policy, research and practice perspective.  His experience includes providing national leadership and input at policy level; reviewing evidence to inform policy decision making; and evaluating national and state level initiatives aimed optimising patient health outcomes and strengthening the health care workforce.

 

 

 

Anchor Point Lorimer

Professor Lorimer Moseley

Prof Moseley is a distinguished international contributor to physiotherapy and clinical neuroscience.  He is the Foundation Chair in Physiotherapy at UniSA and head of the Body in Mind Research Group. He has presented at more than 60 international conferences in 30 countries and delivered public lectures to more than 25,000 people in Australia, Europe and the US.
 
Lorimer has won many accolades over the course of his career, including the highly prized Nuffield Medical Research Fellowship at the Department of Physiology at Oxford University, where he investigated the role of the brain and mind in chronic pain disorders.  He is a recipient of the National Health and Medical Research Council’s Marshall and Warren Award for Innovation and Potential transformation, the International Association for the Study of Pain  Award for Outstanding Clinical Science, and in 2014 was given the Australian Physiotherapy Association’s highest award when he was made an Honoured Member.
 
Through his research, Lorimer has changed the way we teach health professionals to support and treat sufferers of chronic pain. He is Chief Editor of Body in Mind, which pushes cutting edge clinical pain science findings to over 60,000 active followers twice weekly and is clearly the most influential web/social presence in the clinical pain sciences internationally.

 

 

Anchor Point Steven

Professor Steven Larkin

Professor Steven Larkin is a Kungarakany and Yanyula man from Darwin in the Northern Territory, Australia.
Professor Larkin is Pro Vice Chancellor (PVC) for Indigenous Education and Research at the University of Newcastle.
Professor Larkin was previously Pro Vice-Chancellor for Indigenous Leadership at Charles Darwin University from 2009. Professor Larkin’s appointment at this level was historic as he became the first ever Aboriginal person to be appointed to a senior executive position within an Australian university. He was also Director of the Australian Centre for Indigenous Knowledges and Education (ACIKE) at Charles Darwin University.
Professor Larkin’s qualifications include a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Queensland University of Technology; Master of Social Science, Charles Sturt University; and Bachelor of Social Work degree, University of Queensland.Professor Larkin’s collaborations are both nationally and internationally and he has served on numerous national advisory committees in Indigenous Affairs. He has been appointed as member of the New Colombo Plan Reference Group by the Foreign Minister; has chaired the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Higher Education Advisory Council or ATSIHEAC (then Indigenous Higher Education Advisory Council) for three years (2009-2012); and was a member of the Panel for the Behrendt Review on Indigenous higher education in Australia.
Professor Larkin is the current chairperson of The Healing Foundation; and on the Board of Directors for Beyond Blue.
 
Professor Larkin continues to provide invaluable input as a management level member of several well-respected professional affiliations, which include:

•   National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Higher Education Consortium (NATSIHEC)
•   National Indigenous Research and Knowledges Network (NIRAKN)
•   The Healing Foundation
•   Beyond Blue

 

Anchor Point Mark

Mark Cormack

Mark Cormack joined the Department of Health in February 2015 as Deputy Secretary, Strategic Policy and Innovation Group (SPIG). Mark is responsible for strategic national health policy, portfolio strategies and international engagement. His national programme responsibilities include Primary Health, Mental Health, Public Hospital Funding agreements and dental.

Prior to joining the department Mark was Deputy Secretary of the Immigration Status Resolution Group (ISRG) in the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) from August 2013 –January 2015.

Before joining DIBP, Mark was appointed the first Chief Executive Officer of Health Workforce Australia (HWA) in January 2010.

From July 2006 to January 2010 Mark was Chief Executive of ACT Health
Mark has had a number of senior roles in the public healthcare system, including:
•    Member, Australian Health Ministers’ Advisory Council (AHMAC)
•    Chair, AHMAC Health Policy Priorities Principal Committee
•    Board director, National E Health Transition Authority

Mark has worked in and for the public healthcare sector for over 
30 years in various capacities as a health professional, senior manager, policy maker, planner, agency head and industry advocate.

He has a Bachelor of Applied Science (University of Sydney) and Master of Health Management (University of Wollongong).

 

 

Master of Ceremonies - Allied Health Leadership Day

Anna-Louise Bouvier

Anna-Louise is the Executive Director and Creator of the multi award winning Happy Body At Work corporate wellbeing program. This Joint Venture with the ABC and has rolled out to over 30,000 people in organisations as diverse as Optus, the ASX, Minter Ellison, PwC, Vic Health, Lendlease, the University of Sydney and UTS.

She is also the creator and Exec Director of Physiocise, which over the past 20 years has taught over 66,000 classes to people with bad backs and wobbly bodies. She also consults to the Waratahs, Brumbies and Wallabies on overuse injuries.

She is a sought after media commentator and appears regularly on the ABC with James Valentine and on the Today Show. She is also an Ambassador for Steptember.

She was an expert on the ABC's Making Couples Happy and Making Australia Happy. She has released 3 DVD's and 3 best selling books. She is an international corporate speaker and was a previous Australian Fitness Presenter of the Year, and appears in the Who’s Who of Australian women.

 

Hosts

 

 

 

 

 










  
 
 


Follow us on Social Media