Privacy Advisory Committee

Professor Michael Kidd AM, Faculty of Health Sciences Flinders University

Michael Kidd is Executive Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences (including the School of Medicine and the School of Nursing and Midwifery) at Flinders University. He chairs the Australian Government’s Ministerial Advisory Committee on Blood Borne Viruses and Sexually Transmissible Infections. He is president-elect of the World Organization of Family Doctors and a past president of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. He has long standing clinical and research interests in e-health, sexual health and HIV medicine.

Appointed: July 2010

Associate Professor John M. O'Brien, School of Organisation and Management University of New South Wales

Associate Professor John O'Brien works in the Faculty of Commerce and Economics at the University of New South Wales. He works in the School of Organisation and Management.

John teaches in the areas of industrial relations, human resource management and general management. His research covers public sector employment relations and private sector executive remuneration and corporate governance. He holds two Australian Research Council Large Grants in these areas of investigation.

He has a long involvement in the trade union movement having held office at the local, state and national levels of two unions. He has been a union nominee on a variety of government bodies.

When not attending meetings he is a passable tenor who sings in a community choir.

Appointed: September 2002, Re-appointed September 2005

Professor Christine M. O'Keefe, Strategic Operations Director, CSIRO Preventative Health National Research Flagship

Dr Christine M. O’Keefe is the Strategic Operations Director for the CSIRO Preventative Health National Research Flagship. Her previous roles at CSIRO include research and business leadership positions in health informatics and privacy technologies.

Christine holds a PhD in pure mathematics from the University of Adelaide, Australia (1988) and an MBA from the Australian National University (2008). Before joining CSIRO she enjoyed a successful international research career in finite geometry and information security. Christine has more than 80 publications in international journals and refereed conference proceedings. Her recent research focuses on privacy-enhancing technologies, including privacy-preserving linkage protocols and disclosure risk and data utility associated with remote analysis servers.

Christine was awarded the Australian Mathematical Society Medal 2000 for distinguished research in the Mathematical Sciences and the Hall Medal of the Institute for Combinatorics and its Applications 1996 for outstanding contributions to the field.

Appointed: March 2009

Barbara Robertson, Chief Privacy Officer and Head of Notices, National Australia Bank (NAB)

Barbara Robertson is the Chief Privacy Officer at NAB. As well as overseeing the personal information management and governance framework for NAB, Barbara and her team provide direction in relation to privacy legislation and coordinate responses to the many diverse statutory notices and subpoenas NAB receive from government agencies, regulators, and litigants.

Before establishing the Privacy & Notices team in 2007, Barbara’s roles in NAB have involved leading large operational teams and managing several key strategic supplier arrangements. Prior to joining NAB in 2002, her business experience including building a National Customer Contact Centre for NZ’s largest trustee company and leading the corporate actions team within a global securities organisation.

Barbara is a practising lawyer and holds an MBA (AGSM 2006). She is also a Fellow of the Financial Services Institute of Australia (FINSIA).

Ms Joan Sheedy, Assistant Secretary Privacy and FOI Policy Branch, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

Joan has been the Assistant Secretary, Privacy and FOI Branch, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet since the Information Law Branch at the Attorney-General’s Department was moved to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet in 2008. Joan held the position in Attorney-Generals from October 2003, and since then has been responsible for the area providing legal policy and policy advice to Government on privacy, FOI and parliamentary privilege issues. Prior to this, Joan was the Assistant Secretary, Copyright Law Branch from 1999 and the Assistant Secretary, Human Rights Branch from 1990.

Joan has extensive experience in government work, especially in the legislative process having been involved in the passage of a wide range of legislation, including the Sex Discrimination Act 1984, the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), and the Disability Discrimination Act 1992. She has also had wide experience in negotiations at the international level on a range of issues, including at the UN, the Council of Europe and WIPO. She holds an LLB (Adel.) & a BA (ANU).

Appointed: February 2005

Ms Robin Banks, Anti-Discrimination Commissioner Tasmania

Robin is the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Commissioner, having taken up this appointment in July 2010. In this role she has responsibility for the administration of Tasmania’s Anti-Discrimination Act 1998. She was previously the Chief Executive Officer of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre and the Director of the Public Interest Law Clearinghouse from June 2004, in private practice in Sydney for four years and had a year in Canada at the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Robin has a long-standing focus on the protection and promotion of human rights, including privacy rights, and on consumer protection.

Robin has been a practising lawyer since 2000 and has worked as a lawyer in the private, government and not-for-profit sectors. She has also been a rights advocate more broadly, in particular for the rights of people with disabilities. She has developed and delivered training to consumers and business on achieving compliance with a range of laws relating to human rights.

Appointed: 2006

Reappointed: November 2009