I spent two decades working in community development, social policy, and advocacy, holding executive and leadership roles across child and family welfare, multicultural services, community health, and disability. I built coalitions, designed campaigns, and learned how to create change from outside formal power structures.

That’s where I learned what advocacy organisations actually deal with day to day: limited resources, competing priorities, boards with different risk appetites, and the constant challenge of trying to influence systems you don’t control.

More recently, I managed a $2.3 million multicultural COVID outreach program, a consortium of nine multicultural organisations with 54 staff, serving over 20,000 people from culturally diverse communities. That project required building trust with communities who had reason to distrust government systems, and coordinating service delivery across organisations with very different cultures and capabilities.

I studied international and community development at Deakin University, trained with Marshall Ganz at Harvard Kennedy School on leadership and organising, and completed professional development in engagement (IAP2), governance (AICD), and strategic foresight.

I represented one of Victoria’s most diverse electorates with over 500,000 constituents across Melbourne’s south-east.

As Deputy Chair of the Legal and Social Issues Committee, I led some of the state’s most sensitive parliamentary inquiries, including the End-of-Life Choices Inquiry into assisted dying, and inquiries into youth justice centres and medically supervised injecting centres. That work meant managing consultations across medical professionals, faith communities, advocacy groups, and government agencies with fundamentally different views and finding workable paths forward through genuine disagreement.

I held portfolios including Women, Prevention of Family Violence, Families and Children, Health, Waste Management and Multicultural Affairs. I led campaigns that resulted in legislative reform, including the Plastic Free Sea campaign, which resulted in the banning of plastic bags across Victoria. I advocated for policy changes that were later adopted by the government, including expungement of criminal records for children who had been in state care.

I served with the Victorian Greens during my parliamentary term and held the position of Deputy Leader from 2017 to 2018. I’m no longer affiliated with the party. I left shortly after losing my seat, primarily over concerns about leadership behaviour and organisational culture.

What I carry forward from that experience is an understanding of how Parliament actually functions, how to build influence from the crossbench without a government majority, what it takes to move contested policy through a complex system and what happens when leaders stop reflecting on their own actions.

Since leaving Parliament, I’ve worked inside the government system that most advocacy organisations are trying to influence from the outside.

At the Department of Health, I directed COVID-19 emergency testing and response services for vulnerable populations, including culturally and linguistically diverse communities, people with disability, and newly arrived refugees. That meant managing teams, budgets, and service delivery under crisis conditions, within a system that wasn’t always designed for the communities it needs to reach.

At the Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission, I advised the CEO during major regulatory reforms, navigating competing stakeholder interests while maintaining regulatory integrity.

At the Magistrates’ Court of Victoria, I developed policy frameworks and introduced Gender Impact Assessments into court processes.

This experience matters because it’s given me a firsthand understanding of how the machinery of government realistically works, how departments process policy, how agencies manage competing demands, and how decisions move through the system before they ever reach a Minister’s desk.