People with Purpose: Championing change to protect consumers

Tell us a little bit about your career background.

Over the past two decades, I have been fortunate to lead some outstanding national health and aged care organisations. My more recent role has been as CEO of the Alliance for Gambling Reform.

My key interest in all these roles has been the opportunity to work with and achieve outcomes for consumers.

How would you describe your time leading the Alliance for Gambling Reform?

I found the role as CEO of the Alliance to be an incredible privilege and highly satisfying for someone who likes to drive change that benefits consumers.

I think gambling has really come under the spotlight in the past couple of years. It is no longer a harmful product that has been able to escape scrutiny.

More and more Australians now recognise gambling is causing enormous harm in our communities.

A number of factors are responsible for this, including increasing public concern about online gambling and advertising, the various reviews of gambling undertaken by governments, and a Royal Commission that found significant failures of gambling operators.

Most people now know that gambling can be associated with money laundering and that major gambling companies like casinos ignore their legal responsibility for reducing gambling harm. In some cases, operators were actually preying on vulnerable people to increase their profits by encouraging people to gamble in harmful ways.

What attracted you to lead the Australian Communication Consumer Action Network (ACCAN)?

My work in gambling reform crossed over into areas like digital platforms, online safety and privacy, so I have a strong commitment to strategic, safe and equitable access to the internet and communications.

I had previously partnered with ACCAN on telehealth issues when I was CEO of the Consumers Health Forum of Australia, which made me acutely aware of the significant difference communications can make to the lives of people every day.

In fact, it’s hard to think of any major emerging issue in Australia – from the impact of climate change to increasing reliance on digital technologies including AI and the need to improve productivity – where the options available to consumers is not a critical area.

I think that ACCAN will provide me with an opportunity to again work with others to achieve positive outcomes for consumers.

What are the key issues you hope to address at ACCAN?

There are so many challenges in the communications area, with rapidly evolving technologies making consumer protection a critical issue for ACCAN.

The key immediate priority issues for ACCAN will include higher prices on mobile, internet and other products at a time of growing costs of living and access to communications in rural and regional Australia highlighting growing inequity.

The onus on major telecommunications providers under the Universal Service Obligation is also undergoing a fundamental review.

What lessons have you learned about achieving meaningful change over your career?

Communications issues impact Australians in so many ways – inequality, employment and productivity, health and wellbeing, education and innovation, climate change adaptation, and cyber security.

There is no end to the potential number of important consumer priorities in this area, which makes the need to be highly strategic critical to achieving success. Meaningful change is best achieved in collaboration with consumers.

I have learned that achieving real outcomes relies on being clear about purpose and the strategy to achieve change, consulting with those impacted, working from a base of shared values, and building powerful alliances and collaborations that will work to achieve the changes needed.

It’s not something we do on our own in that it requires a shared willingness to work on what will make a difference rather than what we might feel comfortable with.

More about the Australian Communication Consumer Action Network