The Twentieth Annual

Kingsley Laffer Memorial Lecture and the inaugural event to be held outside of Sydney

Keynote Speaker

Helen Conway – Director, Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA)

Gender in the workplace – the journey to equality

Date Wednesday, 18 April 2012

Time 9am – 10am (please be seated by 8.45am)

Venue National Convention Centre, Constitution Avenue, Canberra

You and your colleagues are invited to attend the Twentieth Annual Kingsley Laffer Memorial Lecture. The Kingsley Laffer Lecture is a prestigious public lecture delivered in honour of Kingsley Laffer, the first Professor of Industrial Relations at Sydney University. It is hosted by the Discipline of Work and Organisational Studies in the University of Sydney Business School and from 2012 the Laffer Lecture will also be sponsored by the ALERA and be presented nationally. The ALERA ACT event will be the first time that the Laffer Lecture is presented outside of Sydney.

The inaugural Kingsley Laffer Memorial Lecture was given in 1993 by the Hon Bob Hawke. Subsequent Laffer Lectures have featured Mr Bert Evans (1994), Justice Deidre O’Connor (1995), Ms Jennie George (1996), the Hon Jeff Shaw (1997), Mr Justice Bill Fisher (1998), Ms Quentin Bryce (1999), Mr Brian Pickett (2000), Ms Sharan Burrow (2001), Justice Michael Kirby (2002), Professor Russell Lansbury (2003), Ms Heather Ridout (2004), Professor Ron McCallum (2005), the Hon Kim Beazley (2006), the Hon Julia Gillard MP (2007), Reverend Tim Costello (2008), Professor Russell Lansbury (2009) and Ms Sue Bussell (2010).

Helen Conway – Director

Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA)

Helen Conway is the Director of the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency. The Agency is an Australian Government statutory authority and key to the government’s efforts to improve gender equality in the workplace.

Prior to joining the Agency, Helen spent about 30 years in the private sector.

Following 10 years in private practice as a lawyer, including seven years as a partner, Helen joined the corporate sector where she held various executive positions in companies covering the insurance, transport, downstream oil, retailing and construction industries. In addition she has held various directorships in the health, transport and superannuation sectors.

In 1992 Helen was the recipient of the first scholarship awarded by Chief Executive Women which enabled her to undertake studies at the Macquarie Graduate School of Management and in 2005 was awarded the Australian Corporate Lawyers Association Corporate Lawyer of the Year.

Helen has an established track record in the equal opportunity sphere focussing in particular on initiatives in support of women. She spent ten years on the NSW Equal Opportunity Tribunal including three years as its Senior Judicial Member.

Helen’s appointment as Director of the Agency is for a period of five years commencing on 27 April 2011.

Proudly sponsored by

This event is free – please rsvp to info@aleraact.asn.au. It will be followed by the ALERA ACT – Half-Day conference (see next page). This event is open to all interested in the labour and employment relations field. Fees do apply for this event.

ALERA-ACT Half Day Conference

“Is Fair Work fair?”

We invite all those interested in employment relations, from all sectors, to attend. Our line up of speakers is balanced and of a quality that is rarely encountered in sessions targeted at workplace practitioners and their advisors. For those who wish to learn more about positive employment relations and the impacts and advantages that can accrue to your workplace, this is the place to be. We encourage your attendance and look forward to meeting you during the day.

President James Morris | Vice-President Kathryn Leonard

Committee Member Scott Harris | Committee Member Tom Cullen

Wednesday, 18 April 2012, National Convention Centre, Constitution Avenue, Canberra

10.00am Registration Open

10.00am – 10.30am Morning Tea

Welcome

10.30am James Morris, President, ALERA-ACT

Speakers

10.35am – 11.05am Ged Kearney, ACTU

11.05am – 11.40am Peter Anderson, ACCI

11.40am – 12.00pm Q & A

12.00pm – 12.30pm Marian Baird, University of Sydney Business School

Lunch

12.30pm – 1.00pm Buffet style for networking

Speakers

1.00pm – 1.30pm Braden Ellem, University of Sydney Business School

1.30pm – 2.00pm Case Study – Bronwyn Graham, Department of Parliamentary Services

2.00pm – 3.00pmPanel discussion (available speakers from above) – moderated by Peter Hampton, President, Australian Labour & Employment Relations Association.

3.15pm Close

Ged Kearney

President, Australian Council of Trade Unions

Gerardine (Ged) Kearney commenced as ACTU President on 1 July 2010, and is the third woman to hold the position following the departure of Sharan Burrow to the Brussels-based position of General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation.

Ged believes that unions should not just be concerned with the experience of people

at work but they should be advocates for change to improve all aspects of Australians lives. She wants to ensure that unions continue to be at the forefront of public debate in Australia.

Ged’s ambition as ACTU President is to build respect from political leaders and the broad community for the values of fairness and role played by unions in delivering social change so that people feel the need to join. Ged was elected the Federal Secretary of the Australian Nursing Federation in April 2008. She had been an elected official with the ANF since 1997, also serving as Assistant Federal Secretary, Federal President and Victorian Branch President. Since becoming a registered nurse in 1985, she has worked in many settings across the public and private acute sectors, predominantly in Melbourne, and has also been a nursing educator, including manager of the Clinical Nursing Education Department at Austin Health. She has a Bachelor in Education.

Ged is also a Director of CBUS Super Fund.

Peter Anderson

Chief Executive, ACCI

As Chief Executive of Australia’s peak business organisation Peter Anderson speaks at a national level on behalf of all State and Territory chambers of commerce, twenty-eight national industry associations and more than 350,000 small, medium and large businesses across all business sectors.

Peter’s appointment in January 2008 built on his more than twenty-five years at the

forefront of policy and advocacy in both private and public sectors. His expertise was honed in senior roles, including, as Executive Director of the Retail Traders’ Association of South Australia; Partner of leading South Australian law firm Fisher Jeffries; Chief of Staff to former South Australian Premier Dean Brown

and as Senior Adviser to the Commonwealth Government on workplace relations, employment, small business, trade practices and workplace health and safety policy between 1997–2001.

Peter’s expertise includes the areas of public policy, employment, workplace relations, small business, and federalism in addition to constitutional, administrative and international law. He was also recently appointed a member of the Government’s Business Roundtable on Climate Change.

Peter is the Australian business representative regionally and globally at international economic forums such as the Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD), the International Chamber of Commerce, the International Organisation of Employers. He is an elected representative of Asian employers on the Governing Body of the International Labour Organisation. He is also a director of the Australian Made, Australian Grown Campaign.

Marian Baird

Professor of Employment Relations, University of Sydney Business School

Marian is co-editor of the Journal of Industrial Relations (JIR) and is also a leading researcher in the fields of women, work and family and the Director of the Women and Work Research Group at the University of Sydney Business School.

Her research group brings together academics, practitioners and policy makers from private, public and not-for-profit

organisations to inform policy making. Marian is very well known for her work on maternity and parental leave policies and she is currently a Chief Investigator on the Paid Parental Leave scheme evaluation team.

She is on the advisory panel of the Defence Forces Review being conducted by the Sex Discrimination Commissioner and was also a member of the advisory team reviewing the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act. Marian is a Fellow of the University of Sydney Senate and on the boards of the Diversity Council of Australia and the Australian Women s Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Marian has a number of PhD students, she teaches in both the undergraduate and graduate programs of the Business School and is widely published in Australia and internationally.

She is the co-author of Human Resource Management: Strategy and Practice (2010), a major Australian HRM text, and co-editor of the recently published book Work and Employment Relations: An Era of Change (2011).

Bronwyn Graham

Assistant Secretary, Building Services Branch, Department of Parliamentary Services

In her current role, Bronwyn is responsible for providing security, catering, visitor and health and well-being services to the Federal Parliament.

Responsible for over 200 staff and an annual operating budget of over $30 million dollars she has led and managed a number of workplace changes over the past six years. Prior to joining the Department of

Parliamentary Services, Bronwyn worked for the Department of Defence in a range Canberra and regional bases locations. Many of her previous roles with Defence had a strong emphasis on change, business improvement and customer service.

CASE STUDY – Department of Parliamentary Services

Bronwyn will give insights and review the learnings from her recent experiences in the Department of Parliamentary Services.

Associate Professor Bradon Ellem

University of Sydney Business School

Bradon teaches in Work and Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney Business School. He is co-convenor of the Union Strategy Research Group, co-editor of the Journal of Industrial Relations (JIR), and a member of the executive committee of the Industrial Relations Society of NSW. He is a Visiting Professor at the Curtin Graduate School of Business.

He has written on many aspects of labour history, collective bargaining, unionism and industrial relations policy and changing geographies of work. He has undertaken commissioned research

for the NSW Nurses Association, Unions NSW and the ACTU. He is currently researching in two main fields: assessing the impact of the Fair Work Act on bargaining and working on a history of industrial relations in the Pilbara’s iron ore industry.

Peter Hampton

Commissioner, Fair Work Australia

Peter Hampton is a Commissioner in Fair Work Australia based in Adelaide, South Australia, having being appointed in January 2010.

Immediately prior to that appointment, Peter was Director of Policy and Strategy for SafeWork SA, the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. SafeWork SA is a South Australian Government agency

responsible for the administration of Occupational, Health and Safety and Industrial Relations legislation and policy.

Prior to joining SafeWork SA in 2006, he was for 12 years a Deputy President of the South Australian Industrial Relations Commission and in a dual capacity for ten of those years as a Deputy President of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission.

In the sixteen years prior to joining the Commission, Peter held various positions in the South Australian business community including as Deputy Director of the SA Employers’ Federation Inc and General Manager, Human Resource Management Services with what is now Business SA.

Peter is the National President of the Australian Labour and Employment Relations Association and a former President of the Industrial Relations Society of South Australia.

Peter is an accredited mediator and is a member of various professional bodies, including the Institute of Arbitrators and Mediators, Australian Labour Law Association and the Council of Australian Tribunals. He is married with three adult children.

Thank you to our sponsor

Registration Details ALERA-ACT Half Day Conference

“Is Fair Work fair?”Wednesday, 18 April 2012, National Convention Centre, Constitution Avenue, Canberra

Price (Including GST)

ALERA members $220

Non-member $330 (includes individual ALERA membership until June 2013)

ALERA Student $150

Non-ALERA student $205 (includes ALERA student membership until June 2013)

ALERA Corporate members Book for 3 and the 4th person free (send email with details – info@aleraact.asn.au)

How to registerRSVP by Monday, 16 April 2012 | On-line – see www.aleraact.asn.au

Manual registration

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Cheque / Money order (please make payable to ALERA–ACT) OR Tax Invoice – (This form becomes a Tax Invoice on completion of payment)

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Post ALERA–ACT, PO Box 270, Deakin West, ACT 2600 | Fax 02 6282 7191 | Email info@aleraact.asn.au Phone enquiries (02) 6282 0611 | ABN 27 907 944 812

Please Note – Cancellations made after the RSVP date or non-attendance at the events means full payment is due and no refunds will be issued. If you are unable to attend, you are welcome to send a substitute.