Advisory group

Brianna Bell

Brianna Bell is a 24-year-old wheelchair user and Assistance Dog handler living in Brisbane, Queensland. She worked in a range of roles with UN Youth Australia, including as CEO, from 2011-2016 before becoming the UQ Union Disability Officer in 2017. In 2018 she completed her Bachelor of Laws honours thesis on “Hires, Buyers and Affirmative Action: An exploration of the empowerment of vulnerable disabled workers through labour hire and procurement practices in Australia.” She is passionate about using her legal education, lived experience of disability, and experience accessing the NDIS and DSP, to advocate for the rights of disabled people. 

Nita King

Nita is a Yamatji Badimia woman based in Perth, WA who holds a kaleidoscope of lived and professional perspectives.

Despite facing severe challenges with getting access to medical assistance and being labelled as too ‘complex’ , she has gone onto achieve an expansive career in the disability sector.

In 2013, she studied a Bachelor of Nursing at Edith Cowan University, was a recipient of the Dorothea Swift Indigenous Nursing Scholarship and held a position as a personal carer for clients with spinal cord injuries.

She was the first Indigenous employee in the WA NDIA Trial Site, one of the first Indigenous specialist support co – coordinators working exclusively with clients living with psychosocial disabilities, assisting with the early emergence of First People’s Disability Network in WA and through to being selected to serve a two year term on the Ministerial Advisory Council on Disability WA (MACDWA). Simultaneously to these career developments, Nita volunteered her time to Aboriginal suicide prevention and upskilling in this space in respect to Mental Health First Aid (MHFA), Gatekeeper Training, Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST), Counselling in addition to becoming a certified yoga teacher.

She also volunteers many hours in providing pro bono advisory and insights in both the suicide prevention, mental health and disability sectors in the hope of effecting change. Her time spent volunteering for 100.9FM Noongar Radio furthered her efforts to raise public awareness around suicide prevention in respect to Indigenous community members who faced further marginalisation such as living with disabilities, LGBTIQ+.

Her advocacy efforts in seeking to have the voices and autonomy of the vulnerable to be heard and respected took a deeply personal turn when the matriarch of her family passed away in 2019 and she became an advocate for the right to access Voluntary Assisted Dying on the stance that safeguards were ethical, respected the autonomy of the patient and were culturally appropriate to any community who wished to include this element into hospice care. Nita was an active member on the Go Gentle Australia’s Perth Rally Committee and she advocated for the need for the presence of Mental Health First Aid Marshall’s at events and led by example by volunteering to hold the space for individual’s through events involving heavy themes and content.

She undertook a Bachelor of Laws at Edith Cowan University in 2020 and received the Perth Airport Indigenous Scholarship in 2020. In early 2021, Nita has embarked on become an emerging playwright for Yirra Yaarkin Theatre Company, and was unanimously accepted as a committee member on the Indigenous Legal Issues Committee via the Law Society of WA.

She is active on social media in advocating for ethically viable and inclusive health policy that respects the patient’s rights and autonomy. Nita is passionate about having the civil yet sobering conversations that are necessary for systemic change to occur, with a view towards being solution focused to allow sustainable policies to be born.

Dominic Golding

Project Officer Dominic Golding has responsibility for Disability Royal Commission in the National Ethnic Disability Alliance (NEDA). Dominic is a strong advocate of the disability and culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) community, with more than 17 years of experience in community work, cultural development and multicultural affairs.

Dominic is a person with lived experience of dual disability, being hearing impaired and living with cerebral palsy. He is from the CALD community, originally from Vietnam and migrating to Australia as a baby in the 1970s.

In the past 17 years, Dominic has had extensive work experience within the disability space, providing support and accommodation to refugees with disability.

Dominic has also worked with small NGOs, doing state election multicultural outreach and providing local council community support. He has worked in two separate DHHS (Department of Health and Human Services) programs - adoption/wardship records and disability, subsequently developing a passion for social policy and service delivery to marginalised communities.

Dominic has two postgraduate degrees – one in social work and the other one by research on intercountry adoption and race. He has also completed a University of Melbourne fellowship (2018) report on refugees and asylum seekers with disabilities for refugee survivors and ex-detainees.

Heidi La Paglia

Heidi La Paglia has nearly a decade of experience advocating for women’s welfare and is currently a Project and Policy Officer at Women With Disabilities Australia (WWDA). Heidi sits on a number of advisory groups representing young women with disability and has worked with women with disability from across Australia to develop information and resources for a new website called Our Site; which promotes the rights of all women and girls with disability and aims to empower all women and girls to be safe from violence.

Heidi has previously completed a Bachelor of Arts, Bachler of Philosophy and Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degrees with the University of Tasmania.

Throughout her time at university, Heidi held various voluntary and paid roles advocating for the welfare and rights of young women and women students and has been involved in several projects and campaigns promoting women’s right to be free from all forms of violence.

One of the largest scale projects on which Heidi contributed was the National Survey into Sexual Violence against university students, which she worked with the Australian Human Rights Commission to implement. Heidi has also held positions advocating for women on several boards and advisory groups such as the Tasmanian Women’s Council, the Hobart Women’s Shelter, the Australian Women Against Violence Alliance (AWAVA) and the University of Tasmania Council.

Dr Kirsten Harley

Dr Kirsten Harley (she/her/hers) lives on Guringai land in Sydney, and is an Honorary Lecturer in the Centre for Disability Research and Policy in the University of Sydney’s Faculty of Medicine and Health, and a Board Member of MNDNSW. In 2013, Kirsten was completing a postdoc and about to embark on an ARC-funded team project on how Australians navigate the healthcare maze when she was diagnosed with motor neurone disease. She has progressively become paralysed and lost the ability to speak and breathe, and uses a NeuroNode to communicate, a ventilator and has a team of carers providing round-the-clock care.

She has become a self-described “passive activist” for MND, including giving the opening address at the 2021 national MND Australia Conference with her teenage daughter Kimi, speaking at the Parliament House launch of MND Australia/Deloitte’s report on the economic cost of MND and the MNDNSW Day of Hope and Remembrance, being interviewed for media outlets such as the Project, ABC News, the Today Show and A Current Affair and appearing in social media campaigns including the Fading Symphony.

Writing about her decision to have a tracheotomy and laryngectomy in 2018 was the catalyst for starting her blog.

During the Covid pandemic she wrote about lockdown for the ABC and subsequently gave evidence to the Disability Royal Commission. Kirsten wrote “Living with motor neurone disease: an insider’s sociological perspective” with Karen Willis (Health Sociology Review, 2020) and contributed to MND Australia’s Guide to end of life care. She is currently collaborating on a project about inclusive videogames for people with MND with Ben O’Mara, Matt Harrison and Natasha Dwyer. She is also the author of publications including Australian Sociology: Fragility, Survival, Rivalry (with Gary Wickham, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) and co-edited Healthcare Choice: Discourses, Perceptions, Experiences, Practices (with Jon Gabe and Michael Calnan, Current Sociology, 2015) and Teaching Sociology: Reflections on the Discipline (with Kris Natalier, Journal of Sociology, 2013).

Kirsten has previously worked in policy and audience research roles at the ABC, and in academic teaching and research, and held positions on the Australian Sociological Association (TASA) executive, and the University of Sydney’s Postgraduate Representative Association (SUPRA) and Students’ Representative Council (SRC). She received the University of Sydney’s inaugural Rita and John Cornforth Medal for PhD Achievement in 2011, a University Medal for her arts degree with honours in sociology from the University of New England, and also has a science degree from Sydney University.

Margherita Coppolino

Margherita Coppolino is an influential disability and inclusion consultant who specialises in inclusion and intersectionality. Based in Melbourne (Victoria), she is tertiary-qualified and industry accredited Trainer, Mediator, Auditor and a Company Director. During her consultancy career, she has developed specialist skills in project management, mediation, facilitation, recruitment, case management, auditing and keynote speaking.

She has held several Chair and Company Directors positions on Non-for-Profit organisations since 2013. Margherita believes and lives by the business philosophy that “Inclusion is the Key”. Through her work with government, commercial businesses and social justice organisations, Margherita aims to empower people to take action to improve quality of life both for themselves and others. Margherita brings experience and advice in relation to people with disability who are LGBTIQ+.

Selena Jade Brown

Selena Jade Brown, a Derabulang Bunda & Yarrabah woman, is an Aboriginal Health Practitioner, fully registered with the Australian Health Practitioner Registration Agency and working with the Wurli Wurlinjang Health Service in Katherine Northern Territory (NT). Selena is also hearing impaired – born deaf, with having profound hearing loss in her left ear, and severe hearing loss in her right, in which she wears a hearing aid. Selena has lived in the NT for most of her life, travelling between Far North Queensland and NT since she was a child.

Along with her personal experiences as a hearing-impaired person, Selena has seen firsthand the disadvantages and the social detriments affecting those with disabilities, and indigenous people in remote communities.

Selena’s goal is to help close the gap on indigenous health, and to help indigenous people in every aspect she can. She is also willing to help advocate for indigenous people with disabilities living in remote areas and for people with disabilities living in remote communities in the NT in general. By joining the Your Story Advocacy Group as the NT representative, Selena hopes to raise awareness of issues that surround indigenous people and indigenous people with disabilities living in communities and help in whatever way she can.

Siobhan Clair

Siobhan Clair is the Project Officer at Disability Advocacy Network Australia (DANA), a national peak body based in Canberra, ACT.

Following completion of a Bachelor of Creative Industries and a Bachelor of Laws, Siobhan has specialised in disability rights, advocacy and representation. Since 2013 Siobhan has worked in policy roles at Disability Advocacy Network Australia, Advocacy for Inclusion, People With Disabilities ACT and the ACT Government’s Office for Disability.

Working in small organisations, Siobhan has developed varied skills in systemic advocacy, community engagement, projects, events and communications. She has responsibility for the Disability Royal Commission within DANA.

Sonia Hume

Sonia Hume is a woman with intellectual disability who lives on the north west coast of Tasmania.

She is the Speak Out Regional Representative for NW Tasmania.

In 2019 Sonia was part of the Civil Society delegation that travelled to Geneva to present to the United Nations Committee on the Convention on the Rights of Persons Living with Disability (CRPD). Sonia spoke from her lived experience and was a valued member of the delegation.

She has presented twice at the Having a Say Conference in Geelong, 2 Speak Out Conferences, the 2018 & 2019 Australasian Society for Intellectual Disability (ASID) conferences and the NDIS CEOs forum.

Sonia has been part of an advisory group for research about personal safety and abuse with Sally Robinson, Senior Research Fellow, Southern Cross University.

As a Community Educator with the Mainstream and Me team, Sonia presented workshops to over 350 people from mainstream services to improve their understanding of intellectual disability and clear communication.

Tammy McGowan

Tammy McGowan is Autistic and has raised two Autistic children. Tammy is in South Australia and is an experienced Coordinator and Trainer who has a fourteen-year history working in the community services sector with a focus on disability advocacy, social inclusion and trauma informed and person-centred practice. Tammy has worked within the Education Department and in the Alternative Care, Disability and Homelessness sectors supporting individuals and groups who have been negatively impacted by trauma, neglect, poverty and social isolation. Tammy bring experience and advice in relation to trauma-informed practice.

Tammy has held roles including Service Options Coordinator, Therapeutic Services Consultant, Manager Alternative Care, Community Mentor Coordinator, Volunteer Coordinator, Program Facilitator and Training Facilitator. Tammy is a recent graduate of the Autism CRC Sylvia Roger Academy Future Leaders program and the Autism CRC Sylvia Roger Academy Governance program.