Advisory Committee for Indigenous Repatriation

Mr Gordon is a Goorang Goorang man from Rockhampton in Queensland. He was appointed as a Co-Chair of the Advisory Committee for Indigenous Repatriation for a further period of three years in September 2020. Having served one previous term as a Co-Chair and two previous terms as a Committee Member, Mr Gordon has made a considerable contribution to the Committee and brings 35 years of expertise working in Indigenous cultural heritage, museum practice and repatriation.

Mr Gordon made a significant contribution to the Committee's National Resting Place Consultation Report that considers the long-term care of Indigenous Australian ancestors that have no identified community of origin. Together with Ms Grant, he was a Member of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, National Resting Place Indigenous Advisory Committee, in 2019 and 2020.

Mr Gordon was the former Manager of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Collections and Repatriation at the Australian Museum in Sydney. In this role, he advised communities on issues such as museum outreach and repatriation of ancestors and significant cultural property.

Mr Gordon is a Member of the Strehlow Research Centre Board of Management, and a Member of the Museums and Galleries of NSW's Board of Management’s Aboriginal Reference Committee. He continues to provide advice for government agencies on cultural heritage and policy development.

Ms Grant is a Kuku Yalanji and Mualgal woman from Far North Queensland and the Torres Strait Islands. Having served one previous term as a Co-Chair, Ms Grant has made a considerable contribution to the Committee. She was appointed as a Co-Chair of the Advisory Committee for Indigenous Repatriation for a further period of three years in September 2020.

Together with Mr Gordon, she was a Member of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies’ (AIATSIS) National Resting Place Indigenous Advisory Committee, in 2019 and 2020. Ms Grant brings over 30 years of experience in governance, national and world heritage management and policy development and provides support to Indigenous people.

In 2009–10, Ms Grant Co-Chaired the Australian Government's International Repatriation Advisory Committee, and led, with Mr Gordon, a national independent review on the International Repatriation Program.

Ms Grant is currently the Principal Director of CTG Services; and past Chair of the National Health and Medical Research Council's (NHMRC) Indigenous Research Ethics Guidelines Review Working Committee; past Chair of 12 years of the AIATSIS Research Ethics Committee; and a Member of various advisory committees to the Minister for Environment and Energy, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, and the Reef 2050 Traditional Owner’s Implementation Plan Steering Committee.

In 2019, Ms Grant as one of the founding members, became the inaugural Chair of the International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on World Heritage to represent Indigenous peoples’ concerns for their World Heritage properties and work with the UNESCO World Heritage Centre. In 2020, Ms Grant was appointed as a Director to the Board of the Wet Tropics Management Authority (Wet Tropics World Heritage Area), and then appointed as the first Indigenous Chair of the Board in 2021.

Associate Professor Ormond-Parker is of Alyawarre descent from the Barkly Tablelands region of the Northern Territory. He is joining the Advisory Committee for Indigenous Repatriation for his third term after being reappointed as a Committee Member in July 2021 for a further three years.

Associate Professor Ormond-Parker is an Australian Research Council (ARC) Fellow in the Centre for Heritage and Museum Studies of the Australian National University's College of Arts and Social Sciences in Canberra; and a Principal Research Fellow with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society RMIT University on the ‘Mapping digital inclusion for informed decision-making in remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities’ project.

Associate Professor Ormond-Parker has significant experience lecturing and coordinating tertiary-level subjects, including the delivery of 'On-Country' learning, and contributing to the Return, Reconcile, Renew project. He continues in his roles of policy development, research, and negotiations at the national and international levels, focusing on Australian Indigenous communities in information technology, digital inclusion, cultural heritage, materials conservation, and repatriation.

As a previous visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, and project officer with the Foundation for Aboriginal and Islander Research Action, he was working on documenting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ancestral remains and material culture in European universities, museums, and hospital collections, and assisting Aboriginal communities with the repatriation of ancestors and cultural objects.

Associate Professor Ormond-Parker is a member of the Indigenous Advisory Panel to the International Council on Monuments and Sites 20th General Assembly and Scientific Symposium, and the Indigenous Connections Committee of the National Film and Sound Archive. He was also a Member of the Australian Heritage Council from 2015 to 2021.

Ms Gallagher is a Gunditjmara woman from western Victoria. She was appointed as a Committee Member of the Advisory Committee for Indigenous Repatriation for a period of three years in November 2020.

In 1983, Ms Gallagher was accepted into a training scheme at Museum Victoria, where she worked on the return of ancestors that were part of the Murray Black Collection (800 ancestors), and in 1985 she took up a position at the Victorian Archaeological Survey. In 1992, she commenced as Manager of the Heritage Branch in Aboriginal Affairs Victoria.

In 1998, Ms Gallagher commenced a position with the Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (VACCHO), a peak body representing and advocating for community controlled Aboriginal health services in Victoria, where she later became Chief Executive Officer in 2001.

From 1999 to 2010, Ms Gallagher was a member of the Australian Government’s Return of Indigenous Cultural Property (RICP) Program Management Committee. This national committee was responsible for overseeing the implementation of the Cultural Ministers Council, Strategic Plan for the Protection and Return of Indigenous Ancestral Remains and Secret Sacred Objects (SPARS). From 2013 to 2018 she served as a member on the Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Council (VAHC), the legislated authority responsible for Aboriginal ancestral remains in Victoria. In 2017, Ms Gallagher was appointed Commissioner of the Victorian Treaty Advancement Commission, which was tasked with designing and establishing the elected body, First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria.

Ms Gallagher was inducted into the Victorian Honour Roll of Women in 2009 and the Victorian Aboriginal Honour Roll in 2015. She was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2013 in recognition of her strong and effective leadership in Aboriginal Health.

Associate Professor Christopher Wilson is a Ngarrindjeri and Kaurna man from South Australia. He was appointed to the Advisory Committee for Indigenous Repatriation for a period of three years in July 2021. Joining the Committee for his first term, Associate Professor Wilson brings over 17 years of expertise working in the field of archaeology, Indigenous cultural heritage, repatriation of ancestral remains, reburial of Old Peoples remains and museum studies.

In 2009, Associate Professor Wilson was a Member of the Australian Government's International Repatriation Advisory Committee, led by Mr Gordon and Ms Grant, working on a national independent review on the International Repatriation Program. In 2011, he assisted with the repatriation and reburial of Ngarrindjeri ancestors from Museum Victoria and the United Kingdom.

Associate Professor Wilson is Director Indigenous Arts, Education and Law at Griffith University in Brisbane. He was previously a Senior Lecturer in Archaeology and Indigenous Studies at the Flinders University's College of Humanities Arts and Social Sciences.

Associate Professor Wilson is a Member of the South Australian Museum's Board and Aboriginal Partnerships Committee and is currently associated with three Australian Research Council (ARC) grants including, the special research initiative National Indigenous Research and Knowledges Network; ARC Centre of Excellence for Indigenous and Environmental Histories and Futures; and Centre for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage.

While growing his academic networks nationally, Associate Professor Wilson works closely with Indigenous communities in South Australia and globally around the care, management and protection of cultural heritage through archaeology, museums and public education, including media and television.

Dr Andrews is a Yuwaalaraay woman from north-western New South Wales. She was appointed as a Committee Member of the Advisory Committee for Indigenous Repatriation for a period of three years in August 2021. Joining the Committee for her first term, Dr Andrews brings extensive knowledge in cultural heritage and the museums sector.

Dr Andrews was a guest speaker at the 2021 Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Summit, Footprints for the Future–Tracking our Journey Together, where she participated in panel discussions on Indigenous repatriation.

Dr Andrews is a Research Fellow at the Australian National University. Her work is focused on Indigenous cultural material held in museum collections, particularly historical material considered ethnographic or collected for anthropological enquiry.

In 2019, Dr Andrews completed her PhD titled Encountering cultural material in museum collections: An Indigenous perspective, where she explores the Concept of Custodianship in an era of increasing collaboration, co-creation and curation by Indigenous cultural practitioners.

In 2016, Dr Andrews spent time with the collections of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University and the Smithsonian Institute, National Museum of Natural History, researching the ways in which overseas museums care for and present anthropological collections, and in particular, Indigenous objects and ancestral remains.

Dr Andrews’ leadership in the cultural heritage and museums sector has been recognised in her appointment by the British Council and Australia Council for the Arts’ Accelerate Program, her appointment to the ACT Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Network as well as the Minister’s Creative Council in the ACT Government.