Policy symposium: Domestic violence and public policy

Alison Evans is the Chief Executive Officer of the Centre for Women’s Safety and Wellbeing. Prior to this, Alison was the Director of Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence at the Centre. Other roles include Executive Director of the Women’s Community Health Network WA.

 

Alison is a member of numerous bodies including the National Women’s Safety Alliance and Board member of the National Association of Services Against Sexual Violence. Alison has substantive knowledge of violence against women, gender inequity and inequality and their implications for women’s health and wellbeing, life chances and choices and access to services, supports and safety. Alison is committed to collaborative practice and supports the leadership of victim survivors to amplify their voices and create change.

Nicole has worked in the family violence sector for more than 16 years, starting with the then peak body - the Women’s Council for Domestic and Family Violence Services. She commenced with the Department of Communities in 2008, working in and around family violence policy, service delivery, program development and training.

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Over the years, Nicole has led significant policy and program reform across both State and Commonwealth government including changes to our laws and ways of working to improve protections for victim-survivors, create accountabilities for perpetrators and to work towards keeping children safe and together with the non-offending parent.

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Nicole is deeply committed to family violence prevention and improving outcomes for victim-survivors through safe, culturally secure and person-centred services; informed and capable workforces; and integrated service systems.

Corina Martin is a Mulgyin Jaru/Kitja and Gooniyandi woman born and raised in Broome, Western Australia. Her qualifications include a Bachelor of Marketing and Media and Bachelor of Law.

 

Corina was admitted to the Supreme Court of Western Australia as a barrister and solicitor in 2006. She was the Principal Legal Officer of the Aboriginal Family Legal Service before becoming the Chief Executive Officer. In 2022 Corina was awarded the Indigenous Lawyer of the Year Award at the Women in Law Awards, and in 2023 she was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for service to the Law.

 

Corina has extensive experience in the family violence sector and has sat on numerous executive boards and committees dedicated to improving access to legal assistance and preventing family violence in Western Australia.

Anu Rammohan is a Professor of Economics, and Director of International Engagement at the UWA Business School. She is also the Senior Research Fellow at UWA for the Australia Indonesia Centre’s Partnership for Australia Indonesia Research’s (PAIR) program. Her research is in Development Economics and Health Economics.

 

The focus of her research has been on understanding household vulnerability and socio-economic factors that can influence maternal and child health outcomes, gender discrimination and food security issues in South and South East Asia. She has received research funding of over $9 million through competitive research grants from the Australian Research Council, DFAT, Australian Council of International Agriculture Research and the Australia India Institute.

 

Anu currently serves as a member of the Australian Research Council's College of Experts and was previously on the editorial board of the Economic Record.

Cassandra Winzar is an economist and policy advisor with broad experience across the private and public sectors. Cassandra is currently Senior Economist with CEDA – the Committee for Economic Development of Australia. In this role Cassandra provides economic and policy analysis on the WA and national economies and leads CEDA’s national research program on delivering better human services. Ms Winzar is the Chair of the WA Women in Economics Network.

 

Prior to joining CEDA, Ms Winzar was Principal Economist at the WA Department of Communities (Housing Authority), where she focused on state economic conditions and housing related research, including running the state government’s Housing Industry Forecasting Group.

 

She has also held roles as the WA-based Economist at the RBA, and in Transfer Pricing at EY. Cassandra has a Bachelor of Economics (Honours) and Bachelor of Arts (Asian Studies) from the University of Western Australia.