Council members
The Chairman, six other members and up to two associate members are all appointed by the Minister. The Chairman must have substantial experience or expertise concerning heritage while two members must be similarly qualified in natural heritage, two in historic heritage and two must be Indigenous persons with substantial experience or expertise in Indigenous heritage, at least one of who must represent the interests of Indigenous people. An associate member must have expertise in any one of these areas.
Media releases
- Keating and Fraser unite in celebration of Australia's democracy - 22 October 2009
Current Members
Mr Tom Harley (Chairman)
Mr Tom Harley
Mr Tom Harley is Chairman of the Australian Heritage Council. He was previously the Chairman of the Australian Heritage Commission. He is Chairman of Dow Chemical (Australia) and Senior Advisor to the Executive Leadership Committee of Dow Chemical globally, Co-Managing Director of Dragoman and Chairman of the Menzies Research Centre.
Mr Harley was a Director of UNICEF Australia from 1988 to 2005 and was President between 1997 and 2001 and was appointed a Member of the Council for Australian-Arab Relations in January 2003.
He is a graduate of RMIT and Oxford University. He has written on Australia's history, business and politics.
Mr Howard Tanner (Historic Expert)
Mr Howard Tanner
Mr Howard Tanner is a leading Sydney architect with long-established interests in landscape design and history. He has a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Sydney and is a fellow of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects. Mr Tanner has written extensively on Australian architecture, housing and gardens and was a senior lecturer in Architecture at the University of Sydney.
Mr Tanner was an architect or architectural heritage advisor for several significant Australian buildings including, Old Parliament House, Canberra; Sydney Town Hall, Sydney; Admiralty House, Kirribilli; and also for New Zealand Parliament Buildings in Wellington, New Zealand.
Mr Tanner is Chairman of the Foundation for the Historic Houses Trust of NSW. He was recently National President of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, is a former Chairman of the Heritage Council of NSW, a founder of the Australian Garden History Society, and a former Councillor and Vice President of the National Trust of Australia (NSW).
Adjunct Professor Sharon Sullivan AO (Historic Expert)
Adjunct Professor Sharon Sullivan AO
Professor Sullivan has significant experience in archaeology and cultural heritage management over a career spanning three decades. Professor Sullivan has worked in heritage administration, place management and land management for 30 years, and has had considerable involvement in the development of cultural heritage systems in Australia.
Professor Sullivan is an Adjunct Professor at three Australian universities, a Fellow of the Academy of the Humanities, a member of the Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, and Deputy Chair of the State Heritage Council of NSW and of the Port Arthur Historic Site Authority. She has an honorary doctorate from James Cook University of North Queensland. In 2005 she was awarded an AO in the Australia Day Honours List for services to cultural heritage conservation and for influencing conservation practices worldwide. She has also been awarded the Rhys Jones Memorial Medal for services to archaeology.
She has worked and published extensively on cultural heritage management in Australia, the USA, China, Africa and Cambodia and has worked as a cultural heritage consultant for the Australian Government, the World Bank, the World Monuments Fund, the Getty Conservation Institute and the Government of the People's Republic of China.
Professor Sullivan has also previously been the Executive Director of the former Australian Heritage Commission, and worked with the World Heritage Bureau as well as being the Australian Government’s main adviser and its international representative on the World Heritage Committee.
Mr Rodney Dillon (Indigenous Expert)
Mr Rodney Dillon
Mr Rodney Dillon is the Indigenous Campaigner for Amnesty International and current Chair of the National Reference Group for Repatriation of Australian Indigenous Remains. He has been instrumental in changes to British repatriation policies and to the repatriation of many remains of Aboriginal Australian people.
Mr Dillon is a former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Commissioner for Tasmania, serving for three terms, and a member of the Stolen Generations Alliance: Australians for Truth, Justice and Healing, which saw Tasmania become the first state to remunerate members of the Stolen Generation. He has been involved in Aboriginal fishing rights at state and national levels and chaired a World Indigenous Fishing Conference in Vancouver. He is a founding member of the South East Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre and current Chair of the newly formed Weetapoona Aboriginal Corporation. He was named National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee Person of the Year in 2005 in recognition of his long term contribution to Aboriginal people. Mr Dillon is a Tasmanian Aborigine (Palawa).
Dr Jacqueline Huggins AM FAHA (Indigenous Expert)
Dr Jacqueline Huggins
Dr Huggins AM, FAHA, BA Qld, BA Hons, DipEd Flinders, honorary Doctor of the University of Queensland, is of the Bidjara (Central Queensland) and Birri-Gubba Juru (North Queensland) peoples. Dr Huggins holds many leadership positions in organisations across the country. She is the Deputy Director of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research Unit at the University of Queensland; a Director of the Telstra Foundation; Adjunct Professor in the School of Social Work and Applied Human Sciences, University of Queensland; Member of the Indigenous Advisory Board of the Queensland Centre for Domestic and Family Violence Research, Central Queensland University; former Co-Chair of Reconciliation Australia; former Chair of the Queensland Domestic Violence Council (2001); former Commissioner for Queensland for the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families (1997); and former member of the ATSIC Review Panel (2003).
Dr Huggins has authored Auntie Rita (with Rita Huggins 1994) and Sistergirl (1999). In 2000 she received the Premier's Millenium Award for Excellence in Indigenous Affairs; in 2001 she was awarded a Centenary Medal for her work with Indigenous people, particularly reconciliation, literacy, women's issues and social justice; and was Co-Chair 2020 Summit Indigenous Stream (2008) and Queensland Public Service Commissioner (2008).
Dr Libby Mattiske (Natural Expert)
Dr Libby Mattiske
Dr Libby Mattiske has over thirty years' experience in flora and vegetation surveys in Australia and Australian External Territories. She is a consultant specialising in plant ecology and has a Bachelor of Science and a PhD from Adelaide University.
Her particular interests are in the flora, vegetation and ecology of Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory. She also has a strong interest in biodiversity, ecosystems and in the rehabilitation and restoration of vegetation on highly disturbed landforms. Dr Mattiske is a former Australian Heritage Commissioner and a former member and Deputy Chairman of the Western Australian National Parks and Nature Conservation Authority. She is also a former member and Deputy Chairman of the Western Australian Environmental Protection Authority, the National State of Environment Committee and the Threatened Species Scientific Committee under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.
Associate Professor Peter Valentine (Natural Expert)
Associate Professor Peter Valentine
Professor Valentine currently teaches Environmental Science at James Cook University, and is Head of the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences. He has extensive experience of Australia's natural environment and heritage, conservation and natural resource management.
Professor Valentine's research interests include: protected area management (including National Parks, Marine Protected Areas, World Heritage Areas, non-government biodiversity protection, Indigenous co-management) and related nature conservation issues, with particular interest in the integration of social science in natural resource management. He has worked extensively on World Heritage matters and provided advice to several governments and conservation organisations in many countries. Professor Valentine is a member of IUCN's World Commission on Protected Areas and edits the IUCN's Best Practice Guidelines for Protected Area Management. He was previously a Director of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area for six years and currently advises the Queensland Government on matters of international conservation significance. He is also a Director (World Heritage) of Terrain NRM Board in the Wet Tropics.
Professor Valentine's published research includes environmental processes such as the effects of fire, interactions between tourism and wildlife, sustainability science, biogeography, ecology and conservation.
Find a heritage place
Related web sites
Key
Links to another web site
Opens a pop-up window