Keynote Speakers 2009

Ian Dunlop

Ian Dunlop has wide experience in energy resources, infrastructure, and international business, for many years on the staff of Royal Dutch Shell. He has worked in oil, gas and coal exploration and production, in scenario and long-term energy planning, competition reform and privatization.

He chaired the Australian Coal Association in 1987-88, and the Australian Greenhouse Office Experts Group on Emissions Trading in 1998-2000. From 1997 to 2001 he was CEO of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Ian has a particular interest in the interaction of corporate governance, corporate responsibility and sustainability.

An engineer from the University of Cambridge, he is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and the Energy Institute (UK), and a Member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers of AIME (USA). He is Deputy Convenor of the Australian Association for the Study of Peak Oil, a Director of Australia 21, a Member of The Club of Rome, a Fellow of the Centre for Policy Development, a Director of Safe Climate Australia and advises on governance and sustainability.

Melinda Dodson

National President

Australian Institute of Architects

Melinda Dodson began her architectural career in Adelaide where she graduated with First Class Honours. She has worked for over fifteen years in both Adelaide and Canberra. She recently joined multi-disciplinary practice GHD Architecture as Principal Architect, and prior to that was with Daryl Jackson Alastair Swayn Architects for many years. She is a Director with Archimedia publishing and Director of the Australian Institute of Architects.

She has managed large and small projects in the areas of education, health, commercial office, interior fit-outs and campus planning. She has worked as design architect on many award-winning projects and received the Australian Institute of Architects ACT Young Architect Prize in 2005.

It was Melinda’s interest in wider built environment and construction industry issues over the years that lead her to serve as the Institute of Architects ACT President through 2007 and 2008. One of her initiatives during that time was a Housing Affordability Competition run jointly with the ACT Government and Housing Industry Association. That competition, along with the solutions it offered, profiled starkly the conflicts between suburban sprawl and sustainability and the challenges facing our cities.

Spurred on by this and a broader desire to contribute further, Melinda successfully stood for the position of National President of the Australian Institute of Architects. She is the second woman, and the youngest candidate to be elected to the role.

Adam Beck – Associate, Arup

Adam is an Associate with Arup in Brisbane and leads their Project Sustainability business, working with a team of specialists in the areas of urban planning, education, environmental engineering, building physics and sustainability research.

Adam has developed and facilitated sustainability assessment processes for major development and research projects for public and private sector organisations throughout Australia. He has significant experience in community participation and social impact assessment for which he lectured in at the University of Queensland for more than four years. Adam has designed, implemented and managed community engagement in sustainability projects throughout rural and urban Australia.

Professor Bob Frame
Landcare Research New Zealand

Bob’s research interests are the transitions to a more sustainable society. He is particularly interested in helping people imagine what kinds of futures might lie ahead. The key is then to find ways to translate these futures into good decision-making processes. Understanding how these processes operate will lead to greater organizational agility. Other research aspects of governance for sustainability include assessment technologies, social marketing, and strategic planning.

He works closely with government agencies, including Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Ministry for the Environment; Ministry for Research, Science and Technology and various regional authorities.

Bob has previously been a senior manager in the international donor community in Asia for 20 years; and, in the distant past, trained as an engineer / physicist of which most is forgotten. He now considers his research to be 'transdisciplinary'. Bob is a Principal Scientist in Sustainability and Society at Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research, based in Lincoln, New Zealand.

Romilly Madew

CEO, Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA)

Romilly Madew is the Chief Executive of the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA), a position she has held since February 2005. Immediately prior to this, she managed GBCA's advocacy and public affairs in a consultancy role.

An experienced property advocate, Romilly has previously been a board member and chair of the Urban Committee for the ACT Government's Land Development Agency and was Executive Director of the ACT Division of the Property Council of Australia as well as the National Executive Director of Sustainability.

Romilly's passion for green buildings arose through her work at the Property Council of Australia. She was responsible for establishing the inaugural Sustainability Committee for the ACT Division of the Council, and worked closely with the ACT Government's Office of Sustainability to promote sustainability in the National Capital.

In 2005, Romilly authored the GBCA's publication The Dollars and Sense of Green Buildings 2006 - Building the Business Case for Green Commercial Buildings in Australia.

Romilly has also been involved in the development of the Sustainable Building Pathways report, the national summit on Sustainable Communities and the Business Leaders Forum on Sustainable Development. She also represents the GBCA on the Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council (ASBEC) and is collaborating on its climate change project.

Romilly was also invited to attend the Prime Ministers 2020 Summit in April 2008 at Parliament House, Canberra

Romilly has a Bachelor of Agriculture Economics from the University of Sydney, and is currently completing her MBA.

Brendan Gleeson
Professor of Urban Management and Policy
Director - Urban Research Program - Griffith University Qld

Brendan Gleeson is Professor of Urban Policy and Management and Director of the Urban Research Program at Griffith University. Before joining Griffith in 2003, he was Deputy Director of the Urban Frontiers Program, University of Western Sydney. His research interests include urban planning and governance, urban social policy, disability studies, and environmental theory and policy. Professor Gleeson has worked professionally in Britain, Germany, New Zealand, the USA and Australia.

Gleeson co-authored The Green City: sustainable homes, sustainable suburbs (2005) and Justice, Society and Nature: an Exploration of Political Ecology (1998), which received the International Studies Association’s Harold and Margaret Sprout award. He co-edited: Geographies of Disability (1999); Making Urban Transport Sustainable (2003); and Australian Urban Planning: New Challenges, New Agendas (2001), which received the Royal Australian Planning Institute’s National Award for Planning Scholarship Excellence. Gleeson’s 2006 books are Creating Child Friendly Cities and Australian Heartlands: Making Space for Hope in the Suburbs, which won the inaugural John Iremonger Award for Writing on Public Issues.

He has most recently been appointed as a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and currently lives in the Brisbane suburbs with his partner and their two children.

Prof. Robert John Adams AM

B.Arch (Cape Town), MA.CNNA (Urban Design Oxford), FRAIA, HFRAPI
Director Design and Urban Environment - City of Melbourne

As Director of Design & Urban Environment for the City of Melbourne with more than 36 years experience as a practising architect and urban designer, Rob has produced a large number of strategic urban design solutions and projects in addition to design-research based urban projects and strategies, and has attracted over 100 state and national awards for excellence.

In 2007, Rob was made a Member of the Order of Australia for services to Architecture and Urban Design and in 2008 became the Prime Minister’s Environmentalist of the Year at the Banksia awards.

A champion of both the arts and environmental sustainability he has worked to ensure that good urban design is established as a platform for city development into the 21st Century.

Dorte Ekelund

Executive Director, Major Cities Unit, Infrastructure Australia

Dorte Ekelund, has over 25 years experience in the urban development sector. Prior to joining the Australian Government in November last year, she was the Deputy Director General of the WA Department for Planning and Infrastructure, and a Commissioner on the Western Australian Planning Commission. Dorte previously held the role of Deputy Chief Planning Executive at the ACT Planning and Land Authority, and formerly worked for a number of NSW local government authorities.

Dorte is experienced in urban development coordination, infrastructure planning, statutory planning, investigation of new urban growth areas and managing growth and change within established areas. She has also worked extensively in capital works programming, retail planning, major projects planning, planning system reform and governance reform. She also has a strong interest in climate change, water quality planning and housing affordability.

Ms Ekelund has studied urban development in North America and the UK, has presented papers at various State, Territory, national and international planning conferences, and has been a guest lecturer on urban and regional planning and sustainable development.

Andrew McNamara

Andrew is a former MP and was first elected to Parliament in February 2001. He was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Main Roads from September 2006 to September 2007 and became Minister for Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation in September 2007.

Before being elected to Parliament, Andrew was a partner in a prominent local law firm for six years and served on the Board of Ergon Energy for two years. He was President of the Hervey Bay Chamber of Commerce from 1996 to 1998 and Director of the Wide Bay Group Training Scheme from 1995 to 2001.

In 2005 he was Chair of the Queensland Government’s Oil Vulnerability Taskforce. The McNamara Report, “Queensland’s Vulnerability to Rising Oil Prices”, is the first investigation of its kind to be commissioned by any provincial government in the world.

Andrew is patron of Hervey Bay Mariners Cricket Club, Hervey Bay Art Society, Hervey Bay Kennel and Obedience Club, Wide Bay Gymnastics Club, Wide Bay Regional Renal Support Group, Unit Committee TS Krait, and the Australian Chapter for the Association for the Study of Peak Oil. He is Vice Patron for Wide Bay Capricorn Surf Life Saving Association.

He has lived in Hervey Bay since 1994 and is a father of two school-aged children. He enjoys reading, swimming, and playing the guitar.