Media release

The Chairman of the Australian National Council on Drugs (ANCD), Dr John Herron is pleased to announce the new membership of its new NGO based Asia-Pacific Drug Issues Committee for 2007–2010.

A/Prof Robert Ali (Chair)

Director, Clinical Policy and Research for the Drug and Alcohol Services Council (SA) & WHO Collaborating Centre

A/Prof Ali is a public health physician who has worked in the alcohol and other drug area since 1985. Associate Professor Ali is the director of a WHO Collaborating Centre for the Treatment of Drug and Alcohol Problems based in the Department of Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology at the University of Adelaide. A/Prof Ali is also and Executive Member of the Australian National Council on Drugs (ANCD).

Prof Nick Crofts

Professor Nick Crofts is a public health practitioner who has contributed substantial research on the spread and control of blood-borne viruses among injecting drug users, especially hepatitis C in Australia and HIV in Asia. Since 1990, he has worked extensively on all aspects of harm reduction, specifically control of HIV associated with drug use, in almost every country in Asia. He co-founded the Asian Harm Reduction Network in 1996 and the Centre for Harm Reduction in 1998. He is now Director of Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre.

Dr John Herron

Dr Herron entered Federal Parliament in 1990 and served as Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs (1996–01). He was also Chairman of the Senate Community Affairs Committee and Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Minister for Health (1994–96).

Most recently Dr Herron was Australia’s Ambassador to Ireland & the Holy See. Dr Herron has also served as President of the Queensland Liberal Party (1980–83 and 2001–02). He was Queensland Branch President of the Australian Medical Association (1989) and served as Queensland Chairman of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and the Australian Association of Surgeons. Educated at the University of Queensland, Dr Herron holds a Bachelor of Medicine and a Bachelor of Surgery. After Registrar training at Royal Brisbane and Princess Alexandra Hospitals, Dr Herron obtained his Edinburgh and London Surgical Fellowships.

He was appointed Research Fellow to the Queensland Melanoma Project at Princess Alexandra Hospital and became a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. He was senior surgeon at the Mater Hospital prior to entering the Senate.

Dr John Howard

Dr John Howard is Director—Clinical Services, Training and Research with the Ted Noffs Foundation in Sydney. He is also a Consultant Clinical Psychologist in the Department of Adolescent Psychiatry, Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney and an Honorary Visiting Fellow at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, University of New South Wales. He was formerly a Senior Lecturer in Psychology and Director of the Social Health Programs, Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney. He also undertakes extensive work in the Region for the UN & WHO.

Ms Annie Madden

Ms Annie Madden is currently the Executive Officer of the Australian Injecting & Illicit Drug Users League (AIVL) which is the national peak body representing state and territory drug user organisations and illicit drug users at the national level. Prior to her current role, Annie was the Co-ordinator of the NSW Users & AIDS Association (NUAA) for six years. She has an honours degree in Social and Political Sciences. She is on numerous national, Commonwealth Government and research committees including the recently appointed Ministerial Advisory Committee on AIDS, Sexual Health and Hepatitis C. She has been working in the areas of illicit drug use, HIV/AIDS and hepatitis for over 12 years.

Dr Toni Makkai

Dr Toni Makkai is Director of the Australian Institute of Criminology, a statutory agency that undertakes research for policy makers in the criminal justice field. She has held a number of positions within the AIC including Director of Research. Prior to this she has worked in the university sector in both the UK and at the Research School of Social Sciences, ANU. She is a quantitative criminologist with a strong focus on policy relevant research.

Prof Richard Mattick

Professor Mattick (B.Sc. M.Psych. (Clinical) Ph.D.) has over twenty years clinical and research experience in this field. This experience has involved direct clinical work in mental health, psychology, drug and alcohol dependence, as well as extensive research into the causes, nature and the management of problems caused by legal and illicit drugs. He is currently the Professor of Drug and Alcohol Studies at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, within the Faculty of Medicine, where he is the Director of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre. Professor Mattick has authored over 120 scientific articles and books on the assessment, nature and treatment of emotional, cognitive and psychological problems, and drug and alcohol problems.

Mr Garth Popple

Mr Popple currently holds the following honorary positions; Executive Member of the Australian National Council on Drugs (ANCD);Board Member (ex officio past President) Australasian Therapeutic Communities Association (ATCA); Treasurer, Network of Alcohol and other Drug Agencies NSW ( NADA) ; Board Member, International Council of Alcohol and Addictions (ICAA).

Garth has been working in A&OD management roles since 1986 and in honorary committee and board positions since 1981 for the non-profit sector. He has been primarily focused on the Therapeutic Community movement for most of his career to date including working with TCs throughout Asia and in 1991 became involved in harm minimisation initiatives and he attempts to stay in touch with the needs and feedback from users past and present. We Help Ourselves (WHOS) operates five Therapeutic Communities within NSW and Qld: WHOS Metro for men, WHOS New Beginnings for women, WHOS MTAR (Methadone To Abstinence Residential), WHOS Hunter Valley and WHOS Sunshine Coast. WHOS provides other services such as Aftercare and HIV/Infectious Disease Education Services. Garth is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Western Sydney received in recognition of ‘Services to the Community' and more recently (2007) was a recipient of a National Honour Roll Award for persons who have made a significant contribution, over a considerable time period, to the Drug and Alcohol field.

Prof Robert Power

Professor Robert Power commenced as Director of the Centre for Harm Reduction in early April 2005. He has worked in the field of harm reduction since 1985. Up until March 2005 he was Reader in Social & Health Sciences Research at the Royal Free & University College Medical School, University College London. Recent research and development programs include DfID Funded work in Russia and China to prevent HIV transmission among injecting drug users and NIH projects in Zimbabwe, focusing on adolescent reproductive health.

Prof Daniel Tarantola

Daniel Tarantola obtained his medical degree from Paris University and, early in his career, contributed to the foundation of Médecins sans Frontières of which he was the first doctor deployed to the field. He later worked with the World Health Organization on large scale international health programmes, mostly in Asia and the Pacific region in the late 1980s, and was a senior member of the team who designed and started the WHO Global programme on HIV/AIDS. He was a Lecturer in the Department of Population and International Health of the Harvard School of Public Health and a Senior Associate of the Harvard-based François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights. With Jonathan Mann he co-authored and co-edited a number of publications including two volumes of AIDS in the World, in 1992 and 1996, respectively. From 1998–2004, Daniel rejoined the World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva as a Senior Policy Adviser to the Director General and during the latter part of this period, as the Director of the WHO department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals. Under the auspices of the UNSW Health and Human Rights Initiative (HHRI), Daniel’s current work aims at exploring the interface and synergies between health and human rights as they relate, among other topics, to HIV, Hepatitis C, other HIV-related issues, poverty, migration, refugees and post-disaster impact mitigation

Mr Gino Vumbaca

Mr Vumbaca has extensive experience in the HIV/AIDS and drug and alcohol fields both in Australia and internationally. He is a Churchill Fellow and has completed a Social Work degree and a Masters of Business Administration at the University of Sydney. He has worked as the Manager of HIV/AIDS and related services with the NSW Department of Corrective Services, in a variety of drug and alcohol centres as a counsellor and was responsible for co-ordinating the establishment of the NSW network of needle and syringe exchange programs for the NSW Health Department. Mr Vumbaca also continues to provide advice on prisons, HIV and drug issues for international organisations such as the UN and WHO.

Dr Alex Wodak

Dr Wodak trained as a physician and, since 1982, has been Director of the Alcohol and Drug Service at St. Vincent's Hospital in Sydney, Australia. Dr Wodak and his colleagues helped to establish the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, the Australian Society of HIV Medicine, Australia's first (pre-legal) needle exchange programme and Australia’s first (pre-legal) medically supervised injecting centre. Dr Wodak is currently the President of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation and is a member of several state and national committees. He often works in developing countries to assist efforts to control HIV infection among injecting drug users.

Prof Anthony Zwi

Professor Anthony Zwi has strong interests in international health and policy and humanitarian issues and is increasingly working to enhance the research—policy and practice interface. Professor Zwi has a wide range of interests, with a particular focus on public health and international health and policy. He has strong interests in public health issues related to equity and social justice and is committed to building Asia-Pacific partnerships and capabilities in public health, health policy, and disaster planning, management and response. He works extensively in the Asia-Pacific region and is involved in projects in East Timor, Sri Lanka, Solomon Islands and Cambodia amongst others. He is working actively to understand and improve mechanisms to facilitate research-policy interfaces i.e. to promote research sensitive policy-makers and policy-sensitive researchers. Professor Zwi is seeking to build linkages between humanitarian relief and development organisations and academic bodies and plays a role in building cross-Faculty initiatives at UNSW to examine conflict, health, disaster planning and mitigation and human rights.

This committee will advise on matters related to the ANCD’s membership of the Australian Government Asia-Pacific Drug Initiative committee, which includes members from the Department of Health & Ageing, AusAID, Attorney General’s, Customs and AF, and provides high level advice to the Australian Government on issues affecting the region.

The ANCD is the principal advisory body to Government on drug and alcohol issues.

Whilst all care has been made to ensure only authorised material appears on this site, the Australian National Council on Drugs accepts no responsibility for inaccurate or false representations appearing herein.

ANCD Asia-Pacific Drug Issues Committee membership announcement