2018 ipaa queensland ceos and young professionals ... · ... good morning and welcome to the ......

2018 IPAA Queensland CEOs and Young Professionals Breakfast — transcript

Ladies and gentlemen, could I have your attention please. Thank you. If you can't find

your seat, just put up your hand and we'll get you there. Well, good morning and welcome to the

2018 Institute of Public Administration Australia Queensland Chief Executives and Young

Professionals Breakfast. My name is Madonna King and I'm your MC for this morning and what

a terrific morning we have planned. A morning that we hope will inspire and inform as much as it

will challenge and perhaps even entertain. I'd like to acknowledge several people with us this

morning. The Queensland Government Leadership Board. IPA Queensland Advisory Council.

Representatives from both Griffith and QUT. Representatives from the private sector, including

David Deloitte and lovely to have you along and young professionals throughout Queensland and

each and every one of you for making us your breakfast date this morning. How inclusive is our

public sector? If you were running our department what else would you do and how would you go

about building a diverse and inclusive sector while fostering young talent? That's the discussion

for today and I look forward to getting into it, but to get us on our way I'd like to introduce you to

Louisa Bonner, who will deliver the Welcome to Country. (APPLAUSE)

>>: Hello, good morning, my name is, of course, Louisa Bonner. I'm a member of the

Jagera language people and there are about four groups that have been identified under the

Jagera language people. That is Turrbal and others. My lines connect from Jagera on my great

grandfather's side and Jagerapul. Back down the corner here of Queensland, NSW and her

mother's mother is Bundjalung, bottom of Queensland border and then further along out towards

Warrick way is Githabul country which is my great grandmother's country, and you come back to

the Jagera language people and that's my great, great grandfather Roger Bell and he was

a Jagera man. So on behalf of my people, past, present and future, I would firstly like to

acknowledge my Elders and the Elders in the room here, as well of Indigenous or non-Indigenous

and just say thank you and give you a warm welcome in the native tongue of my people and just

encourage, if I might just add something to your event with up and coming Indigenous young men

and women in our country and throughout your sector, that they will be encouraged to take on

leadership and just to have that opportunity and young people, don't be afraid to do that and I hope

that your managers or executives will help create that opportunity for you. Because one thing we

want as Indigenous Australians, if we want self-determination, self-management and self-control

and we want to be up there with the best having a say in our country. Please keep that in mind

when you do that and thank you very much for the acknowledgement of my people. Thank you.

(APPLAUSE).

>>: Thank you Louisa and for those words of wisdom, as well. This morning is about you

and what you get out of it will largely depend on what you put into it. We're going to hear from

2 2018 IPAA Queensland CEOs and Young Professionals Breakfast — transcript

a stellar panel who will tell us from the heart what diversity means to them and perhaps what it

should mean to all of us and then we'll provide time for you to talk about that at your tables. What

issues does it raise for you? Is there some value that you could add to your own work station?

How does it look now to someone on the outside actually looking in? Then we'll put you on the

spot to tell us what you think. More on that shortly. As always there are a few housekeeping

issues we need to be aware of. This is a no-smoking area as you would expect. Bathrooms are

located near the main lifts on this will level. This includes disabled facilities and there are toilets on

the level above, level 6. If you hear a fire alarm, run. That was a joke, and obviously one I have to

work on! We would just follow closely the instructions given to us by staff. We're recording today's

event and it is also live captioned and a transcription of this will also be made available after the

event. The initial hashtag is #IPAAQLDYP. Use it to tweet your questions and photos throughout

the morning. Speaking of hashtags, it's time we heard from the hashtag boss. Join me in

welcoming Robert Settler, Public Service Commission chief executive. (APPLAUSE).

>>: Thanks, Madonna. It's a great privilege to join you all here this morning and to

welcome you on behalf of the leadership board to this IPAA Queensland Chief Executives and

Young Professionals Breakfast. This is part of our rebirth of IPAA Queensland in Queensland and

just by the mood of the room I think this is a great launching pad for that. I'd like to also pay my

respects to the Jagera and Turrbal people and the Elders of the land on which we come together.

They give strength, inspiration and courage to all Queenslanders as we work, live and grow

together to ensure an ever-more inclusive and successful Queensland. I would like to

acknowledge everyone who Madonna acknowledged. I appreciate the support of all of our leaders

in the public service and private sector who come together to help build a more capable and

responsive public service. I'd also like to acknowledge MC Madonna King. If you follow the media

you'll be aware that Madonna has accepted the commission to lead the cyberbullying task force on

behalf of the Premier. This is a great challenge for, I think, our community generally, globally in

fact and so the Government's asking Madonna to lead work to help understand what we can do as

a government in this very difficult and challenging space. A topic of great interest particularly to

our young professionals in the room, so thank you for taking that on, Madonna. (APPLAUSE) Let

me also thank every one of you for being here on time, which is quite incredible really. I come from

the Sunshine Coast and there was an accident which saw me locked up on the highway for half an

hour, so I was busily texting Sonia to say "You might have to do the presentation", but I'm here.

Thank you all for coming along and also I think more broadly in terms of all of you and the work

you do in the interest of the community. The public work that you contribute to. You should never

make any assumption how important it is despite the days you might have when you question the

effort that's required to do it. I don't believe you choose a career in the public service, because you


want a simple life or indeed because you want an easy job. In fact, if you do have those

aspirations the public service I think is not the place for you. You actually do it because when you

get home in the evening you want to have a sense that you've actually achieved something for the

day, that you're actually making a difference both to the lives of others, but more importantly I think

to the community in which you live. What I'm most delighted about and one of the learnings I

guess from preparing for today is that a quarter of the public service in Queensland is under 35.

That's 68,000 young professionals working in the Queensland Public Service and I come from

a red-neck community where there is an assumption that all public servants are like me. Old,

dated, grey cardigan wearers and, in fact, the reality is far from that and it's a thrill to see this wave

of youth and energy coming through the service that will not only contemporise the service, but

revitalise those of us here for a long time and think we know what's best for those that we work

with and the reality is, of course, that we don't. One of the most exciting things about working in

the public service is I think that it does give great choice, extraordinary flexibility and an opportunity

for a diverse range of experiences. Work that can take you both across our vast State, but also

interstate and overseas. Now there aren't many employers that offer that range of experience and

opportunity and those of you in the service, I think I encourage all of the young in the service to

look for diversifying your experience, to be mobile, to look and grab opportunities as they come up.

Not simply to gravitate to a place where you're most comfortable, but go into our regions and work

in our regions and assist the growth of an inclusive economy that is Queensland so social cohesion

reigns and we have a safer and a greater place to live. Salaries are competitive and benefits in the

public service I think are also fantastic and offer great opportunities for young people. Now the

board is, as a steward of the public service is committed to building an inclusive and a diverse

workforce, but as Madonna's pointed out, today is really about testing our assumptions. We

believe we're inclusive. We have aspirations for diversity. We claim as leaders that we value that

diversity, but I wonder if we're just a little bit of all talk and not a great deal of action. Do public

servants like yourselves believe our culture is indeed inclusive and that we value diversity? The

sector has after all, an inclusion and diversity strategy. It's about building workforces and

workplaces to better reflect the community we serve. It's just important about accepting and

appreciating and valuing differences in the way that people think. Different ideas, different

approaches. It's about enriching our thinking through that diversity that will enable better outcomes

and better decision-making for communities and indeed a higher impact performance. Now the

board has a goal to achieve a workforce as diverse as our community by 2020 and, in fact,

Director-Generals have in performance agreements milestones they will achieve to

ever-increasingly diversity their workforce so that by 2020 the workforce in Queensland more

appropriately reflects the diversity of the Queensland community. Ten or 15 years ago it was much

more diverse, back in the day when I was in the service at that time, the public service was actually

quite diverse and we had major inroads into achieving that diversity. Something's happened in the


last ten years. I don't know whether it's a cultural or political phenomena, but we've become more

like me and that's a good thing in terms of driving the service we actually need for impact. As a

result, of course, the public service also has beyond our broader diversity and inclusion strategy

a gender equity strategy and we're about ensuring women and men both have the same rights,

opportunities and access to career success. We've just completed a review of public sector, sorry

of gender pay equity and incredibly amazing piece of work that actually shines a light on some of

the legacy issues we have of a workforce dominated by male workers and females acting in the

carer role and I guess it's a question that can no longer be ignored if we truly value diverse

workforce and we enable our workforce to be flexible enough to ensure that all people in the

workforce are treated equally. So that's a piece of work we're doing for Cabinet, so keep an eye to

that. It will be interesting to see as Cabinet considers that how the government approaches

working to address that issue. In addition, we've released Queensland's first LGBTIQ inclusion

strategy. This framework is about building workplaces where LGBITQ workers feel safe and

confident to be themselves. Again, it's not as though we're short of strategy. The thinkers are

thinking about these matters. The question for me I think ultimately is just how are we having an

impact? What's happening on ground? On your table, you'll see there's a couple of graphs that

have been put there. This is our work in the PES lead by Phoebe and Gemma Hicks to come

together and understand using some metrics, an inclusion index. It's a great piece of work,

because it brings together out of the Working for Queensland Surveys, the measures that look at

fairness, innovation, diversity, respect and systemic barriers to success at work. And it then maps

it for the whole of the sector to get a sense of where we are strong and where we need to do

further work. Now we've actually mapped this down to departments and at the board in a couple of

weeks I'll be presenting that inclusion index. I'm trying to put up and mirror for the board, how

we're actually tracking in terms of this inclusion of agenda and later on, we'll ask you to look at that

and do work around it, because there are great learnings to be had. Some success stories in

terms of the public service as an inclusive workforce, but certainly areas of interest. I think what

I find most fascinating is that as one of the graphics on the table shows, public servants aged 45

years and older feel the least included in the service. I was quite surprised at that. I thought the

young professionals would feel least included, but you're expressing a view in the survey you feel

more included than the rest of the service. Men feel less included than women. Again, I thought

I'm surprised at that. If we're indeed a male-dominated leader workforce it would be the reverse.

It's not so according to the data. Public servants who identify as Aboriginal and Torres Strait

Islander or identify with a disability feel the least included and I think it's in this space we have an

extraordinary amount of work to do if we are to create the workforce that is as inclusive and diverse

as we aspire. So today is really hearing some of the stories. I've given you a quick snapshot of

the strategy. I've given you a quick insight into some of the data, but I think the most powerful and

telling of all are the stories and I'm just so thrilled that the young panel members have agreed to


come together and to tell their story today. I encourage you to enjoy their presentations, to listen of

course, to learn and at some point contribute through the discussion as we work together I guess,

to lift the bar in terms of inclusion and diversity. So enjoy your breakfast and thank you for joining

us today.

Thanks Robert and we just want to see where you are sitting so we can put the spotlight on

you during question time. You're going to see a video that was produced by the PES and it

showcases the wonderful diversity we see now in our public sector. It is personal and poignant

and we all learn what diversity means and the importance of inclusion.

So can we just see if we can take this back and try to get sound, because it's what they say

that's so funny!

(Captioned video plays)

Ladies and gentlemen, a big round of applause for our participants. (APPLAUSE) And

we're going to meet a couple of them now. If I can ask our panelists to come up to the stage now

and you know, I loved that. The messages, diversity is seeing differences as opportunities, or

richness through diversity. Be ourselves, be you. So let me now introduce our four panelists.

I hope they become less shy than they are now. Come on, guys. And each of our participants

here have their own take on diversity and inclusion and we're going to talk to them about that and

then we'll discuss that at our tables as Robert outlined. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome

them initially before we meet them. (APPLAUSE) So at the far end we have Andrew Aberdeen,

then we have Dr Elmee Huda, Jessica Sharp and Kevin Yow Yeh. Jade Gould was to join us

today, but unfortunately due to personal reasons, she cannot participate in today's panel. Twitter

will show up on the screen. You've got that Twitter handle and the hashtag. Please tweet


questions throughout this panel discussion and we'll get to as many of those as we can. Thank

you. I find introductions can be really boring, can you tell us briefly who you are and why you're

here. I'm going to start with you Andrew. Who are you and why are you on this panel?

>>: Good morning. Thank you everyone for coming. I'm Andrew Aberdeen. I'm a principal

lawyer with the Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy. I've been there for nearly 16

years, so I've seen a lot of differences, a lot of changes. I'm on the panel today because I guess

I have a story to tell. I transitioned at work about a year and a half ago and that was a very

emotive and very profound life change for me and because of my life and my career obviously play

a big part in how I identify and who I am. Transitioning at work was particularly, a particularly

note-worthy experience for me. So I'm quite happy to share some of that experience.

>>: And we really appreciate that you will share some of that experience. Before we get to

that, though, what's your daily job, what do you do?

>>: My daily job is I draft contracts and give commercial advice for four departments that

our area services, which is every bit as complex as our private sector colleagues in the legal

profession. So I work with about between 30 and 40 other lawyers across three different teams

and it's incredibly challenging and extraordinarily rewarding and I really, really love my job.

>>: Okay, you've raised all sorts of things there that we'll get there. Let me go now to

Elmee. Elmee Huda is a paediatrician and I understand your shift ended at midnight last night. So

who's Elmee? Tell us about you.

>>: Good morning, guys. So I was born in Bangladesh. When I was still an infant, we

moved to South America. From there, we moved to the Caribbean for my parents' jobs, so I spent

my childhood in the Caribbean before moving to Australia and moved to one of the landmark cities

of Australia, Rockhampton in Central Queensland, where I completed my high school being one of

the only Muslims at my high school. Then I moved to Brisbane at the age of 16 and moved into

college as an independent young woman which was betraying a few stereotypes in itself,

completed medicine and now I work as a doctor at the Lady Cilento Children's Hospital.

>>: And how many other doctors at Lady Cilento Children's Hospital are from Bangladesh?

>>: None that I know of.

>>: You live at Currabee, what time did you get to bed?

>>: Probably 2 am.

>>: Then you had to get up at 4:30 this morning?

>>: I'm not sure if I'm asleep or awake at the moment.

>>: We won't throw anything at you Elmee, thank you for joining us this morning. Jessica,

tell us the Jessica story.

>>: Hello everyone. I'm Jess. I probably had a different start to life with starting school

from one years old. That was a significance of being born with a significant hearing loss. Since

then, I went rather mainstream through school, university and then came into the workforce.


Certainly the journey in the workforce has been a different one, different stages, challenges and

opportunities. Perhaps now I'm here today, because I have just finished off a 6-month project work

investigation into how we can lift the inclusion of our employees who face disability across our

entire public sector workforce. I've spoken to a number of colleagues who have stepped forward to

help share their communication, the attitude and the social barriers they have faced in our

workforce today and what it is that we now need to do to make sure that they are involved and they

are included and accepted for who they are.

>>: Thank you, Jess. Andrew, why have you come along and are sitting on our panel?

Here I am here, I thought I'll keep moving?

>>: By "Andrew", do you mean Kevin?

>>: No wonder you were looking around. I found Andrew's answer so enthralling.

>>: What time did you get to bed last night, Madonna?

>>: And I wasn't working either.

>>: Hi, everyone. So my name is Kevin Yow Yeh. I'm a proud WakkaWakka man and

south sea islander man. As an openly gay and black man I've experienced some of the best and

worst this country has to offer. I used to be a child safety officer, front-line in Roma in the

investigation and assessment team, but now I work as a cultural adviser/social worker with Life

Without Barriers. I left the department because the work is really, really, really hard and it's not

paid very well for what we do.

>>: So can I - is your boss in the room?

>>: Maybe, perhaps. Old boss now. Buckle up, I don't work for the department, so I will

say a lot.

>>: And that's why you're on the panel.

>>: We'll see.

>>: Do you see us as inclusive and diverse? We heard Robert say there's so much more to

go. From your experience being Aboriginal, openly gay, how difficult has that been for you?

>>: On paper, it reads really well diversity within Queensland Government. Fantastic, and

events like this is really inclusive and a panel like this is really inclusive, but as a black social

worker working for child safety, did I experience a lot of diversity and support for diversity and

encouragement? On paper, I did.

>>: So where did it fall down? Was it your colleagues or how you were dealt with from the

outside looking in?

>>: A bit of everything, but I guess my views are always as a social worker and someone

systemically, I think it's often an issue, diversity and I guess changing trends in terms of the

colleagues that you have and as a child safety officer, I would work with some 22-year-olds and

some 58-year-olds, which is fantastic, but in that, there's a lot of different views around diversity.


>>: Just on that for a moment, anecdotally when you say "there's a lot of different views",

are younger people more inclined to accept and embrace diversity, or is that itself a bit of

a stereotype?

>>: In my experience, younger people are more inclusive and have a bit more of a

"whatever goes" and it's all good, as long as it doesn't hurt me, we're cool with it, yeah. In my

experience, not all older people, but when I have experienced challenges, it has come from older

people and senior management.

>>: I'm going to come back to you on what worked and how we might make that better in

a little while. Elmee, can I go to you before you fall asleep. You're walking around with

a stethoscope, dealing with young children, you say there's no other doctor that you know of from

Bangladesh. What's your experience been?

>>: So one of the reasons I chose to work in paediatrics is because children are so lovely.

They haven't had a lot of those impressions created for them and I'm usually the first to make the

impression, so they're open-minded and I found that quite refreshing. I have worked in the adult

health area in the past and I found that adults can be a bit more curious and that's what I take it to

be. They ask me questions and I'm happy to answer those questions.

>>: Can I just butt in there, you say "curious" and they ask you questions, is that whether

you speak English? What kind of questions do you get?

>>: Initially, even other health colleagues, say I go to some nurses they'll initially start

speaking to me really slowly just so I understand what they're saying and I'm like "Yep, gotcha"

and they're like "Okay". And with regard to patients, there's usually it starts off with "So, where are

you from? " That question takes a lot to answer. I'm from so many places. How long have you

been there, and those sorts of things. I take it openly and I'm happy to answer people's questions.

>>: At home, were you encouraged to break all these barriers?

>>: Yeah, my parents, I was really grateful they let me move out of home at the age of 16 to

go live on my own to chase my dreams and chase my career and they've been supportive the

whole time. I've lived out of home for the last ten years and they've been very supportive.

Whereas I know some other families may not, may be apprehensive of their daughters going

overseas. My family has been supportive the whole way through.

>>: I would imagine you would play an educative role with children. They'd ask why are

you wearing that scarf?

>>: Last night I went to treat an Indigenous girl. It wassate at night. They were speaking

their local language so I don't know what it was. She asked me "Do you always have to wear that

thing on your head? " And I was like "Yeah, it's called a scarf" and she was like "Are you married? "

And I was like "Wow, this is a personal question from a 6-year-old" and I was like "No" and she's

like "Oh, I read some stories that, you know, when you're married your husband gets jealous and

makes you wear that thing on your head", and I was like wow. So we have to be careful.


Impressions are created really early and I think she appreciated the exposure from me, so kids still

think about these things and we have to be aware of that.

>>: A wonderful story to explain that, too. Thank you, Elmee. Jess, communication is so

important in the job that we do in the public sector. How have you found the journey?

>>: I think communication, the standard of communication I require is probably a lot higher

than other people's standards, understandably so. Communication is something that underpins all

of our roles. Certainly it's in all of our job description to be the effective communicator that we are.

It comes down to, how do you start to think of communication? Communication is not necessarily

about being able to get your own message across, if your audience cannot actually understand it,

as well. When we talk about a diverse society and people who have different impairments, that will

be people who do not hear, do not see, do not process information the same way that the four and

five of us might actually do so. So how do we change the way we communicate to essentially

recognise, embrace and accept that there are people who might communicate completely

differently? I don't hear through my ears, I hear through my sight which is why we do have

captioning here, and I do lip read. If you do strip away the ability to use your ear, what do you then

get presented with? These are the innovation opportunities and challenges that we face if we truly

want to be inclusive of the diversity of people we have and recognise the society we serve.

>>: Has your experience been good?

>>: My experience has changed a lot. I started like one of you in a graduate program in

Queensland Health. I started in the property industry, very task-orientated. Probably starting with

just a team. I had a great manager at the time, I had a great team that was willing to share their

knowledge and they communicated and they got it, so I have a slightly different view to Kevin that

the bias that I face is not in the age discrimination, it is necessarily who gets it. Who is actually

open to understanding that just because we do what we do today, doesn't mean we need to

continue to do it that way. We do need to change that. We need to get smarter with how we

communicate. As I have progressed up through the public service, my involvement extends from

beyond just my immediate team to a number of other people across the department, outside of the

department, phone calls, emails, presentation. That's a different form of communication. It's

interacting with people who have not had the privilege to work with me or perhaps someone else

who's had another hearing loss on a very intimate basis to understand the nuances of how to make

communication good.

>>: Okay, I look forward to talking to you about what we can do better, too. Andrew, you

were very honest in your introduction, saying you transitioned at work and saying it was, I think you

used the words it was a very emotional journey. Are you happy to tell us about that and whether it

worked for you?

>>: I lived for... it was a very loud microphone. I lived for 38 years as a woman and started

a career, started a family and even, you know, in that space and in that role there's a number of


challenges coming into what is a male-dominated profession still in law. Getting across a lot of

those issues and then building my career and then sort of realising quite late on in the piece I

suppose that things weren't exactly what I thought they were. It was a realisation that kind of hit

me one day. A lot of things in my life started to make a lot of sense and even just getting to a point

of self-acceptance where I was, I had to admit to myself that this was what I was, that I am

transgender and what that meant and did a lot of talking with professionals and a lot of reading,

which I quite enjoy, which is good helped me to kind of find my own path and construct my own

journey. I was out to start with to my friends and family. That was really hard, because even

though these are the people who love you unconditionally, you still never know how people are

going to react and I reached a point where I realised I no longer had a choice about being who

I was. I was still hiding who I really was in the other areas of my life. At work and out in public,

and it takes a lot of energy to hide who you really are. And that energy can be better spent doing

far more productive things, particularly at work. So I approached my line managers first and I said

"I have something to tell you, I'm transgender, I identify as male. I have absolutely no idea what to

do next, except that I need to start my transition at work." And that was wonderful. The first

response I got was a hearty congratulations, which I really wasn't expecting, and it was wonderful,

but it was sort of, it put another perspective to me, in that you know, maybe this wasn't something

that I should be afraid of, that this was something that was really positive and after that, we had

a number of long talks about the logistics of what needed to be done in terms of, you know,

changing account details, employment details, personnel records. All of that kind of boring stuff

that involves lots of paperwork, and there are so many forms. But even that side of it seemed very

daunting to me, because there's so much uncertainty and even just taking that next step forward to

say "Okay, fill out this form" and even having somebody come to me and say "You fill out the form

and I'll send it off to HR and make sure that it gets processed" or "Just say the word and I'll give

them a call and find out what we need to do next." Having that level of support and having people

behind me who are prepared to not just stand back, not stand in my way, but were actually

prepared to advocate for me, gave me a lot of courage to be able to take that next step and look,

it's a process and it's a journey and I don't know it's one that will ever be fully completed.

>>: So, but that first, the first dealing with your line manager was absolutely crucial to how it

went from there, wasn't it?

>>: It absolutely was and if I'd had anything but, I think, the supportive response that I got

and that positive interaction with her, I think it would have taken me a lot longer to find what

I needed, because I know I would have had to have done a lot more advocating for myself.

>>: But did it give you strength too that if you did confront something else along that journey

you're able to deal with it, because you knew your supervisors had your back?

>>: Absolutely, and knowing somebody has got your back gives a great deal of

self-confidence to be able to move forward and particularly in the area that I work. A lack of


self-confidence is extraordinarily damaging both professionally and psychologically and so

anything that can help you find that confidence to move forward is a wonderful thing and it just

adds strength.

>>: Good on you and good on your line managers too, I think. Your experience is quite

different from Kevin's, for example and Kevin, if I can jump back to you now. During this process,

did you learn anything about yourself?

>>: I guess my time with being a child safety officer, I learnt that I wasn't going to just stick

around for the sake of sticking around and that if I couldn't use the best of my skills in an area, then

I needed to go somewhere that could encourage that and promote it. So yeah.

>>: Did you see that as giving up, or did you see that as those you were engaging with

needed to learn?

>>: I certainly didn't see it as giving up. As an Indigenous man working for child protection

department who's played such a horrendous role historically and social work in general has played

a really horrendous role in terms of the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children,

part of the Stolen Generations "s" with a plural, because it wasn't just one. I didn't see it as giving

up, but I'm not my parents or my grandparents, I'm not going to play nice and yes, sir and no, sir. If

this is not for me, catch you later, I'm out.

>>: If you went back into that situation now, would you do anything different?

>>: I'd probably try and be a bit more vocal, a little bit more courageous. That's not easy

though as a new graduate.

>>: Because you don't have the upper hand, do you?

>>: You're trying to make strides, a good impression and as young professionals and it was

spoken about earlier, the sector is made up of - there's a large percentage of us are under 35.

We're all out hustling yeah, and we're trying to make those career moves and it's not always easy

is what I'm saying.

>>: Absolutely and I want to come back to you and ask what you think the department

could do differently or better in just a moment, but if I can go to Jess and ask, what did you learn

about yourself during this, or have you learnt anything about yourself?

>>: I've learnt a lot, but I suppose the biggest thing in the diversity and inclusion space

perhaps is... sorry. Perhaps at the start I actually did things unconsciously. I didn't recognise that

things would be that different. This was just the life that I have. As I went along, perhaps this was

the biggest challenge that I had to face and I had to learn to understand my own impairment, the

barriers that I face and why that is so difficult for perhaps most of you to understand. Trying to

understand a very intergrained component about who you are means you become very conscious

of it. So we are talking about two 2 millimetre differences inside my head than yours and yet the

flow-on implications is enormous. So what have I learnt? I've learnt that communication is not

what I once thought it was. I learnt a lot more about who I was and who it was I needed to be to


help you, help me. And then I think Kevin raised a valid point. We don't really sometimes have

a choice to be quiet. So we are the person in the room that might be advocating for better

communication, or to be more inclusive or "why can't we do things a different way? " That

sometimes gets pigeonholed as being a bit of a troublemaker. Maybe we need to start being

a little bit more open of who we actually label as a troublemaker and actually try and see it for what

it is. It is about progress, it is about change. It is about being able to make better what we already

have today.

>>: Thank you. Excellent answer, thank you Jess. Elmee, do you see a role for you in

advocacy? Do you feel as though you need to speak up as a doctor?

>>: I've had a pretty good experience. I'm one of two now wearing a headscarf at my

hospital and I was the only one at the Royal Brisbane and you know what I was saying about

creating impressions, and I believe I've been able to create a positive impression, so I feel like

I advocate for myself and I don't like feeling that I need to advocate for others. So yeah, I'm just

working on myself and presenting the best self that I can.

>>: Your answer made me think of the importance of statistics. The number of people

wearing scarfs has jumped 100 per cent, but it would be not percentage of total staff, not a lot, hey.

So if you were the boss of Queensland Health... and I'm not sure if he's in the room or not, for

a day, what do you think needs to be done for us to be more inclusive and diverse in our public

sector?

>>: I think Jess was raising points about communication and I think communication plays

such a big role every step of the way. It's by the power of dialogue that we're going to break down

the barriers of miscommunication and preconceptions, so I think there can be a lot more

communication and allowing people to speak. Whether that be on a personal basis or on a public

platform. I also like, within Queensland Health itself, I know we have mandatory training to raise

awareness, like to raise our awareness of the Indigenous culture. So I think that those sorts of

things can be put into place. I know some things are coming in to raise our awareness for lesbian

and gay communities, so maybe we could also put some things in place for raising awareness of

other cultures. I'm frequently assumed to be an overseas-trained doctor. So I think we could do

more to making them feel a bit more accepted.

>>: Yes, and making it more the norm. Whether it's posters at work or the like. Little

things, too. Andrew, you're the boss for the day. How would you change some of the things

you've heard your peers talk about today?

>>: I think they say the standard that you walk past is the standard you accept and I think

that it's really important to speak up and I think making those that have the power and the privilege

and the ability to do so, it's really important that they make a space for those voices to be heard

and for that communication to start happening. Whether that takes the form of events like this,

where people are able to come and speak who might not otherwise be able to. Whether it's within


your department, creating a committee that's driven, employ-driven committees and groups,

interest groups and focus groups. They're all of the issues, they know what the problems are, but

giving them the space to actually make those issues heard. I think that's one of the biggest

challenges still.

>>: And it appears there's a consistency issue, too, because your experience was so lovely

and Kevin's wasn't lovely at all in a sense. You said to me in an email Andrew that you think you

have a responsibility now to pay this forward. What did you mean by that?

>>: Because I found the experience of transitioning very positive. Look, I had very few, if

any road blocks or issues and anything that did come up was dealt with very SWIFTly and very

effectively. Because I had the support and the backing of my line managers and my ED and my

DDG who were all ready to do whatever they could to help me. Sorry, I've forgotten the question.

>>: How are you going to pay it forward? That's a reflection of my question.

>>: So I thought if in telling my story or in raising my voice and being visible, because so

many not just transgender individuals, but LGBTIQ individuals, I think the statistics are up to half

hide their status or their identity at work. That's just staggering and there doesn't seem to me to be

any need for it to happen, because as I said, it takes a lot of energy to hide who you are and if

you're looking over your shoulder every 20 minutes for the person who's going to give you a hard

time you're not going to be very productive.

>>: You doing this today is part of that solution, too.

>>: It's part of that solution and I think if I can help somebody else say "Okay, it's worked for

this person, maybe I can think about what might work for me".

>>: Because you are happier personally and professionally having gone through that?

>>: Absolutely.

>>: Kevin you're the boss for the day, how would you change things?

>>: If I was the boss for the day, I'd tell the staff to stop watching Channel 7, 9 and 10

news, because it perpetuates the stereotype of me and my people and, in fact, it's rarely positive.

Yep? And it's from those stereotypes I believe that I get treated differently, yeah?

>>: But that's a difficult thing, because that's a community change, a public change that

probably eventually flows into workplaces, isn't it?

>>: Not "eventually". The discrimination that I experience in my every day life, I can say

with confidence a lot of it stems from what people see on Channel 7, 9 and 10

however - I digress - if I was boss for the day, I think I would put things in place and I can only

speak from my experience and it hasn't always been negative. Professionally it was great. The

skills as I got as a straight out of uni social work bright-eyed, bushie-tailed student was fantastic.

Professionally great. Culturally I just didn't feel supported. I've not heard of anything about cultural

supervision across any Queensland department and for a lot of private sectors there's no cultural

supervision, but then yet you'll employ cultural advisers. Great, so where are they getting their


supervision from? So those things, and I can only speak from my experience as a black man, but

as I sit here before you I'd probably still be with the department, a department that I'm aware of is

looking for Indigenous social workers and particularly in their front-line, but in all levels. I would

culturally support our Indigenous staff, because we know we're hard to get, and b) because you

want to keep them and provide the support.

>>: So tell me, where do you think the responsibility lies? Is the onus on you to teach

others about your diversity, or do you think, how much is the workplace having to proactively cater

for that?

>>: Yeah, look, I'm sick of teaching people about diversity and about what it means to be

Aboriginal and what it means to be gay in 2018. Particularly within the government, you would

hope that most people have a sense, have an ability to do research for themselves and I constantly

say I work as a cultural adviser now for Life Without Barriers and I constantly say to my peers, you

can find the answers out. I'm more than happy to engage with you, but let's not start from the

bottom here. Meet me halfway, because me and my people have had to learn a lot about these

Euro centric systems in which we live, breathe and breed in, but we're then expected to teach

everything? It was only a little while ago, the change where we went from December, vote yes,

and we had governments and communities and private sectors really get on board and go "vote

yes", which is terrific and obviously I'm in support of that and then four weeks later it's like crickets

chirping about change the day, but I've got to then teach you about why it's important. So yeah,

but again my experience for the most part professionally has been fantastic with the department.

Just I didn't feel supported culturally.

>>: And we want you to be honest and explain how we can do things better. Today is

about Lance Armstrong. Thank you. Jess, one in six people have a hearing challenge. What else

can we do?

>>: I think actually a lot of people are grappling with the situation insofar as there's actually

been a national inquiry for the Australian Government. Communication with hearing probably boils

down to two big things. One is you need to be really clear on your content upfront. Introduce the

topic, make clear what the discussion or conversation is and we might go from there. Number two

is about speaking slowly, clearly, directly. We've all been in the challenge perhaps, probably about

a decade back, but if you're on a mobile phone out in the bush somewhere, get that interference,

where you can hardly hear someone on the line and you're going "What? What? " And you go

"Too hard, I'll call you back later. Bye." Great if you have the luxury to do that, what if you don't?

How would you overcome such an issue if you must communicate right there, right then, right

now?

>>: Thank you. Andrew, if I ask you this, do you have any fear that people aren't disclosing

information, because they may be fearful of the consequences?


>>: Oh, absolutely. And that's certainly the biggest issue I had in terms of how long it took

me to even make a decision to come out at work and transition at work, because as much as

I didn't know how my friends and family would react and I was sure that it would be okay, I had

even less of an idea about what it was going to be like at work, because these are people that

okay, I spend probably more time with than my family, but there's very few that I have any kind of

extended personal relationship with and so you don't know people very well perhaps, or don't know

them as well as you thought they did and you never know how people are going to react. So

there's a lot of fear and a lot of uncertainty and finding - I suppose what I learnt to do is that despite

my fear I can move forward, as opposed to learning to conquer it, which is an ongoing challenge.

>>: What would you say to someone feeling that fear this morning in this room, what would

you say directly to them?

>>: There is support out there for you and you will be okay and you're not broken.

>>: What about you, Kevin? What would you say to them? Someone struggling to be

themselves.

>>: I guess, it can be a rough road, yeah, but I would say - and I have a social work

background so I tend to speak a bit social work wanky sometimes -

>>: There's a few of them in the room.

>>: We'll meet in the corner later. Life is good when you can be your authentic self. My

struggle coming out as gay was horrendous. I got drunk and came out on Facebook. Crap.

>>: No pulling that back.

>>: I was like "Gay", talking about negative stereotypes. But I would say for anyone

experiencing those challenges it's nice - it's not "nice", it's amazing to be your authentic self and

you don't have to second guess what you say and what you do and you might be living a life.

>>: What a beautiful answer. Jess, we've got directors general, we've got the Police

Commissioner Ian Stewart, a big welcome to Margaret Shiel who's here with us today. What do

you think makes a good leader?

>>: Someone who takes 5 minutes to talk to you and really listen to hear what you have to

say. Each and every one of you.

>>: Elmee, how would you answer that?

>>: I think respecting the rights of others regardless of whether they're above you,

alongside you, below you in position in the field. Respect their right, respect their background,

respect who they are. Allow them to be themselves. Don't judge the book by the cover kind of

thing. Allow them to make their impression and have their say.

>>: Health often gets bad headlines for what happens looking from the outside in. Do you

see that leadership inside the department?

>>: To be completely honest, no. I don't, and I can speak for a lot of my colleagues. We

don't really find our leaders approachable. There are a lot of junior doctors in the same field. Our


working hours are horrible. There's a little poster in our doctor's common room about the rights of

human beings and one of them I read the other day is a right to rest from work and we don't get

that right and a lot of other rights we don't get. And we support each other, we do that really well,

we sort of consol each other. We don't really feel open to speaking to our leaders. We don't find

them as approachable. I don't actually know where they sit.

>>: Oh, and that's a cultural change you're talking about more than a process change, isn't

it?

>>: I think there's a bit of process change that can come into play. Maybe I've seen the

CEOs sort of walking around greeting patients sort of saying hello to random patients here and

there and then the cameras following them around. But I think they can come and speak to us, the

doctors working the long hours who are there overnight.

>>: I'm not the only mother in the room who would think they were privileged to have you

deal with our children. Kevin, what makes a good leader?

>>: Someone who encourages their staff to be courageous, to think outside the box,

because if we keep doing what's always been done we'll always have the same outcomes. It was

spoken about earlier. Senior management is often held by old white man. When I talk about child

safety, I can only speak to child safety, because that's the department I worked in. Child protection

doesn't have a fantastic reputation particularly with people of colour, so to be a good leader,

I would say just because it's always been done this way, doesn't mean it's always right and as

a good leader I think we should be encouraging each other and our staff at all levels to think

outside the box, to be courageous and to get amongst it.

>>: In 10 seconds or less to each of you, where do you want to be in 5 years? I'll start with

you, Andrew.

>>: Five years, aside from on a cruise somewhere, I'm probably quite satisfied with where I

am. My key interests at the moment are stability for my family and satisfaction with my work. So

I'm happy to keep building those networks and just kind of keep moving along.

>>: Elmee, I'm not sure the DG of health is in the room, but what goes on in the room stays

in the room. Where would you like to be in five years?

>>: Five years I would like to have my full qualifications as a paediatrician. I also love

travelling, so I would hope to travel a bit more and the kids that I work with are excellent, but I think

that I'd love to provide my services to a lot of others around the world in need and maybe become

a bit closer to finding that work-life balance.

>>: And public sector is where you'll stay, do you think?

>>: I think so, the acuity of care, the diversity of patients, the breadth of expertise, with the

doctors and nurses and Allied Health people we have access to is excellent in the public sector.

Can't speak for the private sector, but I think it's a bit more limited over there. I'd love to stay in this

one.


>>: Jess, in five years?

>>: It's a good question. In five years, I'd imagine I'll be probably advocating and fighting

the same challenges we do today. What happens in the disability space is not going to happen

very fast unfortunately. I think the challenge we have been facing is I'm not here to turn the titanic,

but to turn the tugboat and whenever and how that happens is where I will be.

>>: Hopefully lots of tugboats can turn the titanic. Kevin?

>>: I'd like to complete a PhD. I do work at QUT, so shout out to QUT people in the room

and I'm currently single and looking, so I'd like to be married.

>>: Oh, if only our time wasn't up, we could go -

>>: I'll turn my Grindr on, it'll be fine! But not marriage, I'm an aetheist.

>>: Rob Settler there are no old cardigan-wearers up on this stage. Ladies and gentlemen,

please thank our panel Elmee, Jessica, Kevin and Andrew. But now it's over to you and your table

discussions. You'll see on your table there are a few questions and we've allocated only 15

minutes, but for you to chat about them. There's pens and papers provided. Tweet your

questions, comments using that hashtag and it's not the hashtag "boss", it's #IPAAQLDYP. We'd

love to have as many questions as possible and we really want to tap into comments and

discussions. So please think what you'd like to tell us at the end of that, too.

Elise Giles Suraj Kolarkar Suraj.

Elise.

Ladies and gentlemen, can I have your attention again. Thank you. I know it's a short

time, but hopefully you've started a discussion and I would really love you to be involved in the next

half an hour, and I promise I'll have you out of here. But first, I want you to meet my two friends.

Come up here Suraj and Elise. They're going to be the MCs for the next part. Feel comfortable?

>>: Yep.

>>: Certainly.

>>: Elise, what do you do, what's your day job?


>>: I work with the Department of Premier and Cabinet in social policy and I led the crystal

meth amphetamine strategy, known as ice. No background in health, but I was using policy skills

to deliver that.

>>: And Suraj?

>>: By day a civil engineer and my night a professional stand-up comedian. No, for real!

Oh, thank you. You're a great crowd. I'll take it.

>>: I may regret saying this, but what got you into comedy?

>>: I graduated at the end of 2015 and then I saw the engineering job market and decided

to fall back on the safer option of becoming a comedian.

>>: Can I divide up the room. Elise head over to that direction, Suraj, that direction and I'd

love you to put your hand up and make a comment. Say something, or otherwise Elise and Suraj

are going to put the microphone in front of you and ask what you think. I'm going to start with you

Elise, who have you got?

>>: I'm going to jump across to the Department of Premier and Cabinet and go to one of my

colleagues. Matty, we were talking about the importance of empathy, can you talk to that a little

bit?

>>: Thank you Elise and thank you to the panel. It's been great to hear your stories.

Empathy is the most important tools we have in building inclusivity and diversity, so hearing your

perspective aids with that, but I think it's also draining and requires a lot of resilience. How do you

maintain your resilience and well-being?

>>: Okay, I'm going to ask Elmee to answer that one please.

>>: So being a doctor working with kids, it's draining in itself. I have to be very bright and

bubbly and explain to the parents. A lot of them may not understand or may not want to accept

what I'm saying. I have to be empathetic towards the child and recognise that are needs. I think it

is draining, especially after being at work for 12 hours and having to resuscitate a child and tell the

parent, give them bad news. You have to put yourself in their shoes and remind yourself of their

position and I think that's what keeps me going.

>>: Dear God, I just want to take this girl home. Thank you, Elmee. Feel free not to ask

a question of our panel. If you would prefer to make a comment and say how your organisation is

doing something, make a comment on what was the big issue at your table, that would be great,

too. Over to you, Suraj.

>>: Thank you, Madonna. I'm here at this table to talk about diversity to eight white people.

So don't let that put any pressure on your answer! But thinking about the panel discussion you just

saw, what is the message that resonated most with you? I'll ask Lauren. Here you go.

>>: Thanks very much. I think the message that resonated with us most was that of Jess's

about communication. It was a good reminder I think for our table that communication does affect

everybody and it's not something you can tackle alone and we were particularly interested in the


point that it highlights a nonvisible disability and something that we can often overlook or forget as

part of the inclusivity and diversity issue as a whole, so it was a great reminder, thank you.

>>: Thanks, Lauren.

>>: Over to Elise, who have you got?

>>: Who have we got here? Marnie, want to have a little chat.

>>: I just want to say thank you to the panel and what we've been discussing at our table is

how we can actually work in our organisation to be more aware of what's going on, like meeting

you halfway, knowing the challenges that different people face and how we can assist to make it

better for everyone and have more knowledge and understanding moving forward, so thank you.

>>: Thank you, Elise you have someone else over there?

>>: You're making me fit over here. Wait for Elise first and I'll to you Suraj. He wants the

stage, doesn't he?

>>: I'd like to thank the panel. When we were chatting, we were inspired by your stories

and something that resonated for me in particular Andrew, was your story and your manager's

response and the first thing that they said was "Congratulations" and I thought that was really

moving, so thank you.

>>: Did any table feel as though they will go back and have a chat about how they change

things? What did you say Kevin?

>>: They have to say yes now.

>>: I can't see too many of them doing it. If you'd like to comment, raise your hands to

make Suraj and Elise's job easier this morning. Suraj.

>>: Here we have Leila at table 2 who had a question.

>>: Thank you. I was wondering if the panel can share their opinions on positive

discrimination in the workforce. Do you think it works, is it effective, or can we approach diversity

inclusion in another way?

>>: Who'd like to take that one?

>>: Could someone elaborate to explain what "positive discrimination" actually means?

>>: What do you mean by positive discrimination?

>>: Sure. In the past I've associated the positive discrimination with regards to putting

someone in a position where they can have more influence or anything like that, just because say

they might normally not be included by traditional approaches in the public sector.

>>: So actively seeking out women for boards for example, or a particular culture so it

reflects the whole organisation. Who would like to have a go at that? Kevin?

>>: In my very humble opinion, I think that can only be a positive thing, yeah, when you're

invited to the table to have those discussions. I think that's important. I think people along the way

start to go "Well, I get this a lot - you're only here because you're black". Yeah, but I know stuff,

too.


>>: People always say that at first, once you give your input people can change their mind

very quickly, can't they?

>>: Yeah, for sure and I think inviting people to the table, because the table's always been

predominantly white people.

>>: And the head of the PSE said as much - I'll never let you forget this Robert - "old, grey,

cardigan-wearing". That's obviously changing with the statistics in the public service. Elise, you've

got some discussion there?

>>: We heard what's happening here in the department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait

Islander partnerships. They had great insights about their experience and I want to throw over to

Jaya.

>>: We're lucky here, because we are an inclusive department, but on that note with

identified positions, I think they are important if they are going to abolish the patriarchy of society

and within the Queensland Government. They're a great stepping stone to get more diverse

people involved, so yeah.

>>: Thank you, Suraj.

>>: I've got the Twitter superstar here, so she's got a question.

>>: Thank you for that embarrassing introduction. I wanted to quickly address something

Jessica said about if you identify a problem and you want to ask for change, you're almost labelled

as the troublemaker and coming to you Kevin, you talked about the lack of cultural leadership and

the fact it's exhausting to be asked constantly to educate others around you and to be asked to

enact change from the bottom up. Yes we have panel discussions and do diversity as a tick mark

on pieces of paper, but eventually at the top that lack of diversity results in people getting

exhausted, leaving workforces they don't feel supported in or being worried about being labelled as

troublemakers, so they go quiet. So how do you, the people on the panel, how do you continue to

perhaps speak out, how do you manage that exhaustion of having to advocate not just for yourself,

but the generation that will come after you?

>>: Andrew?

>>: Look, there's no easy answer I think to that one. You have to find a balance very much

and sometimes I myself take periods where I just quietly sit in the background for a while and not

perhaps do as much, or say as much, or be as proactive and kind of recharge and then I'll come

back and do an event like this. But that's as much taking time for yourself I think, because

managing that level of exhaustion and the amount of energy that takes, you're right, it takes so

much energy to continuously educate people and I'm in two minds about that. Sometimes I'm all

for it and sometimes I'm against it, depending on how late my kids kept me up last night. But

I think it's on each of us to be able to put forward who we are and what we know in order to make

the world a better place.

>>: Okay, could I ask Jess, too. Do you have a view there?


>>: It's a challenge, definitely. It's not easy. There's a balance that needs to be struck

perhaps every day, at every moment. I'm by far from the best candidate to be able to explain this

question, but to describe how it is. I get up, come to work and do the eight hours or whatever it

might be and I invest a lot of time and energy in that, because that is everything that I am. I don't

do things by half. I'm here to really want to push an agenda that is up against a very tall brick wall.

But somehow I'm not going to stop, because I'm doing it not only for me, but all the people who will

come behind. But when at the end of the day I head home and other people may say "You could

take up the agenda then" and take on a second job, or do a promotion, whatever it might be. I'm

exhausted by that time. I don't have the energy to take up another battle. That is why this will

become my job. It will become what I do as part of my life. So that then when I do go home I am

actually living for other elements that is not part of fighting the battle on another front.

>>: Thank you. Elmee?

>>: I wanted to comment what we were saying before. I would like to see more feedback

from the senior staff and from the leaders. In our doctor's common room there's a suggestions box

and I know that some people put in suggestions sometimes, but where do these go? Who is

addressing these? Sometimes the mention of exhaustion, sometimes I feel like, why bother

speaking up, because is anyone really listening? Is change coming from what we are asking for?

I've spoken about the work hours. We were in a huge meeting where someone spoke up about it

and one of the seniors was like "That's just how it is".

>>: It doesn't always have to be the way it was, does it? Let's go to another comment or

question. Elise?

>>: We have Kate here from Queensland Health.

>>: I wanted to thank you guys all for speaking to us today. It was really inspiring and

some of it was quite relatable. I wanted to get your guys' opinions on how to address

subconscious biases we might hold and not realise that might be insidious and hard to identify.

For instance, methods that have been proven to be effective like blind recruitment, where you don't

see an applicant's name, so you can't identify an Anglo or European name and it can create a bit

more of an even playing field. I just wanted to get your opinion on that.

>>: Can I go to Kevin on that?

>>: First and foremost, in terms of that unconscious bias that you talk about and again very

social work wanky term, but reflecting on yourself and who you are and why you are in the position

that you are in, and you start questioning some of that stuff and you start to unpeel. You start to

peel back the layers as to who you are and then what some of the biases that you might hold and

not only just peel it back and think about it and reflect, but talk to your higher management who

hopefully have skills in that area to sort of help you talk to it.

>>: Thank you. Apart from having Griffith and QUT our universities here, we also have

Davidson and Deloitte and there's a question from the Deloitte table.


>>: Thanks, Suraj. We would also like to extend our thanks to the panel this morning for so

honestly and candidly sharing your experiences with us and being able to give us all an opportunity

to think about what diversity means for us within our workplaces. A few comments really stood out

for us this morning, particularly the importance of each of us taking responsibility to be able to

come halfway and I think Kevin had a really important insight here in that we all need to think about

and recognise what we're able to do on a day-to-day and it's not just about what's being done

necessarily at a policy level, within government or our organisations, but how we're able to be

present in our interactions with others and to offer opportunities to create a more inclusive

environment to be working in and to Andrew's point, to not walk past standards which aren't

acceptable and then allow them to become the status quo. So again, thanks very much to our

panelists this morning. Really appreciate you sharing your experiences.

>>: Thank you and you know, what you did say Andrew, you know, the behaviour you walk

past you accept, I see it's been tweeted and retweeted, so that's really struck a chord.

>>: Matt Butcher has a question for the panel.

>>: Thanks, Elise. Thank you to the panel again. Thank you for your time. It's been really

insightful. Something I wanted to ask is that the Department of Employment small business and

training is a brand-new department so in a bit of a sense we have a clean slate, a blank canvass

moving forward. An open question I wanted to put to the panel is what are some priority areas or

key things you would focus on going forward for a brand-new department?

>>: Great question. Who wants to lead there? You've got an open slate.

>>: I guess coming from a cultural perspective, I would say cultural awareness training for

everyone in the room. Definitely, but also further to that comment, I think when we talk about

diversity inclusion it can't be a 9 to 5 gig. You can't just go "Oh it's 5 now, I'll go back to hating the

blacks or the gays or whoever". You've got to live it and breathe it yeah, because it's only once

we're at that point can we all come together and move forward. It's not something you turn on and

turn off like this vote yes, but no voices about change the day. You can't pick and choose.

Cultural awareness would be mine.

>>: Anyone like to add anything else? Andrew?

>>: I think just following on from what Kevin said, there are some wonderful programs and

initiatives out there, pride and diversity is office training and guidance to employing organisations

and individual departments on LGBTIQ awareness, inclusion and diversity. They live and breathe

that stuff and just source some of those great resources that are already out there.

>>: And educate the people from within.

>>: And educate from within.

>>: I see we have Ian Stewart the Police Commissioner with us. Can I put you on the spot

and ask you, have you learnt something this morning, and if you have, what is it?


>>: That I'm a troublemaker. I am really in trouble, and you all know what I mean. The real

take-aways from me was the courage of diversity, the inspiration that I've had this morning. Just

absolutely incredible. The strength of diversity. A better public sector, a better country. The

danger of tolerance. I truly believe that tolerance means that we focus on difference. We still stay

in our own box, we just accept that someone's a different colour, or someone has a different way of

doing business. Someone has a different view about sexual orientation and their life. That's

tolerance and that's toxic. We have to have true acceptance and I think that's a key to today's

discussion. Leadership, leadership, leadership. We, you, we are not alone and the thing that

I really learnt today, it's taken IPAA to bring us all together today and you know what, I apologise

for that, as one of the leaders of the public sector. I do apologise that it's taken someone else to

do this. It's way, way too long in coming and what this has shown - and I hope it's shown

everybody in this room - just how much of a difference each one of us can make and that starts

right today. And the other thing, and it's a strategy that we're using in our department, but I think

it's across all of life, our people really do matter and I think that's what came out today particularly

from the panel. Thank you so much for your honesty and your inspiration.

>>: Terrific words, thank you commissioner, thank you. Suraj.

>>: Thanks, Madonna. I have I Zak here from TMR with a comment.

>>: I would like to say thank you to IPAA for organising such a good event. My comment is

around the whole topic of diversity itself and just to encourage everyone to just think not about

diversity for the sake of it, but actually working out what do we want to achieve with it? What is the

end game that we're using it for? And by thinking about that, you'll be able to actually have

a bigger impact on your audience or on your target. If you try to reflect the Queensland community

that you are serving, then they will feel more engaged, they will feel represented within the public

service. If you are wanting to motivate your own employees as an organisation, you had

a question about what can you do differently as an organisation? Probably there's different levels,

like at an operational level or at a team level there's a great level of diversity there. At a leadership

level, I think they've managed, like in most departments, I think they've managed to show gender

diversity in the leadership team you can see in senior management there's a fair representation.

The biggest challenge would be probably I would say cultural diversity at that level. If you're

leading a large department and you would want to engage or have your workforce motivated, you

also need to have that diversity culturally.

>>: Thank you.

>>: So just think about the end game and then use it as a tool. Use diversity as a tool to

address the end game for different perspectives.

>>: To go where we want to go. Thank you. Elise.

>>: Today's discussion has already generated some great ideas and I'm going to throw

over to Tess Bishop the DDG.


>>: Your boss.

>>: Thanks Elise and thanks to the the panel and to you, Madonna. It's been a fantastic

conversation this morning. I think just from feedback from my table, we've all stopped and thought

about leadership is important, but as leaders we often get very outcomes focused. So personally

I've found it very useful to stop and reflect and the feedback that we've had today is it is important

to share our personal side and we can keep learning from these conversations. So an idea that we

have had this morning is to begin a lunchbox leadership learning series in DPC. We will work that

up, and kick that off. So it will be open, because we want to keep these open conversations

happening and I am very passionate myself about building the next generation of leaders for the

public service. So thanks everyone, and you're welcome to come on the journey with us.

>>: Thank you Tess. Yes, Suraj.

>>: I have Bill landsbry here and I worked under him in TMR Road Tech, he's been a great

influence. Do you want to make a comment or question?

>>: Why not? For a comedian he makes a good MC, doesn't he? From a transport and

main roads perspective, I'm blown away by not just the panel, but the folk that are in the room.

Even the guys sitting at the table and just the vibe that's arising. I think we're in good hands. IPAA

have done a marvellous job getting us here today and certainly organisationally, the public service

is in good hands if this is the 25 per cent coming through tomorrow. So thank you.

>>: Thank you, and we heard from Ian Stewart the Police Commissioner and so much of

this morning has been about leadership. Our new vice-chancellor from QUT Professor Margaret

Shiel has just started her job in the last couple of weeks. Can I put you on the spot and ask what

you've learnt or what your take-away from this morning is?

>>: Thank you Madonna and thank you for putting this on. It's been a wonderful event.

A number of things we took away here at the table, in particular. I think Jess's comment about the

2 millimetre gap and the importance of communication really resonated with us and your comment

about taking 5 minutes to listen to your staff is pertinent for me at this time, because I'm wandering

around the university meeting a whole lot of people for the first time and so I'll be encouraging

them and the group here at the table to give me the kind of feedback that I need as a leader, so

that's really important. So much of what you said resonated from all of you, but the other take was

Kevin's comment about coming halfway and not always being your responsibility to educate us and

Kevin, some years ago when I met with a group of Australia's leading Indigenous academics, they

gave me that message so loudly that I've always taken that on board and tried to encourage my

people that I've been leading to do that. So it's wonderful to hear that and be reminded of it and

also to learn that you're a sessional academic at QUT and I'll look forward to learning more from

you, as I'm Lance Armstrong from the group here at the table today. Thank you.

>>: Thank you, and welcome to Queensland. Elise.

>>: We have ideas sprouting from everywhere, so I have Cathy to share her thoughts.


>>: Hi, I'm from the fairly new Department of Local Government Racing and Multicultural

Affairs. We've had good discussions this morning and thanks to the panel members for really

giving us some ideas and things to kick off. One of the really important points I think was about

creating permission to speak up in your workplace and thanks to all of you for putting that forward.

We actually put forward the idea of having a reverse mentoring program so that perhaps some of

the old white cardigan-wearing members of the departments would actually have to link up with

a younger person in the organisation with some different views and sit down and talk to them on

a fairly regular basis to try to get those ideas flowing up to the top.

>>: Can I just defend the old white cardigan-wearing. A lot of us in the room are married to

them! Some of them are okay. Thank you, thank you for those comments and ladies and

gentlemen, a big round of applause for Suraj and Elise. Terrific job, guys. I'll be watching my back

and briefly, we've got a minute before the panel ends and I want you just to take a very short

period of time, because we've heard so much this morning. But when we wake up next Thursday

or the Thursday after, what is the one piece of advice, or what do you want us to remember?

Kevin?

>>: I guess in under a minute. Bad things happen when good people do nothing. You

know, when you get that feeling, or you go "oh, this is not quite right", quite often sometimes we

don't speak out. We've got mortgages to pay, school tuitions, car repayments. People don't speak

out because of the risk of being a troublemaker, losing their job, not progressing further. But when

our days are up, did we do the best we could do? As public servants, I hope the answer will be

yes, but yeah I guess, bad things happen when good people do nothing.

>>: Great, great advice.

>>: And I'm still single, so... turn on Tinder.

>>: I'm going to ignore that and move on. Jessica?

>>: It is ultimately up to each and every one of you to make the choice for your own as to

whether you choose to tolerate what we have today or you choose to say this needs to change.

Each and every one of you performance a function as part of your role and in society and it is

through each and every one of you being able to take the action on and pass it on that will then

make the change occur in the long run.

>>: Thank you, Jess. Elmee?

>>: When you meet someone, respect their individuality, embrace individuality. Let them

be who they want to be. Let them prove their strength to you without having that preconceived

notion. Allow them their rights and smile. I think it can make a lot of people's days.

>>: Thank you. Andrew, the last word.

>>: It would have to be that the standards you walk past is the standard that you accept,

and an individual can absolutely make a difference on a small scale, on a medium scale and even

on a large scale.


>>: Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for our panel. And if I can ask

you to stay there briefly until we hear what the boss makes of this, or what he might have learnt,

ladies and gentlemen please join me in welcoming back, Robert Settler.

>>: Thanks, Madonna. When the IPAA Advisory Committee came together to talk about

key events for the year, the Young Professional Breakfast was one of those initiatives and came to

the idea of inclusion and diversity and a panel of amazing young people. I have to say that in

terms of the expectations that we would have had at that time, I don't think we really had an

appreciation of the power and impact of hearing such great stories. So, thank you. What's

happening in the United States is interesting around the power of voice and the power of youth. If

you've been monitoring the media in the last couple of days and this is around gun laws and how

young people are standing up and saying enough's enough. And I think that in many ways today

we're getting a sense of the same message coming through from the panel that we've had today

and I think even the young people in the room and the conversation. It's time I think to deal with

some of these matters and it's not as though the leadership board as the chief executives don't get

it. The fact this is happening and this is occurring in this way and the strategies are there means

that we do. It's actually recognising we have a great human system that we are part of. We're

trying to make it more adaptive and by making it more adaptive it's actually been more responsive

always with an eye to vision or purpose, but ultimately actually it's about people and I think that's

about connecting with people as you've heard today. About communicating effectively and

ultimately, it's about taking action and so I would look in the near future to further action being

taken. We've taken many great strides. We are a great public service. We have great partners

working with us around community good, public benefit, but if we can have those 38,000 young

people like we have here with the potential and capability reaching their potential through feeling

safe to say the way it is and to deliver the output that they can do, then the State's going to be in

a great, great place. So thank you to all of our panel. To Andrew, to Elmee. Jade Gould was not

with us today, but Jade has done a lot of preparation for this and we should acknowledge her

contribution. Jessica, Kevin, Suraj and Elise, a special thank you from me on behalf of the board

for your contribution today. So, thank you. Of course, this isn't a random occurence. These things

take a great deal of work and I want to acknowledge my colleagues in the Public Service

Commission Sonia, Patty and particularly Shona who's been the brain trust behind it and then

rallying around her is a team of people who've come together over the last few weeks and

particularly the last couple of days to bring it to fruition. Can I acknowledge my team who are, in

fact, your team. So, thank you. Also the Hilton staff, I think the breakfast set-up, the catering

service has been first-rate and I acknowledge and thank them for that and, of course, Madonna,

I must say, you're worth the dollars we're paying, I think. In defence of all cardigan-wearers, it's not

a bad thing. In fact, at some point your blood will be thin and you'll be reaching for your cardy, as

well. I want to use this opportunity to put in a couple of plugs. Our partners in this particular


instance we're looking to Davidson executive have come to us with an idea about a Young

Professional Award. We're going to be launching with Davidson a top 20 Young Leaders Award to

be promoted across the service where peers will nominate young people who actually inspire their

colleagues with their leadership, regardless of their role or their level, that work together in new

ways with the customers, partners and colleagues to deliver outstanding results and who push

boundaries and constructively challenge the status quo to achieve real improvements. Now these

awards will, in fact, shine a spotlight on our exceptional young leaders. We've got 35,000 of them

out there, highlight their work particularly as champions of inclusion and diversity and then create

opportunities for them to network and accelerate. Nominations go out in mid-March and for those

of you attending today, I encourage you to go online and register as a friend of IPAA and you'll be

part of the distribution system for that. We still have yet to formally launch IPAA and its

membership and inviting people to be members, but we're inviting people to be friends of IPAA.

I'm trying to generate a movement of support for IPAA so when, in fact, we launch we can deliver

on the promise, but I don't want to do it if there's not an energy, a commitment, a desire to come

together as professional administrators and work on ever-better public service. So please register

there. Can I thank Davidson executive who are here today, particularly David Reynolds who's

been the brain's trust behind this and look out for those awards. I'd also encourage you to keep an

eye out for what's going to be the IPAA Young Professionals Network. Elise raised that question,

it's something we were thinking about as well and we will generate that going forward. It's about

connecting the energy and aspirations that exist in our young people and using that to

ever-improve and grow the public service. There's an energy here that I think we can't ignore.

Thank you. Travel safe, and I'll hand you back to Madonna.

>>: Thanks, Robert. What a wonderful, warm and welcoming breakfast and the thing that

stood out like a beacon to me is that everybody wants what is best and is willing to look at

themselves and what they do to be part of that. I'd love you to join me for a last time in thanking

our panel. We have a small gift for each of you and, of course, Elise and Suraj please come up

and collect yours, too. I'd love you to stay for 30 minutes and so and network. Meet someone

new. Shake the hand of someone, even if they're wearing a cardigan. I'm going to leave that

alone, though. Put your suggestion in the suggestion box as you leave. It will be read and

considered, but try and meet someone new throughout the morning. We'll make sure that Kevin,

where will you be sitting?

>>: I'll be everywhere.

>>: And remember, everyone has their own story. We are diverse and that's why inclusion is just

so important. Happy Thursday.

2018 ipaa queensland ceos and young professionals ... · ... good morning and welcome to the ......

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