Biographical information - Principal Member, Deputy Principal Member and Senior Members of the Tribunals
Denis O'Brien
Principal Member | BA, LLB, LLM | Appointed: 3 September 2007 (MRT and RRT) | Current term expires: 30 June 2012
Denis O'Brien was a partner in Minter Ellison from 1993 to 2007 practising mainly in the area of administrative law, particularly judicial and tribunal review. Before joining Minter Ellison in 1989, he had been the Director of Research of the Administrative Review Council and had previously worked in the General Counsel Division of the Commonwealth Attorney-General's Department and in the Office of Parliamentary Counsel. Denis is a former President of the Australian Institute of Administrative Law and a former chair of the Administrative Law Committee of the Law Council of Australia.
Amanda MacDonald
Deputy Principal Member | BSc, MALP | Appointed: 1 December 2000 (MRT), 1 January 2006 (RRT) | Current term expires: 31 March 2015
Amanda MacDonald was appointed in April 2010 as the Deputy Principal member of the MRT and RRT. She was appointed to the MRT as a Member in Decemebr 2000 and to the RRT in January 2006. She was an Acting Senior Member from August 2005 to December 2006 and a Senior member form January to March 2009. She has worked as a Conference Registrar and District Registrar of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, a Member and Registrar of the Social Security Appeals Tribunal and a Senior Member of the Veteran's Review Board. She has worked for the Department of Social Security, the Department of Finance and on secondment with KPMG.
John Billings
Senior Member, Melbourne | BA, LLB, LLM Appointed: 1 July 2011 (MRT and RRT) Current term expires: 30 June 2016
John Billings was appointed in July 2011 as a Senior Member of the MRT and RRT. After time as a barrister and solicitor in Victoria and lecturing in Law in the United Kingdom, he served as a Member of the RRT from 1993 to 1997. In 1997 he was appointed head of two Victorian tribunals that were combined with others to form the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal in the following year. He has been in charge of jurisdictions in each of VCAT’s three Divisions including, from 2000 to 2009, the Guardianship List of the Human Rights Division.
John Cipolla
Senior Member, Sydney | BA, LLB | Appointed: 1 December 2000 (MRT), 1 July 2004 (RRT) | Current term expires: 30 June 2016
John Cipolla is a full-time Member of the Tribunal. John has previously been a member of the NSW Guardianship Tribunal and the NSW Consumer Trader and Tenancy Tribunal. Prior to these appointments, he was an Administrative Law solicitor with the NSW Legal Aid Commission, a solicitor with the Inner City Legal Centre and a Senior Conciliator with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.
Linda Kirk
Senior Member, Melbourne | LLB (Hons), B.Ec (Adel) LLM (Cantab), GDLP (USA) | Appointed: 1 January 2009 (MRT and RRT) | Current term expires: 31 December 2013
Linda Kirk is admitted as a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia and the High Court of Australia. Prior to joining the Tribunals she was a Senator for South Australia from 2002 to 2008. She served as the Deputy Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Migration and was a member of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee and the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade. From 1994 to 2001, she was a Lecturer in Law at the University of Adelaide specialising in the fields of administrative law and constitutional law. She is the author of numerous articles, papers and book chapters in these fields and was a regular speaker at national and international legal conferences. Before becoming a legal academic, she worked in private practice at Finlaysons, Barristers and Solicitors in Adelaide in the fields of bankruptcy and insolvency law and commercial litigation. She is a former Board member of Australian Women Lawyers and the Deputy Chair of the Women Lawyers’ Association in South Australia.
Peter Murphy
Senior Member, Melbourne | BCom, LLB | Appointed: 1 January 2009 (MRT and RRT) | Current term expires: 31 December 2013
Peter Murphy has a background in administrative review. Immediately prior to his current appointment, he was Director of the Internal Review Unit of the Victorian WorkCover Authority. Before this he was a full-time Member of the RRT (2003-2005) and has held a range of statutory appointments on State and Commonwealth review bodies, including the Victorian WorkCare Appeals Board, Victorian Mental Health Review Board, and the Social Security Appeals Tribunal. He is also a member of the panel appointed to deal with professional conduct allegations under the Victorian Health Professions Registration Act. He conducted administrative reviews for the Department of Family and Community Services, and lectured in law on a sessional basis. As a solicitor, he worked in the Victorian public sector, and in private practice was a consultant with a national law firm.
Kira Raif
Senior Member, Sydney | BA, LLB, LLM | Appointed: 1 July 2006 (MRT and RRT) | Current term expires: 30 June 2016
Kira Raif was admitted as a legal practitioner of the Supreme Court of NSW in 1998. Prior to joining the Tribunals, she worked in private practice in the area of immigration law for a period of 10 years.
Shahyar Roushan
Senior Member, Sydney | BA, LLB | Appointed: 1 October 2001 (RRT), 1 January 2006 (MRT) | Current term expires: 30 June 2016
Shahyar Roushan is admitted as a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of the ACT. He has previously worked at the Commonwealth Attorney-General's Department, the Australian Government Solicitor and the South African Human Rights Commission. He has also worked as a Ministerial Adviser. In 2004-2005 he was a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Gender and Refugee Studies, University of California Hastings College of the Law.
Giles Short
Senior Member, Sydney | BA, LLB | Appointed: 28 July 1997 (RRT), 1 January 2006 (MRT) | Current term expires: 31 December 2013
Giles Short has been a Member of the RRT since July 1997 and has been a Senior Member since January 2003. He was the Director of Research with the Immigration Review Tribunal from 1990 to 1995 and from 1996 to 1997 he was Legal Counsel (South East Region) with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority.
Don Smyth
Senior Member, Brisbane | BA, LLB (Hons), MIndEmpRels | Appointed: 14 July 2003 (RRT), 14 November 2005 (MRT) | Current term expires: 30 June 2016
Don Smyth has previously served as a Member of the Social Security Appeals Tribunal. He has experience in a number of areas of the public sector, including as a Legal Team Leader at the Refugee Review Tribunal and a Legislation Policy Officer in the Disability Services Division of the Victorian Department of Human Services. He has also worked as a Legal Officer at the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers in the UK.
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