Orator Larissa Behrendt focuses on Women’s Leadership.Award-winning author, filmmaker, broadcaster and academic Professor Larissa Behrendt AO will deliver this year’s 19th annual Lowitja O’Donoghue Oration. Professor Behrendt, istinguished Professor and Laureate Fellow at the Jumbunna Institute of the University of Technology Sydney, will reflect on First Nations women’s leadership as a force for social cohesion and national maturity. Drawing inspiration from Dr O’Donoghue’s insistence that justice is “not about guilt,” the address – titled Strength with Grace: Bringing the Nation Together – will explore a model of leadership grounded in relational accountability, cultural authority and collective responsibility. “At a time when public debate is often framed through division and grievance, First Nations women have long practised a leadership that is strategic, steady and connective – building institutions, strengthening communities and holding the nation to account without surrendering to bitterness,” she said. “This oration considers how strength, exercised without resentment, can bring Australians together, not through silence or denial, but through truth, courage and shared responsibility for the future.” This year’s Oration will be held at 6.30pm on Wednesday 3 June – the final day of National Reconciliation Week – at Adelaide University’s Elder Hall. About Professor Larissa Behrendt AO She has published numerous textbooks on Indigenous legal issues. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities and a founding member of the Australian Academy of Law. Professor Behrendt also holds positions of cultural leadership as the Chair of the National Library of Australia, the Chair of Writing Australia and a board member of Creative Australia. She is the host of Speaking Out on ABC radio. Professor Behrendt won the 2002 David Unaipon Award and a 2005 Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for her novel Home. Her second novel, Legacy, won a Victorian Premiers Literary Award. Her most recent novel, After Story, won the 2022 Voss Literary prize and has been optioned by Jungle Media for development as a television series. Professor Behrendt is an award winning filmmaker, having written and directed several feature documentary films including You Can Go Now, Araatika! Rise Up, Maralinga Tjarutka, After the Apology and Innocence Betrayed. She has written and directed for television, including the series, The First Inventors. She won the AACTA for Best Direction in Television Factual in 2020 for Maralinga Tjarutja and the 2018 Australian Directors Guild Award for Best Direction in a Feature Documentary for After the Apology. Professor Behrendt was awarded the 2009 NAIDOC Person of the Year award and 2011 NSW Australian of the Year. About the Lowitja O’Donoghue Oration The Oration serves as a platform to highlight critical issues facing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, continuing Dr O’Donoghue’s lifetime of work pursuing social justice and equality. Dr Lowitja O’Donoghue AC CBE DSG (1932 – 2024) was a Yankunytjatjara woman who dedicated her life to improving the welfare of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. She was named Australian of the Year in 1984 and was the inaugural chairperson of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC). She was the first Aboriginal woman to be inducted as a Member of the Order of Australia (AM), and in 1983 was invested as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). Dr O’Donoghue was awarded Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in 1999 and Dame of the Order of St Gregory the Great (DSG), a Papal Honour, in 2006. The Oration is presented by the Don Dunstan Foundation in partnership with the Lowitja Institute and Lowitja O’Donoghue Foundation. Use the code DDFEARLYBIRD for 50% off until April 5th Tickets
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