Australian human rights advocate and health administrator
Patricia Audrey AndersonAO is an Australian
human rights advocate and health administrator. An
Alyawarre woman from the
Northern Territory, she is well known internationally as a
social justice advocate, advocating for improved health, educational, and protection outcomes for
Indigenous Australian children.
"With an extensive career spanning community development, policy formation, and research ethics, Pat has dedicated her life to creating and nurturing understanding and compassion between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians"[4] as stated by her Australian of the Year Awards biography. Anderson worked as a legal secretary for the Woodward
Royal Commission into Aboriginal Land Rights.[5] In the early 1990s Anderson became the CEO of Danila Dilba Aboriginal Health Service in
Darwin. She held the positions of chair of the
National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation, and executive officer of the
Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance Northern Territory. She led the founding of the
Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Aboriginal and Tropical Health in 1997, and when the Cooperative Research Centre was re-funded in 2003 as the CRC for Aboriginal Health, she took on the role of chair.[3][6]
Anderson is the chairperson of the
Lowitja Institute, Australia's national institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health research.[9] She was co-chair on the Referendum Council which consulted with hundreds of indigenous people to deliver the historic Uluru Statement from the Heart in May 2017.[10][11] Anderson has also served continuously on the board of
Literacy for Life Foundation, a charity which boosts literacy rates among First Nations adults through community-led adult literacy campaigns, since 2013.[12][13]
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abcdef"Pat Anderson AO". Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. 24 February 2017. Retrieved 15 July 2018.
^Northern Territory. Board of Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse; Wild, Rex; Anderson, Pat (2007), Ampe akelyernemane meke mekarle : little children are sacred, Dept. of the Chief Minister, Office of Indigenous Policy],
ISBN978-0-9803874-1-4
^Northern Territory. Board of Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse; Wild, Rex; Anderson, Pat; Wild, Rex co-chair; Anderson, Pat co-chair; Northern Territory. Board of Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children; from Sexual Abuse (2007), Report of the Northern Territory Board of Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse, Govt. Printer],
ISBN978-0-9803874-0-7