PMAC Biographies

Chair:

Hon Graham Edwards

Members:

Hon Graham Edwards - Chair (WA)

Graham Edwards was born in Kalgoorlie on 18 July 1946. He attended Christian brothers College, Perth and later Leederville Technical College.

Following school Graham was employed by WA Government Railways and worked himself up to become a fireman. He served in the regular army for three years (1968 – 1971) and saw service in Vietnam with the 7th Battalion RAR in 1970. He was wounded twice in Vietnam the second time loosing his legs to a ‘ jumping jack ‘ anti personnel land mine.

After discharge from the army and a period of rehabilitation he spent ten years with the Commonwealth Public Service in Defence, Veterans Affairs and the Vietnam Veterans Counseling Service.

Graham was elected as a Councillor with the City of Stirling in 1980 and in 1983 was elected to the Parliament of WA where he served for fourteen years including seven years as a Minister.

In 1998 Graham was elected to the House of Representatives and retired in 2007.

Graham was recognized by the RSL with the Anzac of the Year award in 1991 for service to the Veteran community. He has and has also been awarded the Rotary Paul Harris Fellow and the Lions Melvin Jones Fellow. He is a Life Member of the Vietnam Veterans Association.

Graham was also recently made a Freeman Of The City of Wanneroo in his home state of WA, was a member of the First Council and has been reappointed for a further two years. He has also been appointed to the Council of the Australian War Memorial.

Commodore Nick Helyer MBE RANR (NSW)

Commodore Helyer is a Royal Australian Navy (RAN) veteran of the Vietnam conflict. He retired from the RAN in 2000 after 35 years in uniform, four with the Royal Navy and 31 with the RAN. He has been an active member of the Reserve ever since.

He is the Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Veterans’ Children Assistance Trust and a Director of the Mission to Seafarers, Sydney. Commodore Helyer is also currently one of two Vice Chairmen on the Legacy Australia Council (National) and a member of the Veterans' Children Education Board (NSW). Commodore Helyer’s previous involvement with the ex-service community includes roles as past President and Director of Sydney Legacy. He is also Patron of three ex-RAN Ship Associations.

Commodore Helyer was a member of First Council and has been reappointed for a further two years.

Mr Kenneth Kipping AM (ACT)

Mr Kipping is a renowned consumer advocate and supporter of the Australian Defence Force who has nearly 40 years experience in the financial services industry. Mr Kipping is a former Chairman of the Army Credit Union and was a consultant to the Department of Veterans' Affairs, Defence Housing Authority, PNG Defence Force and to the Tongan Government during the initial deployment to the Solomon Islands. Mr Kipping has visited deployments in Rwanda, Middle East, Bougainville and East Timor.

He was instrumental in structuring Defence Health Term Life and Accident Insurance, optional insurance programmes designed specifically for ADF members and their families. In 2007, Mr Kipping was appointed as the RSL representative to the Review of the DSH Insurance Scheme. He was appointed by Chief Defence Force as the inaugural Chairman of the Australian Defence Force Financial Services Consumer Council, working closely with ASIC, the ACCC and Defence Families Australia for the betterment of Defence members and their families. He is a Director of the RAR Foundation and Defence Holidays (NQ). He continues as a 20 plus year member of the NQ Defence Reserves Support Council.

Mr Kipping was a member of First Council and has been reappointed for a further two years.

Ms Anne Pahl (VIC)

Ms Pahl joined the RAN in 1988 and saw Operational service on the HMAS Jervis Bay as part of Operation Solace in Somalia during 1992-93. In 1999, she transferred to the RAN Active Reserve as Chief Petty Officer with the Defence Force School of Signals Maritime Wing at HMAS Cerberus. Ms Pahl actively represents the interests of veterans, particularly younger veterans and current ADF serving members. Ms Pahl has been a Board Member of the Victorian RSL State Executive since September 2003, is the RSL National Representative on the Current and Former Members of the ADF - Emerging Issues Forum, chair of the Victorian State RSL Young Veterans Forum, and chair of the State RSL Veterans’ Affairs Aged Care Consultative Committee and a member of the Heidelberg Repatriation Veterans Centre / Veterans Psych Unit Project.

Ms Pahl was a member of First Council and has been reappointed for a further two years.

Mr Philip Pyke (TAS)

Mr Pyke is an active member of the Australian Army Reserve with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He has served in the Middle East and Iraq in 2003, the Commonwealth Games (2006), Malaysia, East Timor in 2008 and more recently in the Solomon Islands.

Mr Pyke has had an extensive role in Defence public affairs across the three services and, in civilian life, was a member of Tasmania Police until 2008 when he resigned to take up a media and communications position with the Catholic Archbishop of Hobart. Mr Pyke takes an active interest in the welfare of veterans and their families, especially Reservists.

He is a member of the RSL Tasmania, the Defence Reserves Association and the Tasmanian State President for the Australian Peacekeepers and Peacemakers Veterans' Association.

Mr Pyke was a member of First Council and has been reappointed for a further two years.

Mrs Julie Blackburn (ACT)

Julie Blackburn has been the National Convenor of Defence Families of Australia since January 2010. This position is ministerially appointed by the Minister responsible for Defence Personnel to provide direct feedback to Government and the Chief of Defence Force on the needs of the Australian Defence Family.

Julie is responsible for the running of DFA, a volunteer organisation, which collects the views of families from around Australia and liaises with Defence, Government agencies, and family groups. The focus of DFA is to ensure the wellbeing of ADF members and their families, and thus enhancing the capability and readiness of the Australian Defence Force.

Julie is also a registered midwife and instructor for parenting educators. She is married to Guy who is a serving member of the RAN, and resides in Canberra with their three children whilst he is on posting in Sydney.

Mr Andrew Condon (NSW)

Andrew Condon is a veteran of the war in Iraq where he served on a US Army Corps HQ in Baghdad for a 6 month deployment in 2004. He was also the Commander of the ADF Joint Task Force that deployed to the Mediterranean to support the evacuation of 5000 Australians from Lebanon in the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah forces. He was raised on his grandfathers World War I soldier settler farm near Griffith NSW before joining the Australian Regular Army in 1982. During his 26 years of service his command experience included regular and reserve personnel.

In 2007 he commenced in his current role as Chief Executive Officer at Sydney Legacy. In this role he has worked closely with the Department of Veterans Affairs, on behalf of Legacy, in the development of DVA’s service delivery for veterans and dependents of contemporary conflicts, in particular the Dependent Service Model.

Major Matina Jewell (Ret'd) (VIC)

Matina Jewell joined the army in 1994 and served for 15 years in the Royal Australian Corps of Transport. During her career Matina deployed on five operational missions; in the North Arabian Gulf, Kuwait, Solomon Islands, Syria and Lebanon. Whilst serving as a United Nations peacekeeper with UNTSO in Lebanon during the 2006 Lebanon War, Matina sustained career ending injuries, resulting in her being medically retired from the Army. Matina’s service with the UN was the subject of a two part ABC documentary titled ‘The Blue Beret’ on the program Australian Story which aired in May 2010 and she is the author of the book “Caught in the Crossfire – An Australian Peacekeeper beyond the front line” which was published in 2011.

Matina is a member of the ANZAC Centenary Commission and continues to provide advice to the Government on the best way to commemorate the centenary of Anzac in her role as an adviser with the Culture and Military history group. Matina is the Ambassador of both the Australian Peacekeeping Memorial Project and the Australian Peacekeepers and Peacemakers Veterans’ Association and is a member of the National Mental Health Forum.

Ms Dannielle Kitchen (NT)

Ms Dannielle Kitchen became a widow at 22 after her fiancé CPL Richard Edward Atkinson was KIA on patrol in Afghanistan on 2 February 2011.

Months after CPL Atkinson' death Ms Kitchen travelled to Townsville to share her grief and story of the realization of being prepared, with the next rotating soldiers. Doing this inspired her to continue her journey to help young veterans and there families through their struggles in anyway possible.

Mr Michael Callan (ACT)

Mick has 32 years experience in the Commonwealth public sector, starting with 20 years in Defence as a military officer, followed by stints as an Australian Public Servant in the Departments of Health and Ageing, Defence and Department of Human Services. His roles have spanned strategic human resource management, human services delivery, public health policy, major Defence aviation procurement and logistics support, business management and corporate services.

In a previous role with Defence, Mick was the business manager and then acted as the Head of Rotary Wing Aviation and Navy Aviation branches within the Defence Material Organisation. In these roles Mick was responsible for managing major aviation projects and providing logistic support to Army and Navy aviation fleets, which represented 50% of the Defence force’s aviation assets.

Prior to DCO, Mick worked as the Deputy General Manager Corporate for CRS Australia, with responsibility for delivery of the human resources, property, information technology, financial and procurement functions across the 175 service delivery sites.

Mick took over as Director General Defence Community Organisation in December 2007, and now is the longest serving DG in the organisation’s history. Since December 2007 he has led a major reform program to improve the support provided to ADF families.

Mick is married with two sons.