Board Members

Genevieve Bolton, Chair
Genevieve Bolton is the Executive Director/Principal Solicitor of Canberra Community Law, a position she has held since 2010. Genevieve has had a long involvement in the community legal centre movement. Her commitment to advancing human rights was recognised in 2015 when she was awarded the Australian Human Rights Commission Law Award. In 2015, she was named in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List with a Medal of the Order of Australia for her welfare rights work. In 2018 Genevieve was included in the ACT Women’s Honour Roll and her work has been recognised nationally in the ‘Trailblazing Women and the Law’ project, a collaboration between the Australian National University and the University of Melbourne.

Katherine Boyle, Deputy Chair
Katherine Boyle joined the Welfare Rights Centre in 2016 as Coordinator/Principal Solicitor and was appointed Executive Director in 2019. She also volunteered at the Welfare Rights Centre during 1996. Her 25-year career in the community legal sector, private practice, public service and trade union movement has focussed on defending and promoting the rights of vulnerable, marginalised and disadvantaged people. Katherine is committed to ensuring that all people in Australia have an adequate standard of living and to advocating for a fair social security system. Katherine has first class honours in both Political Economy and Law. Katherine joined the Board in 2019. She is committed to advancing EJA’s funding strategy and further developing EJA’s media and communications strategy.

Kate Beaumont, Treasurer
Kate Beaumont is a social worker and is the Executive Officer at Welfare Rights & Advocacy Service in Western Australia (WRAS). She has worked in this role since February 2002 after previously working as a welfare rights advocate with the service from December 2001. Prior to her studies in social work Kate worked for 19 years with the Department of Social Security and Centrelink in a variety of customer service settings across Tasmania, New South Wales and Western Australia. In 2003 at the time of incorporation Kate joined the Board of Economic Justice Australia in its earlier iterations of the National Welfare Rights Network and the National Social Security Rights Network. Over the last 18 years she has held several roles on the EJA Board – initially elected for the first three years as an Ordinary Committee Member, she was either the Vice President or President of the association from 2006 to 2017 and for the last three years has been the Treasurer of EJA. Kate was appointed as a Commissioner of the Legal Aid Commission of Western Australia from July 2012 to June 2017. She has been a Board Member of a number of other community legal centres within Western Australia including, Employment Law Centre, MIDLAS, Street Law Centre and Tenancy WA.

Natalie Ross, Ordinary Board Member
Natalie Ross is a new member of the EJA board and she is the Principal Solicitor of the Welfare Rights Centre in New South Wales. Natalie has been working and volunteering in NSW community legal centres since the 1980s and has also worked at the Australian Human Rights Commission and LawAccess NSW. She has had previous experience as a board and management committee member and chairperson of a range of non-government organisations, and is on the editorial committee for the NSW Law Handbook.

Emma Cvitak, Ordinary Board Member
Emma is a Community Lawyer and in-house School Lawyer at Barwon Community Legal Service. In her current role, Emma champions in the areas of social security, family violence, elder abuse and youth law. Alongside casework, Emma’s role includes developing and delivering community legal education as well as contributing to law reform work. Emma is passionate about working to ensure people have access to justice and in 2020 she was a finalist in the Lawyers Weekly ’30 under 30’ awards. Emma has been a board member of EJA since 2019.

Mitra Khakbaz, Independent Board Member
Mitra Khakbaz has over 20 years’ experience working in human services. In her current role as deputy CEO of HOST International she leads program design and service delivery across Asia Pacific including Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand. Her track record includes developing and leading projects across humanitarian settlement, employment, regional development, community wellbeing, youth engagement, child protection and women economic empowerment. Mitra currently is a board member of Nationality for All and is excited to join board of EJA. 

Rhea Thomas, Ordinary Board Member
Rhea is a solicitor at Welfare Rights & Advocacy Service in Western Australia (WRAS). Since joining WRAS 5 years ago Rhea has worked on various social security and residential tenancy law issues. She is currently undertaking a family and domestic violence project aimed at providing legal advice, representation, community legal education (CLE) and referrals for victims of FDV in relation to their social security issues. She has previously been involved in a youth focused project and is passionate about CLE. Rhea has been a co-convenor of the CLC Community Legal Education Workers network since 2018 and a management committee member of SCALES community legal centre since 2017. Prior to joining WRAS Rhea worked in other realms of administrative law, in particular immigration law and coronial inquests into Aboriginal deaths in custody.

Staff

Kate Allingham, Acting Chief Executive Officer

Acting June 2023 – February 2024

Kate has worked as a manager, advisor, community advocate and strategist across a range of government and non-government organisations. She is passionate about tackling complex issues, in a collaborative environment, to better empower all members of our communities. Kate recently worked as  senior advisor to an independent member of federal parliament, and previously worked in housing and Aboriginal and community legal services. Kate lives and works in Hobart, Tasmania.

Tori Edwards, Chief Operating Officer

Linda Forbes, Senior Adviser
Linda joined EJA in April 2020, after four years with South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute working on policy and health promotion programs to address STIs among young people in remote Aboriginal communities; and seven years with the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations, managing its policy and comms team. Linda worked at NSW Welfare Rights Centre for 18 years from 1991 and prior to that worked in the Department of Social Security’s policy and appeals branches, where she first developed an abiding obsession with addressing issues affecting access to income security rights for people with disability, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and migrants and refugees.

Amy Schneider, Law Reform Lead – Social Security Access

Amy is a human rights lawyer who has spent her legal career working in public interest private practice, Community Legal Centres, and Legal Aid NSW. Amy has held several roles within Legal Aid NSW’s civil law division including as a senior lawyer managing localised civil law service delivery to regional and remote Western NSW, and most recently as a lawyer in their human rights team. Amy has also worked as a lawyer for specialist domestic/family abuse legal services such as Women’s Legal Service NSW and Western Women’s Legal Support. Amy is passionate about, and has expertise in, the equitable delivery of legal services to clients in regional and remote NSW, particularly women experiencing domestic/family abuse.

Pip Duncan, Communications, Engagement and Media Manager

Pip is a manager with vast experience in the media, communications, and political landscape. She is a powerful advocate who has been telling stories for two decades, first as an award-winning journalist in radio, TV and newspapers and later as a communications specialist working for not-for-profits, grassroots community groups, politicians and government. She always strives to explain in plain English how political decisions and government policies will touch people in their every-day lives. She has post-graduate qualifications in marketing and management and a strong social conscience. The Robodebt Royal Commission highlighted the powerful role of language in shaping public debate and at-times toxic attitudes. Pip is looking forward to exploring how our choice of words can help us create a fairer social security system that supports people to live with dignity.

Terina Hegarty, Policy and Communications Support Officer

Terina is a social worker and she has worked across the community and social service sector in law, policy, youth work, homelessness, and research and evaluation. Terina joins Economic Justice Australia (EJA) as a Policy and Communications Support Officer. She is also working at Basic Rights Queensland (BRQ), a community legal centre and member of EJA. Terina holds a Master of Social Work Studies degree, as well as a Bachelor of Psychological Science and Graduate Certificate in Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Studies. She is passionate about social justice, human rights and advocating for community members impacted by the legal system.

Sarah Sacher, Law Reform Lead – Automation in Social Security

Lucia Mai, Project Officer
Lucia joined EJA in March 2020 as a volunteer Communications Intern as part of the Brennan Justice and Leadership Program. She currently studies a Bachelor of Laws/Bachelor of Communications (Creative Writing) at the University of Technology Sydney. Lucia is passionate about access to justice and ending State-sanctioned violence against people with disabilities and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.