University of Tasmania, Australia

Rodney Dillon has spent his life fighting for the rights of Indigenous Australians.

A Tasmanian Aboriginal Elder, Rodney is the Indigenous Campaigner for Amnesty International and current Chair of the National Reference Group for Repatriation of Australian Indigenous Remains. He has been instrumental in the repatriation of Indigenous remains from overseas, including changes to British repatriation policies. He is a former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Commissioner for Tasmania, serving for three terms, and a member of the Stolen Generations Alliance: Australians for Truth, Justice and Healing, which saw Tasmania become the first state to remunerate members of the stolen generation. He has been involved in Aboriginal fishing rights at state and national levels, and chaired a World Indigenous Fishing Conference in Vancouver.

He also pushed for the continuing presence of the Tent Embassy in Canberra.

Rodney's favourite achievement is the purchase of a sheep station on Bruny Island for Tasmania's Aboriginal people.

He has dedicated his life to helping all Aboriginal people.

Professor Mick Dodson is a member of the Yawuru peoples – the traditional owners of land and waters in the Broome area of the southern Kimberley region of Western Australia.

He is Director of the National Centre for Indigenous Studies at The Australian National University and Professor of law at the ANU College of Law.

Mick Dodson was Australia's first Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner with the Human Rights Commission. He served as Commissioner from April 1993 to January 1998.
From August 1988 to October 1990, Mick was Counsel assisting the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.

Mick Dodson has been a prominent advocate on land rights and other issues affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, as well as a vigorous advocate of the rights and interests of indigenous peoples around the world.

Mick participated in the crafting of the text of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations (WGIP), and the Inter-sessional Working Group of the Human Rights Commission which was adopted overwhelmingly in 2007 by the United Nations General Assembly.

In 2009, Mick Dodson was named Australian of the Year by the National Australia Day Council. 

Anita Lee Hong is a descendant of the Badjalla language group located throughout Queensland. Born in Cairns, Far North Queensland, Anita was educated in Cairns and has spent most of her life there until she moved to Perth in March 2002. She completed a Masters of Human Rights Education in 2006, a Graduate Certificate of Tertiary Teaching in 2003 and a Bachelor of Applied Science Indigenous Community Management and Development (Vice Chancellor's List) in 2002 at Curtin University.

Anita lived and worked in Perth for eight years before taking up her current post as Director of the Oodgeroo Unit. She was the former Associate Professor/Director at Curtin University's Centre for Aboriginal Studies.

Other positions held at the Centre for Aboriginal Studies were: Lecturer, Associate Program Co-ordinator; and Program Co-ordinator Block Release Programs. Prior to commencing at the Centre for Aboriginal Studies she had 13 years employment with the Australian Public Service. As her academic career progresses, Anita becomes more aware of the formidable challenges facing Indigenous women as they seek to build academic careers, as well as the great achievements of those who have actually broken through old barriers.