People
Our work is done by people who rely on social security payments to live and those subjected to harmful social policies, including by exclusion from support. We are experts because we are subjected to the policies we seek to change.
The Antipoverty Centre’s operations coordinators are responsible for planning our activities and assisting people who take on an organiser or contributor role. The oversight committee supports operations by ensuring compliance with relevant laws and regulations.
Operations coordinators
Jay Coonan, research and policy
Kristin O’Connell, research, policy and communications
team@antipovertycentre.org
Oversight committee
Greg Page, convenor
convenor@antipovertycentre.org
Paul Mcmillan, co-secretary
secretary@antipovertycentre.org
Maiy Azize, treasurer
treasurer@antipovertycentre.org
Mel Powersmith, ordinary member member@antipovertycentre.org
AC collective
Priya Kunjan
Priya is an academic researcher and broadcaster on 3CR Community Radio. Their work both within and outside the academy focuses on issues of housing insecurity, tenancy and urban space, with particular attention to colonialism and racial in/justice
Mel Fisher
Mel is an unemployed artist and antipoverty advocate. Read her Guardian article about life after the COVID supplement. She is a proud owner of brand new teeth thanks to the generosity of her community. Follow her on Twitter.
Joey King
Joey is an unemployed social worker who advocates for people who are homeless and critiques harmful media. You can read Joey’s story on the Guardian, her essay on poverty, or listen to her recent interview with Noongar radio here. Resident dog lover. Follow Joey on Twitter.
El Gibbs
El is a disabled person, award winning writer and disability advocate who works in policy and communications. Follow her on Twitter.
Greg Page
Greg Cavanagh Page is a veteran of decades of exposure to market-driven welfare policy in Australia. Though shaken, he carries on regardless, fighting for a return to sanity and the meeting of people’s basic needs.
Fiona Moore
Fiona blogs about the realities of subsisting on welfare payments as an Autistic disability pensioner and foodie at phonakins.com. Topics she covers include food banks, welfare rates and accessing public health systems and Medicare.
Waiting for blurbs from
Isabelle Truong
Mel Powersmith
Maiy Azize
Oversight committee
Elisha Portelli
Elisha is an essential worker, unionist and advocate for low-income and insecurely employed workers. Read Elisha’s essay, You Belong To Us, from the Green Institute’s recent ebook on the future of welfare. Important to note: obsessive bird lover.
Jeremy Poxon
Jeremy is an unemployed antipoverty activist and former spokesperson for the Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union. He is leading a campaign to abolish Work for the Dole and all forms of forced and coercive labour. Known for: popularising strawby milk. Follow Jeremy on Twitter.
Erica Watson
Erica is a mature-age student and active member of the Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union. She is the 2020 recipient of the Myint Zan Prize for the Philosophy of Science and contributed to the senate inquiry into the Disability Support Pension. You can read about Erica’s story and her perspective on changes to university funding in the Canberra Times.
Alex Paine
Alex is a Disability activist living with multiple complex health conditions. In 2022 Alex submitted their lived experience at the Disability royal commission “National Roundtable on Institutional Economic Neglect”. Alex is a DSP and NDIS recipient and uses first-hand perspective of the realities of dealing with these systems. You can find some things they’ve done; Here & Here
Paul McMillan
Paul is an organiser and comms guy from Djilang in Victoria. His background is in radical and electoral politics and campaigning, with a focus on economic and racial justice, mutual aid, and psychosocial disability. Paul works in mental health systems reform but has over a decade’s experience claiming income support payments. He is a fitness dad, musician and amateur woodworker.
Get in touch with members of the AC collective via email: team@antipovertycentre