The Aged Care Quality and Safety Advisory Council (the Council) advises the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commissioner. This advice relates to the Commissioner's functions.
The Council can also advise the Minister for Health and Aged Care regarding these functions.
The Council was established under Section 37 of the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission Act 2018. Its members have extensive experience in aged care, including clinical care, service delivery, consumer representation and more.
Council members
Maree McCabe AM (Chair)
Ms Maree McCabe AM is a recognised leader in the health and aged care sector. She has 20 years of experience in the health, mental health, and aged care sectors.
Ms McCabe has worked in senior management positions for several aged care service providers including The Leaper Corporation (TLC Aged Care) and St John of God Health Services. She has also worked as Management Consultant to Aged Care providers when she worked at Future Choices Management Service.
Ms McCabe recently retired as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Dementia Australia. Over a 7-year period, Maree oversaw the transformation of the federated Alzheimer’s Australia into Dementia Australia, a unified, national organisation.
Ms McCabe is based in Melbourne, Victoria.
Professor Valerie Braithwaite
Professor Valerie Braithwaite is an Emeritus professor from the School of Regulation and Global Governance at the Australian National University. She holds a PhD in psychology.
Professor Braithwaite has taught Gerontology, and her research interests include ageism and aged care. With John Braithwaite and Toni Makkai, she co-authored “Regulating Aged Care: Ritualism and the New Pyramid.”
In addition to being a member of the Advisory Council, Ms Braithwaite is a member of the Expert Advisory Panel for designing the regulatory framework for the new Aged Care Act and the Advisory Council for the Australian Skills Quality Authority.
Professor Braithwaite is based in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory.
Julie Dundon
Ms Julie Dundon is an Advanced Accredited Practising Dietitian. She is also a Director of Nutrition Professionals Australia (NPA). In this role she consults with the aged care and food industries to improve food standards in aged care.
Ms Dundon is the Aged Care Subject Matter Lead for Dietitians Australia. This role requires leading and developing the Aged Care Advocacy Priority Area which involves, among other things, leading policy development, strategic communications development, and stakeholder engagement.
Ms Dundon has also previously worked in management for residential aged care sites and services, including residential aged care sites that specifically cater for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse communities.
Ms Dundon is based in Adelaide, South Australia.
Sally Evans
Ms Evans is an experienced director with a range of diverse experience related to the transformation of regulated services. She has held varied roles in the health, aged care and finance sectors, with expertise in financial and prudential regulation. Ms Evans has previously held director roles with Westpac, AMP and has been a Member of the Aged Care Financing Authority for three years.
With an early career in health care delivery as a dietitian, Ms Evans can apply a consumer lens when considering transformation and strategy. Ms Evans has a history of prioritising investment in resources and time to those issues that matter most to consumers.
Ms Evans worked and lived in New Zealand, Australia, United Kingdom and Hong Kong.
Ms Evans is located in Sydney, New South Wales.
Barry Sandison
Mr Barry Sandison is a Research Fellow with the Australian National University’s College of Health and Medicine and sits on the Boards of a number of national research organisations.
He is interested in using data to respond to critical social issues.
Mr Sandison has 40 years of experience in the public sector across more than 13 agencies. Prior to leaving the Australian Public Service in 2021, he was the CEO of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare for 5 years. During his tenure as CEO, Mr Sandison’s priorities included sharpening the Institute’s strategic focus, growing the awareness of the Institute’s capabilities and broadening the range of health and welfare data products managed by the Institute.
Mr Sandison is based in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory.
Dr Noel Collins
Dr Noel Collins is an older adult psychiatrist who has extensive experience providing specialist care to older people who live in residential aged care facilities. Dr Collins has worked in both Australia and the United Kingdom. Currently Dr Collins is the Director of Older Adult Mental Health for the Western Australia Country Health Service and is based in Albany, Western Australia.
Dr Collins is co-chair of the Western Australia Mental Health Commission’s Older Adult sub-network and is leading the development of a state-wide model of care for Older Adult Mental Health Services in WA, as well as the evaluation of the psychiatric nurse dementia navigator program in Albany. He is also a member of the bi-national Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatry Faculty of Psychiatry of Older Age.
Dr Collins has a lived understanding of the current challenges, and potential solutions, in providing safer systems of mental health care for older Australians with a particular focus on rural and remote settings.
Dr Collins’s academic work has focused on later life depression and dementia care. He has published local, regional, and national audits on the use of antipsychotics in behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia for people living in residential care settings.
Ms Margot Richardson
Ms Margot Richardson is a CPA Australia Practicing Public Accountant with extensive experience in providing strategic governance, financial and risk management advice to both not-for-profit, and commercial organisations. Based in Cairns, Queensland, much of Ms Richardson’s work has been with providers in remote and regional locations with a strong focus on First Nations providers.
Ms Richardson has a history of engagement across the care sector. Currently she is engaged as an independent director of the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine, company secretary of Southern Gulf National Resource Management, audit committee member for the Queensland Ombudsman and an Independent Director of Kokatha Aboriginal Corporation RNTBC. She is also the Director of Business Mapping Solutions, a bespoke governance and accounting practice focusing on supporting Indigenous corporations, NFP and entrepreneurial ventures.
Previous experience includes roles on the boards of Dietitians Australia, Queensland Rural Regional and Remote Women’s Network and Community Enterprise Queensland.
Ms Julie Reeves
Ms Julie Reeves has over 15 years’ experience supporting national health policy advocacy and strategy development through providing advice to government and other bodies. She is also a registered nurse with extensive experience in many areas of nursing including clinical, education, and research.
Ms Reeves has extensive knowledge of health and care regulation through her work with the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia and in her current role as Strategic Lead – Aged Care with the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation.
Ms Reeves holds tertiary qualifications in nursing, with a Master of Nursing Research. She has also obtained numerous qualifications in relation to health informatics, government and policy development, and assessment and workplace training. She has a strong interest in understanding how research and health system information can be used to educate and improve care delivery and regulation.
Ms Reeves is based in Melbourne, Victoria.
Professor Victoria Traynor
Professor Victoria Traynor is both a Professor of Healthy Ageing at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, and a Professor of Dementia Research at Warrigal in New South Wales. Professor Traynor was the inaugural appointment into both of these roles in 2024. Professor Traynor has worked in Australia for 18 years and started her career as a gerontological nurse in Scotland in 1992.
Professor Traynor also has extensive experience designing and teaching post-graduate aged and dementia care master’s degrees and qualitative research methods for PhD Integrated degrees, as well as advising on aged and dementia content for undergraduate subjects.
Professor Traynor is co-located between the Sunshine Coast, Queensland and Wollongong, New South Wales.
Ex officio members
Ms Liz Hefren-Webb (Commissioner)
Liz commenced as Commissioner of the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission in 2025.
Read more about her work and background on our Executive Leadership page.
Dr Mandy Callary (Chief Clinical Advisor)
Mandy Callary started as our Chief Clinical Advisor in July 2024.
Ms Amy Laffan (Department of Health and Aged Care)
Amy is the First Assistant Secretary of the Aged Care Quality & Assurance Division in the Department of Health and Aged Care.
She oversees critical elements of aged care quality reform.
Amy has 20 years of social policy experience in the Australian Public Service.
Callum Moore
Callum Moore has worked for the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission for a number of years, across a variety of roles mostly within the Intake and Complaints Resolution Group. He has been a long time CPSU delegate, and recently led the CPSU's bargaining team for the ACQSC's enterprise agreement.
