Official Event Advisory Panel
In developing the program and inviting speakers to this event, we research extensively with heads of sustainability, environment, carbon and climate policy and stakeholders from across industry and business and government and regional agencies about their challenges for abatement. We then design an agenda in response to the specific challenges they face.
Quest Events would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank the panel members below who are contributing their valuable time and expertise to ensure the conference agenda is timely and relevant for all stakeholders for carbon abatement in Australia.
Tennant Reed
Principal National Adviser
Australian Industry Group
Tennant Reed is Principal National Adviser – Public Policy at the Australian Industry Group. For the last five years he has worked heavily on climate and energy issues, advising Ai Group’s Leaders’ Group on Energy and Climate Policy and developing reports on natural gas supply, energy prices and energy efficiency. He also works on a range of issues related to manufacturing and innovation. Previously he was an adviser in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, working on fiscal policy, stimulus and infrastructure. Tennant lives in Melbourne with his wife and their young son.
Cameron Reid
Carbon and Climate Policy Manager
AGL
As Carbon & Renewable Policy Manager Cameron is responsible for influencing, understanding and communicating the impact (short and long term) of climate change, carbon policy and renewable energy policy on AGL operations. Key responsibilities include coordinating and consolidating stakeholder engagement across government, NGO and corporate peer organisations, monitoring international and national policy developments and assessing opportunities for organisational development. Previously Cameron was AGLs Manager of Customer Hardship & Social Policy. The role centred on understanding, shaping and responding to the impact of regulatory and operational change on the full customer base and minimising the incidences of vulnerability in the community.
Prior to August 2009 when Cameron joined AGL he worked with the National Australia Bank where he was responsible for the global coordination of NABs Corporate Responsibility Reporting, simultaneously managing report production, process change verification for the GRI Accredited reports and Dow Jones Sustainability Index submissions.
Professor Samantha Hepburn
Research Director- School of Law
Deakin University
Dr Samantha Hepburn is an Associate Professor at the School of Law, Deakin University. Previously, she was an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law at the Australian National University. Samantha teaches and publishes in the area of property and land law as well as mining, energy and environmental law. Samantha has a strong research interest in coal seam gas regulation in Australia and is currently involved in a detailed research project examining how the regulatory frameworks for CSG should be developed to respond to the particular needs of the Australian landscape.
Phil Polgase
Former Leader - Agriculture and Forest Eco-Science
CSIRO
Phil is a forest ecologist with 25 years experience and skills in carbon balances, soil fertility and nutrient cycling, ecohydrology and process-based modeling. He was with CSIRO for 22 years and led the Forests Systems Program of about 35 staff covering carbon sequestration, forest production and fire science. He has a well established international reputation with more than 130 research publications. He has consulted widely to government and industry across a range of sectors in natural resource management. He recently led a major effort to develop spatial tools and capability to identify opportunities in Australia for new forest plantings to sequester carbon and which was the basis of the chapter on land use change in the Garnaut Climate change report.
Keith Orchison 
Director
Coolibah Pty Ltd
Keith Orchison has been engaged in the Australian energy industry for 33 years, of which he spent 24 as chief executive of national industry associations representing the upstream petroleum and electricity supply sectors.
He was a founder of the Australian Industry Greenhouse Network, which he chaired in 2000. From 2003 to 2007 he served on the Critical Infrastructure Advisory Council set up by the Howard government and was chairman of its energy committee. He was also chairman of CSIRO's energy technology advisory committee in the late 1990s and was deputy chairman and the overseeing manager of the Australian Electricity Supply Industry Research Board through most of the 1990s.
In 2011-12 he was a member of the Federal Government's energy white paper reference group.
Keith was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 2004 and was awarded the 2012 Sir Willis Connolly Memorial Medal by AusIMM for communication services to the resources sector. He also is a holder of the APPEA Gold Medal (now the Reg Sprigg Medal), awarded in 1994 for services to the petroleum industry.
Keith has been principal of consultancy Coolibah Pty Ltd since retiring from ESAA at the end of 2003 and has numerous clients for his communications services across the spectrum of energy stakeholders.
He edited the "Powering Australia" yearbook from 2007 to 2012.
He is a commentator on energy issues for "Business Spectator" electronic newspaper and has a new column in "Gas Today" magazine.
His "This is Power" blog and monthly newsletter on the Coolibah website are widely read in the energy industry.
In late 2012, in partnership with media company ArmstrongQ, he launched the "OnPower" website and yearbook to provide a new media focus on eastern Australia's electricity supply business.