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Victorian indigenous leader Tim Chatfield joins First Super board

Tim Chatfeild joins the First Super board.

Tim Chatfeild joins the First Super board. Photo: First Super

Industry super fund, First Super, has appointed Djab Wurrung elder and Indigenous leader, Tim Chatfield, to its board as an independent director.

Mr Chatfield joined the $2.6 billion fund, on September 22. He has experience in leadership, strategy, corporate governance, business management and the development of culturally appropriate policies and processes.

He has served as both an executive director non-executive director and chair in the Indigenous community housing sector.

Currently, Mr Chatfield chairs Aboriginal Housing Victoria (AHV), a position he has held since 2003. He is also the CEO of an Aboriginal controlled health clinic in regional Victoria which serves both indigenous and non-indigenous people which he was instrumental in establishing in 1999.

Mr Chatfield serves as chair of Martang, as a member of the Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Council, and as a member of the Aboriginal Stakeholder Group of the Victorian Premier and Aboriginal Affairs Minister.

Commenting on his appointment at First Super, CEO Bill Watson said that Mr Chatfield has “a tremendous track record of serving the community and working to stimulate economic development in a regional context.”

“Tim Chatfield is an inspiring community leader who contributes across an extraordinary number of public policy areas. The sheer number of successful organisations he has started and nurtured points to his initiative and problem solving capacity.

As a fund which has a significant proportion of its members living and working in rural and regional Australia, we welcome the highly relevant perspectives and diversity Mr Chatfield brings to First Super.”

In a landmark move, the Victorian Government last month announced it will hand over social housing assets worth $500 million to Aboriginal Housing Victoria to own, manage and develop on behalf of the state’s fast-growing Indigenous community.

The first tranche of 511 properties — located around Melbourne — was transferred unannounced to Aboriginal Housing in August.

Mr Chatfield, as chairman of Aboriginal Housing Victoria, said the historic decision had put Aboriginal people on the map.

“We are the first Aboriginal organisation in this country to be given the opportunity for real self determination by owning and managing housing assets,” he said. “We are not caretakers anymore, we have done our apprenticeship.”

AHV is believed to be one of nine Aboriginal housing associations in Australia.

The housing transfer is believed to be the largest – some 1,522 titles – to an Indigenous organisation anywhere and is due to be completed within two years.

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