Luke joined the QFCC as Chief Executive and Principal Commissioner in January 2022. Luke is an accomplished senior executive, with rich experience in the child and family sector. Luke’s career spans more than 20 years across Commonwealth, New South Wales and Northern Territory governments in the areas of reform, research and evidence, integrity, audit, governance and complaints management. Prior to joining the QFCC, Luke worked for nine years with the Northern Territory Government, leading critical reform of the child protection system and its legal frameworks. This included legislating a charter of rights for children in care and leading reform in family support and out-of-home care programs to empower children and families and reduce abuse, neglect and youth crime. He was also responsible for monitoring the performance of the Child Safety Department and delivering projects to improve the systems designed to keep children in care safe.
Luke holds a Bachelor of Laws with Honors from the University of Wollongong. He has extensive experience providing evidence to courts, inquiries and commissions. He led the whole-of-government responses to two royal commissions, with his evidence on system reform and child voices provided to Royal Commission on the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory the most frequently quoted material in the final report.
Luke is a special advisor to QUT’s Australian Child Maltreatment Study, a pioneering research program into the scale and impact of child abuse and neglect in Australia. He was Chairperson of the Child and Youth Development Research Partnership, an initiative of leading research institute the Menzies School of Health Research, which aims to improve the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people.
Luke’s parents fostered a number of children throughout his childhood, with his own lived experience and those of his foster brothers and sisters profoundly shaping the perspective he brings to his work and his passion in advocating for the rights and wellbeing of children and young people.
