Speakers

Jayne Christianson

Jayne is a Baramadagal woman of the Dharug-speaking peoples through the Reid/Goldspink bloodline, with kinship connections to Wiradjuri Country.

Jayne is a lawyer & mediator / FDRP, and Director of Barabirang Projects, and sits on various Boards and Advisory Committees.

Jayne is a cultural weaver who was the recipient of the 2023 Galang Residency based in Paris, France, where she will be returning next month to participate in a collaborative exhibition at the Cité Internationale des Arts.

Lizzie Jarrett

Lizzie Jarrett is a proud Dunghutti, Gumbaynggirr, Bundjalung warrior woman, poet, educator and dedicated First Nations frontline activist fighting for justice for all.

Omar Barghouti

Omar Barghouti is a Palestinian human rights defender and a co-founder of the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights.

He is a co-recipient of the 2017 Gandhi Peace Award. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in
Electrical Engineering from Columbia University, NY, and is currently pursuing a PhD in Philosophy (Ethics) at the University of Amsterdam.

Omar Barghouti is the author of BDS: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights (Haymarket: 2011). His commentaries and interviews have appeared in the Guardian, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Financial Times, and on BBC, MSNBC, CNN, among others.

Dr. Randa Abdel-Fattah

Dr. Randa Abdel-Fattah is the multi award-winning Palestinian-Australian author of 12 novels and is published in over 17 countries.

Dr. Abdel-Fattah has worked as a lawyer, human rights advocate and community volunteer with different human rights and migrant and refugee resource organisations.

Dr. Abdel-Fattah has a PhD in Sociology and is a researcher on Islamophobia, racism and everyday multiculturalism in Australia.

Assala Sayara

Assala Sayara is a Palestinian social worker, mental health practitioner, sessional academic, and activist based in Sydney, Australia. She has experience in community development, child protection, and mental health across Jordan, Palestine, and Australia.

Assala currently works as a primary and secondary school counsellor and tutors at the University of Sydney, where she is completing a PhD in Philosophy.

A distinguished public speaker both locally and internationally, she advocates for justice and liberation, centering Palestinian and Indigenous rights. She is the founder and Director of Haweyate, a grassroots organisation dedicated to fostering education, healing, and resistance within the Palestinian diaspora and beyond.

Nick Hanna

Nick Hanna is the principal of Hanna Legal and a co-founder of the Civil Liberties Defence Centre, a community legal service founded in response to the unprecedented crackdown on political expression during the Gaza genocide. Since October 2023, he has acted in numerous high profile cases for Palestine defenders.

Aside from the law, Nick hosts The What & The Why, an investigative journalism project exposing the role of the Israel lobby in undermining democratic rights in Australia, and he wrote and directed The Last Sky, a bold documentary about Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon and the people fighting back.

Dr. Jumana Bayeh

Dr. Jumana Bayeh is an Associate Professor specialising in in research of the Arab world, in particular its politics, culture and diaspora.

Dr. Bayeh is the author of “The Literature of the Lebanese Diaspora”, the co-edited collection “Writing the Global Riot” and numerous articles on Arab diaspora fiction.

Dr. Bayeh is the recipient of two Australia Research Council grants, a Miles Franklin Literary Award judge and was President of the Australasian Association for Literature. She is also the proud daughter of Lebanese migrants.

Ahmed Alabadla

Ahmed Alabadla is a Palestinian from Gaza. Amned is the co-founder of Palestine Justice Movement Sydney and creator of the Red Inverted Triangle podcast.

Nikolai Haddad

Nikolai Haddad is a Lebanese-Australian lawyer, activist and board member of Arab Theatre Studio.

Alissar Chidiac

Alissar Chidiac is a community cultural development worker in Burramatta on Dharug Country.

Alissar has been working in diverse contexts and capacities for over 45 years, as a community arts worker, performer, dramaturg, curator and creative producer. Her experience of cultural action and culture making is founded in collectivity and collaboration.

From Creative Australia, the national arts funding body, she received a community arts Fellowship (in 2005) to document Arab Australian contemporary arts, and the Ros Bower Award (in 2010) which acknowledges a life time contribution to community arts and cultural development.

Since 1991 she has worked across Arab Australian arts, heritage and cultural production. Some of Alissar’s initiatives and long term developments in local Arab cultural work include: Café Hakawati with Death Defying Theatre; Taqa Theatre in the decade of the 90s; major programs at the Powerhouse Museum through the wattan project; Auburn Poets and Writers Group, and the Arabic calligraphy programs with ACDN; No Added Sugar, the national Australian Muslim Women’s Arts Project with Casula Powerhouse; Burra Wa Ba’eed, bilingual theatre for community health; and now over a decade of Arab Theatre Studio.

Michelle Higelin

Michelle Higelin is Executive Director of ActionAid Australia, which is part of a global federation working in 70 countries to advance women’s rights and end poverty and injustice. ActionAid has worked in Palestine for nearly two decades and its humanitarian response in Gaza has reached 650,000 people with lifesaving support since 2023.

Michelle has nearly three decades of experience working on gender equality, human rights and global justice domestically and internationally. As Deputy General Secretary of the World YWCA, she chaired the NGO Working Group on Peace in Geneva, which worked through UN mechanisms to challenge the continued Occupation of Palestine.

Michelle is Co-Chair of the Australian Women, Peace and Security Coalition and Vice-President of the Australian Council for International Development.

Dr. Shaykh Wesam Charkawi

Dr. Shaykh Wesam Charkawi is a Sydney Imam, researcher and community organiser. He recently completed a PhD at Western Sydney University in the field of countering violent extremism.

For over 20 years, Dr. Charkawi has worked with Muslim youth and grassroots communities across Australia. He is the convenor of The Muslim Vote Australia, a national movement focused on political engagement, community mobilisation, and holding power to account. He also directed and published the documentary Before 1770, soon to be released on streaming platforms.

His work sits at the intersection of faith, youth work, research, and public advocacy, with a strong emphasis on justice, community empowerment, and principled civic participation.

Salma Elmubasher

Cathy Peters

Cathy Peters is the co-founder of BDS Australia and a former Greens councillor.

Cathy worked as a radio producer and executive producer for ABC Radio National for thirty years.

Cathy has travelled to Gaza and throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territories on a number of occasions and is a long-time advocate for Palestinian rights and justice.

Mardi O’Connor

Mardi O’Connor is a Naarm-based trade unionist, writer, activist and volunteer with Free Palestine Melbourne.

In 2025, Mardi spent three months in the West Bank with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), as regional coordinator for Masafer Yatta.

Safaa Rayan

Safaa is a Palestinian woman living on Dharawal land of the Yuin nation.

Safaa is part of Wollongong Friends of Palestine.

Ethan Floyd

Ethan Floyd is a Wiradjuri, Ngiyampaa, and Wailwan activist and student organiser studying law at the University of Sydney.

Ethan participated in the Global Sumud Flotilla and was kidnapped and tortured by Israeli forced in 2026.

Ethan serves as an Undergraduate Fellow of Senate at the University of Sydney, Director of the Tenants’ Union of NSW and Democracy in Colour, and Management Committee Member of Palestine Fair Trade Australia. Ethan’s work spans politics, law, campaigns and community organising, with experience across parliamentary offices, legal services, cultural institutions and movement organisations.

Shaun Murray

Yasmine Johnson

Rouba Rayan

Remah Naji

Remah Naji is a Palestinian woman, social justice campaigner and spokesperson for Justice for Palestine Magan-djin (Brisbane).

Remah uses her voice to inspire collective action towards full equality, freedom and justice.

Hiba Farra

Georgia Steele

Georgia Steele is a lawyer and political strategist with extensive experience in independent politics, parliamentary advocacy and grassroots campaigning.

Georgia served as Principal Adviser to independent MP Sophie Scamps before becoming Chief of Staff to independent MP Nicolette Boele following Boele’s successful community independent campaign. Georgia also ran as a community independent candidate in the 2022 federal election and brings deep expertise in turning community advocacy into political change.

Sue Higginson MLC

Sue Higginson is a Greens Member of the New South Wales Legislative Council and the party’s spokesperson for the environment, justice and human rights.

Before entering Parliament, Sue Higginson was an environmental lawyer who spent more than two decades defending communities and ecosystems through public interest litigation. She is widely recognised for her principled advocacy on environmental protection, First Nations justice, democratic freedoms and international human rights.

Jinghua Qian

Jinghua Qian is a writer, critic and commentator focusing on race, resistance, art, desire, queerness and the Chinese diaspora. Born in Shanghai, Jinghua lives and works in Melbourne, on the land of the Kulin nations

Jinghua is a union delegate in the MEAA, volunteering to advance freelance journalists’ rights, and an active part of the rank-and-file group MEAA Members for Palestine.

Jinghua has freelanced as a writer, critic, and cross-platform storyteller.

Sen. David Shoebridge

Senator David Shoebridge is an Australian Greens Senator for New South Wales and the party’s spokesperson on justice, defence, digital rights and home affairs.

A lawyer by background, he has built a reputation as a fearless advocate for civil liberties, government accountability and human rights. He has been at the forefront of parliamentary efforts calling for accountability under international law, stronger oversight of Australia’s defence relationships and greater protection of democratic rights.

Sen. Mehreen Faruqi

Senator Mehreen Faruqi is the Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens and Senator for New South Wales. An engineer and former academic, she made history as the first Muslim woman to sit in any Australian parliament.

She has been one of the strongest parliamentary advocates for justice in Palestine, alongside her work on climate action, anti-racism, refugee rights, gender equality and economic justice. Before entering federal politics, Mehreen served in the New South Wales Legislative Council.

Alex Mckinnon

Alex McKinnon is a Sydney-based journalist and the co-founder of Deepcut News.

Anne Hare

Anne Hare is the Secretary and Treasurer of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa.

Anne leads on PSNA’s divestment campaigns and was a Financial Adviser for 27 years, retiring 2 years ago.

Anne specialised in Ethical Investment and worked with Foundations and Trusts whose focus was on ethical investing.

Anthony D’Adam MLC

Anthony D’Adam is a Labor Member of the New South Wales Legislative Council and has represented NSW in Parliament since 2015. A long-time advocate for human rights, social justice and multicultural communities, he has been a consistent parliamentary voice on international law, civil liberties and equality.

Before entering Parliament, he practised as a barrister specialising in public and administrative law, and he continues to champion progressive reform across a broad range of social, legal and human rights issues.

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FAQs

What is the Palestine Solidarity Conference?

Across two days, the Palestine Solidarity Conference will bring together leading voices from Palestine, First Nations communities, academia, journalism and grassroots organising for critical conversations, practical workshops and movement-building.

The Palestine Solidarity Conference is an opportunity for activists within the Palestine solidarity movement to come together to connect with one another, build our skillsets, expand and share knowledge on what’s happening in Palestine, and socialise our strategy and tactics to make our work more impactful.

The conference will feature plenary discussions and collaborative workshops with prominent advocates and activists from within the movement on this continent, and the international Palestine liberation movement.

Who will be speaking at the conference?

The full list of speakers joining us for PSC26 can be found here.

The full PSC26 program is available on our website.

What is included in my registration?

Your registration for PSC26 includes access to all plenary sessions, your selected workshops, conference materials, and dedicated time to organise and connect with other activists in the movement. Meals and refreshments will be provided during the conference.

Can I attend online?

Unfortunately we are not able to facilitate online attendance for the conference.

Accommodation options

The conference will take place on Darug Land (Western Sydney) at the Holroyd Centre – 11-17 Miller St, Merrylands.

The Guildford Hotel

8 min to venue by car
12 min to venue by train

Holiday Inn Parramatta

10 min to venue by car
20 min to venue by train

Mantra Parramatta

10 min to venue by car
20 min to venue by train

Rydges Parramatta

10 min to venue by car
35 min to venue by train

Mercure Sydney Parramatta

10 min to venue by car
35 min to venue by train

Getting to the conference

PSC26 will be held on Dharug Country / Western Sydney at The Holroyd Centre, 17 Miller Street, Merrylands.

Transport Options

Train:

The nearest train station is Merrylands Station, the Holroyd Centre is a 5 minute walk away from the station.

Train lines T1, T2, and T5 can be accessed to get to Merrylands Station.

Bus:

There are several bus routes that can be accessed to get to the Holroyd Centre. Each route stops within a 5 minute walk of the venue. Information regarding each bus route can be route and the closest stop us listed below.

Route 802 & 806
Closest stop: Merryland Rd after Miller St

Route 804, 820, 7506, 7514, 7515, 7524, 7528 & 9401
Closest stop: Merrylands Rd at Pitt St

Car:

Street parking is available nearby on Miller St and the surrounding streets.

Need more information?

Contact [email protected] with any further queries relating to the conference!