Charles is with the Burnet Institute in Melbourne as a community engagement coordinator contributing in community-research partnerships on national efforts in hepatitis C elimination. He is undertaking PhD qualitative research on service user experiences on long-acting injectable buprenorphine. He is one half of the harm reduction and drug policy consultancy 2SqPegs. Over the past 30 years, he has held several roles in Australia and New Zealand in peer-led drug user organisations with the objective of harm reduction, health rights and well being for people who inject and use drugs. Central in this work has been leadership and advocacy roles from a living experience perspective and he remains committed to the mission of improving the lives and rights of people who inject/use illicit drugs.

Paul Dessauer is a lived/living experience worker and the CEO of Peer Based Harm Reduction WA, a consumer-led not-for-profit, and the state’s largest provider of health & harm reduction services for people who use drugs. Paul has >26 years’ experience working at PBHR WA delivering and coordinating needle & syringe exchange programs, outreach health & harm reduction services, overdose prevention & take-home-naloxone programs, and peer education projects while also providing consultancy to researchers and policy makers and delivering workforce development to other front-line agencies. Paul previously worked as a Drug and Alcohol Officer for the State-wide Specialist Aboriginal Mental Health Service; as an educator and consultant for the Transnational Institute (in China and Myanmar); and as a trainer for the Burnet Institute. In 2002 Paul was awarded an ADCA Australia Day Medal for Harm Reduction and in 2025 he received the AIVL Jenny Kelsall Lifetime Achievement Award. Paul holds a conferred Adjunct Senior Lecturer position at the School of Medicine, University of New South Wales.

Elena Jeffreys is a white 50-something cis-woman sex worker, injecting drug user and activist for social change. She is currently involved in the campaign to decriminalise sex work in Western Australia, and efforts to stop Border Force raids on Asian migrant sex worker workplaces. As a hobby she follows the regulation of porn in Australia.

Joël has over 15 years of experience in non-profit management and program delivery, focusing on peer-led services implementation and key populations policy and research in Australia, Europe, Asia, and The Pacific.