Robert Griew is the Associate Secretary of DEEWR with responsibility for overseeing the Tertiary Education, Skills, International and Indigenous Strategy Cluster. This involves:

• leading the Australian Government’s skills reform policy agenda, providing policy advice regarding training responses to skills shortages and the vocational education and training system and administering a range of programs to respond to industries’ skills needs
• managing programs that assist the development of workforce skills, including the Australian Apprenticeships system, adult language, literacy and numeracy skills
• developing and maintaining a strong, diverse higher education system
• exploring and applying innovative approaches to a range of social policy challenges, including social finance and support for social enterprises
• providing leadership across all levels of government and the international education sector to support the sustainable development of a world-class and globally connected international education and training system in Australia
• working with Indigenous people and the corporate and training sectors to ensure access to all levels of education and training to improve economic participation.

Robert has a 25 year career delivering health policy and programs at the Commonwealth level, as well as in a number of states and territory jurisdictions. He has run public health, Indigenous, ageing and early childhood education programs.

Robert joined DEEWR in 2009 from the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. He was Secretary of the NT Department of Health and Community Services for four years from 2003. For three years in the late 1990s Robert was also CEO of the AIDS Council of NSW.

Interspersed with his public sector career, Robert has also worked as a consultant advising on organisational development and public health and as a public health academic.