We acknowledge and respect the Traditional Owners of lands across Australia, their Elders, Ancestors, cultures and heritage, and recognise the continuing sovereignties of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nations.

We respectfully acknowledge the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation, who are the Traditional Owners of the land on which the ACTF is based and pay our respect to their Elders past and present.

We are honoured to have the opportunity to learn from the oldest cultural storytellers in the world and seek to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander practitioners to share their rich culture and perspectives with children in Australia and around the world via stories on screen.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this website may contain images, voices or names of deceased persons in photographs, film, audio recordings or text.

Vale Hazel Hawke AO

Hazel Hawke was a director on our Board for 18 years, from 1983 to 2001.

It is well documented that Hazel lived a very full and eventful public and private life during this period, and she was also involved in many community causes. So Hazel’s remarkable commitment to the ACTF over that same period is a testament to the generous and passionate person that Hazel was and the reason that she is so well loved and respected by the Australian community.

As Australia’s First Lady, Hazel used her public profile generously to champion children’s television and the ACTF wherever she went. She opened conferences, attended publicity launches for programs, arranged meetings with Government Ministers, introduced programs to Heads of State and their families (including the King and Queen of Jordan, Nancy Reagan, Prince Charles and Princess Diana) and she arranged for Barbara Bush to visit the ACTF in 1992. At the launch for The Greatest Tune On Earth in 1990 she played the piano, and at the launch of Round The Twist 2 in 1993 she was willingly photographed sitting on a toilet seat. In all these ways Hazel helped establish the ACTF in its formative years.

Hazel will be remembered by all the Board and staff members who worked with her over those years as a sparkling and gracious person, who engaged with everyone and brought a sense of humour and wise counsel with her into the Board room. She was an enormous supporter of Patricia Edgar, the founding director of the ACTF, and loved and admired by all of us.

Hazel’s family has said that the best way to remember Hazel is to support the Hazel Hawke Alzheimers Research and Care Fund.