Petra founded PLAYFAIR in 1988 and has over 35 years’ experience in migration law and multicultural affairs. She previously fulfilled a senior role with the International Social Service, a United Nations affiliate, working with Australian government departments, courts, non-government agencies and their overseas counterparts to resolve complex, inter-country family and refugee problems.
Petra was awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship to investigate Australian immigration by adoptees and subsequently served the NSW Churchill Fellows Association as President and Vice President. She helped to establish an Immigration Advice and Rights Centre and develop Australia’s first ‘Immigration Kit’.
From 2005 to 2009, she served as a Board Director and NSW President of the Migration Institute of Australia (MIA) and is now an independent director of the NSW branch. She was also a Board Director of the Migration Agents Registration Authority. Since 2010, Petra has managed over 50 taskforces providing advice and assistance to people in detention centres across Australia and on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea.
She is a former champion bodysurfer, still goes for 2-3 km ocean swims before work, and has a lifelong love of yoga and skiing.
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