Our Team

Captain Matthew Jepson

Mobile: 0409 061 120

Email: Matthew@amou.com.au

Captain Brent Warhurst

Mobile: 0420 305 414

Email: brentw@amou.com.au

Captain Ken Blackband

Mobile: 0429 057 615

Captain Brent Middleton

Brent started his maritime career in 1998 on small commercial vessels before gaining a cadetship with ASP Ship Management and has been an AMOU member since gaining his 2nd Mate’s ticket in 2002. After 5 years in the Bluewater, he had the opportunity to join the RV Southern Surveyor and gain some great hands on experience. After a few years with P&O Maritime he transitioned to the Offshore where he worked with several companies on a variety of different ships such as ROV, survey, construction and AHTS where he have been sailing as Master since 2012.

Brent’s role as one of the National Delegates, sees him assisting and overseeing a variety of different areas of the union’s operation to help ensure that the member’s interests are served to the best of the Union’s abilities. He is sincerely dedicated to the continued improvement and progression of our Union and communication and cooperation at all levels between the Union and the membership is vital to this progression and something he works hard to achieve for the members at every opportunity.

Brent says, ‘With our industry in it’s current situation which has been so hard on so many, now is the time more than ever, that we need to stand up together and be counted. We have the qualifications, knowledge, skills and experience necessary to safely and efficiently service our homeland coastline and with an active Union that is moving forward with active members. We must all work hard and stand united to ensure Australian Officers are seen by all as the professional seafarers we are’.

Mobile: 0428 409 936

Email: brent.middleton@amou.com.au

Captain Brent Hills

Mobile:

Email: brenth@amou.com.au

Captain John McDonald

Mobile: 0418 948 887

Email: johnmac@amou.com.au

Captain Benjamin Miers

Mobile:

Email:

Captain Stewart Anderson

Mobile:

Email:

Position Vacant

Position Vacant

Darryl Dorron

Mobile: 0417 749 594

Email: darryl.dorron@amou.com.au

Position Vacant

Ian Hughes

Mobile:

Email:

Mark Davis

Executive Officer

Mark put himself through a law degree in New Zealand working seasonally in the heavily unionised abattoir industry. This working environment and his fondness for industrial law led to his first trade union job as Assistant Secretary of the NZ Merchant Service Guild. The Guild is the NZ equivalent to the AMOU.

After 10 years of doing everything associated with a national trade union operation, in 1995 Mark accepted a secondment to the International Transport Workers’ Federation’s newly relocated Asia/Pacific Regional Office in Tokyo. In 1998 he returned to NZ to coordinate the ITF’s seafarer union development program until 2010 – having a hand in the creation of new maritime unions in Malaysia, Timor Leste, Sri Lanka and Turkey and overseeing reform in unions in Indonesia, Philippines, Russia and Ukraine. He returned to a regional role as ITF Asia/Pacific Deputy Regional Secretary until 2016, having particularly supported the Pacific Island unions,  organising airport workers and Thai fisheries workers and assisting in the establishment of the Independent Federation of Myanmar Seafarers.

Mark started his role as AMOU Executive Officer full-time from  March 2017. He says, ‘Long term sustainability for the union is the priority and the President, Executive Council and I all share the need to increase direct and visible engagement with the membership and to reinforce the fact that we are a membership driven union that responds to the needs of its members’.

He follows on to say, ‘We do not dictate what the members need. We must provide economies in expenditure but a balance must be struck between meeting the members’ needs and setting a pathway to sustainability. We must increase our union density and take members with us into a new era.

‘We need to deepen our relationship domestically with AIMPE to cooperate openly and use our synergies to good economic effect. We also need to build our relationship trans-Tasman with the Guild and globally with the Nautilus family of unions particularly when it comes to jointly campaigning and using these global connections to develop blue water jobs for members.’

Mark believes the unity of purpose campaigning brings to a union needs to be escalated as well as particularly promoting our industry and our members as a workforce to the exclusion of competitors and aligning us more with tax regimes that apply to officers internationally.

Mobile: 0437 099 886

Email: mark@amou.com.au

Tracey Ellis

Industrial Officer

Tracey Ellis has been a member of the AMOU since becoming a Coxswain in 2009 while working for Brisbane Ferries. She went on to complete her Master Class IV and MED III and drove Brisbane City Council’s fleet of CityCats for about seven years.

Before Brisbane Ferries, she worked as Leading Hand Dining on Captain Cook Cruise’s M.V. Reef Endeavour which operated between Cape York and Port Hinchinbrook.

While travelling overseas, Tracey had a little bit of day work on Super Yachts in the US. She also worked as a waitress and loading car decks aboard M.V. Kaitaki, a 180m ROPAX vessel in New Zealand.

Tracey became an AMOU Delegate at Brisbane Ferries in 2013 and participated in two EBA negotiations before resigning her role as a CityCat Master and becoming an AMOU Organiser.

Mobile: 0427 204 738

Email: tracey@amou.com.au

Chris Claydon

Industrial Officer

Mobile: 0473 620 071

Email: c.claydon@amou.com.au

Martin McEvilly

Industrial Officer

Mobile: 0427 068 153

Email: martin@amou.com.au

Liz Jenkins

Officer Manager

Phone: 0409352712

Email: liz@amou.com.au

Jarrod Moran

Industrial Officer

Jarrod joined the AMOU in 2014 after more than 6 years with the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) where he was the Senior OHS and Workers Compensation Officer. Previous to the ACTU Jarrod was employed at the Victorian Trades Hall Council as the Workers Compensation Officer.  Jarrod started his union career at the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance where he worked as an Industrial Officer from 1996-2000.  In 1997 he was part of the ACTU Organising Works program.

Jarrod has a wide range of union experience, from representing individual members in grievance matters to whole of movement representation in Federal Government forums.

Jarrod has qualifications in Civil Engineering, Unionism, Community Development and Management.

Mobile: 0417 316 370

Email: jarrod@amou.com.au

Chris Neiberding

Industrial Officer

Chris started organising with the Student Union while studying at Western Sydney University. The issues being tackled then was lack of funding, course cuts, overcrowded classes and the then Howard Government’s attempt to abolish student unions nationally, which was defeated.  In 2008, Chris joined the Finance Sector Union of Australia were he organised and worked on campaigns around wages, jobs going overseas, and personal security of members in banks.

Chris was also a delegate for the FSU on the ‘Your Rights At Work’ campaign which is now said to be the most significant political campaign mounted by a non-party political group in Australian history and was a big reason for the Libs losing the 2008 election.

In 2012, Chris joined the AMOU as an industrial Officer and has worked extensively over half of Australia representing Tug Masters in Darwin, to Pilots in Hobart and everything in between.

Chris says, ‘I’m proud to work for a union with over a 100 years of history in representing maritime workers in Australia , but most of all proud to work with so many dedicated AMOU delegates without whom this job could not be done’.

Mobile: 0407 912 932

Email: chris@amou.com.au

Glenn Walsh

Industrial Officer

Mobile: 0438 408 901

Email: g.walsh@amou.com.au

Ginny Rabeling 

Industrial Officer

Mobile: 0472 811 820

Email: Ginny@amou.com.au