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Elaine Canty

About

Elaine Canty AM is a pioneer in the media, sport and the law. 

She retired recently as the long serving Chairman of the Board of one of Australia’s most iconic institutions, the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria. For four years, she chaired the Board of Management of the much loved Queen Victoria Market. She was also Chairman of the Melbourne Wholesale Fish Market. 

She currently sits on the boards of several not for profit organizations.

In addition to her board duties, Elaine runs corporate presentations consultancy Canty Communications Pty Ltd, and for more than twenty years has been a regular presenter and guest on ABC radio and television. 

On Australia Day 2015, Elaine was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia.

In 2006, she was inducted onto the Victorian Honour Role of Women in recognition of her outstanding service to the community and being an inspirational role model for women.

Elaine is a former director of Athletics Australia (1998 – 2003), Women’s and Children’s Health, (1999 – 2004), Royal Women’s Hospital (2004 – 2007),  M2002 World Masters Games,  VicHealth,(1997-2006) and the State Sport Centre’s Trust. She is a foundation director (1989 – 2000) of the Victorian Institute of Sport and one of the founders of the Essendon Football Club Women’s Network. 

The first female sports broadcaster on ABC Radio and Television in Victoria, she is also the first and only woman to be appointed to the AFL Tribunal (1996 – 2005). She was the first woman to anchor Australia-wide Olympic Games coverage (for the ABC from Barcelona 1992).

For eight years, she presented a daily current affairs and lifestyle talkback program on 774 ABC Melbourne. She has covered four Olympic Games, and produced and presented an international award-winning sports documentary series.

Before joining the ABC, she worked as a solicitor, as a tutor in Clinical Legal Education at Monash University and also spent a year teaching senior Mathematics in London.

She has three adult children and is married to Roy Masters.

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The Wheeler Centre acknowledges the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Owners of the land on which the Centre stands. We acknowledge and pay our respects to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their Elders, past and present, as the custodians of the world’s oldest continuous living culture.