Brenda Milo (nee Siaosi) has specialised in environmental, planning, infrastructure and public/administrative law for 17 years - first in New Zealand and now in Sydney, Australia. Born in Samoa, raised in New Zealand and a resident of western Sydney, Brenda works as a Principal Lawyer and Acting Manager for the NSW Government’s primary environment regulator, the NSW EPA. She oversees the drafting of various state environmental law and regulation reform projects, as well as supervises advices on waste management, recycling, all aspects of licensing (permits/consents), pollution, pesticides, asbestos, contaminated land, forestry, gas/petroleum, koalas, the phase out of single use plastics in NSW, information sharing, privacy, work health and safety, and relationships with other government agencies.

​

Brenda is the NSW EPA’s primary commercial law, contracts and grants lawyer, with legal oversight responsibility for the NSW Government’s Container Deposit Scheme, Return and Earn, one of the most successful recycling schemes of its type in the world. She often also has carriage of various compliance matters associated with the mandatory phase out of single use plastics across NSW, a state of Australia where over 8 million people reside.

​

In addition to raising two children with her husband, Talamau John, Brenda serves as the inaugural and current President (and co-founder) of PLAN, a co-facilitator of this PLC CPD Conference. In 2022 she was appointed a Director of the Pacific Professionals Network (PPN) and co-founded the Pasefika Autism Village Support Group (PAVSG), a support network for families in the Australian states of NSW and Queensland with a family member on the autism spectrum. In New Zealand, Brenda was the sole environmental and planning lawyer and Executive Committee member with pacific heritage in Aotearoa Pacific Practitioners, a Special Interest group of the NZ Planning Institute aimed at being the trusted source, reference and voice for pacific issues, values and goals in Aotearoa resource management (NZ environment and town planning law).