Julia Farrugia Portelli is Minister for Inclusion and the Voluntary Sector (MIV). 

As Minister for Inclusion, Julia Farrugia Portelli launched the first ever National Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disability and the National Strategy for People on the Autism Spectrum. She successfully headed the changes in the Criminal Code that made hate speech towards people with a disability a criminal offence.

Previously she served as Minister for Tourism and Consumer Protection and as Parliamentary Secretary responsible for Reforms, Citizenship, and Simplification of Administrative Processes within the Office of the Prime Minister. She was responsible for major reforms including Human Trafficking, Equal Representation in Parliament and the VOTE16 reform.

The VOTE16 reform remains one to remember as Malta became the 2nd EU member state after Austria to lower the voting age to 16.

In 2018, Portelli was awarded the ‘Impactful Politics’ Award from JCI Malta.

Julia Farrugia Portelli is a former journalist, with 20 years experience in this sector. She has worked both for television and radio and in the print medium where she was appointed as the first female editor of a Maltese newspaper. Farrugia Portelli also served as Vice Chairperson of the Institute of Maltese Journalists.