As of 2020[update] she is co-chair of the Eminent Panel advising the Queensland Government on the process truth-telling and future treaties with Indigenous peoples.

She left school at age 15 to assist her family and worked as a typist with the Australian Broadcasting Commission at Toowong, Queensland, from 1972 to 1978.

[3] Huggins was a member of the working party involved in the creation of the First Nations Australia Writers Network (FNAWN) in 2012,[6] and as of 2021[update] remains patron of the organisation.

[7] Huggins was deputy director of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Unit at the University of Queensland until 2017, and then co-chaired the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples with Rod Little until 2019.

[10] On 13 August 2020, the government announced that it would be supporting the recommendation to move forward on a path to treaty with First Nations Queenslanders.