David Lilley
David Lilley has been working in social housing for 25 years, in roles spanning the public, private, social, and university sectors. He has recently submitted a PhD thesis titled ‘People or Profit? The use of critical systems thinking to diagnose and transform housing policy for health, wellbeing, and equity’. His writing is based on his own research and opinions. It is not intended to be reflective of any organisational affiliation, past or present.
Major General Michael G Smith AO (Ret’d)
Over his 34 years as an Army officer, Major General Mike Smith saw service in Cambodia, Timor-Leste, Kashmir and Papua New Guinea. His last assignment with the ADF was Deputy Force Commander for the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor. Since retiring from the ADF in 2002, his many roles have included CEO of Austcare, Founding Executive Director of the Australian Civil-Military Centre, National President of the United Nations Association of Australia, a Visiting Fellow at ANU and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University.
Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky is Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona and Institute Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His most recent book is Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal: The Political Economy of Saving the Planet.
Fareed Zakaria
Fareed Rafiq Zakaria is an Indian-American journalist, political commentator, and author. He is the host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS and writes a weekly paid column for The Washington Post. He has been a columnist for Newsweek, editor of Newsweek International, and an editor at large of Time.
John Price
John Price is an associate fellow at the Centre for Global Studies, professor emeritus (history) at the University of Victoria, and an advisor of Canada-China Focus.
Collin Acton
Collin Acton OAM is the former Principal Chaplain and Director-General of Chaplaincy in the Royal Australian Navy.
Mark Warburton
Mark Warburton is an Honorary Senior Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Higher Education, University of Melbourne. He periodically works as a consultant on tertiary education and social services. He worked in the Australian Public Service for over 30 years and spent nearly a decade in the Senior Executive Service. He obtained extensive practical experience in designing and implementing policy for major government funding programs in higher education, income support and social services. He was an adviser to Australian Government Ministers for nearly six years during the 1990s.
Benedict Coyne
Benedict Coyne is the former National President of Australian Lawyers for Human Rights (ALHR).
Christine Carlisle
Christine Carlisle lived for over 40 years in Mackay, a Central Queensland coastal town that is a central commercial and population hub for both the Great Barrier Reef and the coal mines in the BowenBasin and Galilee Basin. She has been engaged in environmental and social issues since the 1980’s and is a founding member of the Environment Council of Central Queensland. The group is purely volunteer, and members are active in the wider environmental movement in Australia. Christine believes that the climate and biodiversity crises that we are responsible for, pose the greatest challenge to our existence that humanity has ever faced.
Myron J. Pereira
Jesuit Father Myron J. Pereira, based in Mumbai, has spent more than five decades as an academic, journalist, editor and writer of fiction. He contributes regularly to UCA News on religious and socio-cultural topics.
Robert Manne
Robert Manne AO, FASSA, is Emeritus Professor of Politics and a Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow at La Trobe University. His most recent book is A Political Memoir: Intellectual Combat in the Cold War and the Culture Wars (La Trobe University Press).
Alastair Crooke
Alastair Crooke former British diplomat, founder and director of the Beirut-based Conflicts Forum.
Fred Chaney
Fred Chaney (AO) is a former Australian politician who was deputy leader of the Liberal Party from 1989 to 1990 and served as a minister in the Fraser Government. He was a Senator for Western Australia from 1974 to 1990, and then served a term in the House of Representatives from 1990 to 1993. Chaney was appointed an Order of Australia in 1997. After leaving politics he focused on indigenous policy matters, serving on the National Native Title Tribunal (1994–2007), as co-chair of Reconciliation Australia (2000–2005), and as co-founder and Vice-President of The Graham (Polly) Farmer Foundation, (1995–current).
Geoff Holland
Geoff Holland BA (COMM), MA (Hons) STS, Convenor of World Peace Now ॐ peace group and Board Member of World BEYOND War, has been an eco-activist and peace activist for over 50 years. He participated in the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, and Rio+20 in 2012. Geoff was a Qld. Greens candidate for the seat of Cairns in 2012. He also has a background in global futures studies.
Bob Phelps
Bob Phelps is founder (1988) and Executive Director of GeneEthics, a non-profit educational network of citizens and kindred groups. In living organisms, we want the precautionary principle, independent and rigorous scientific evidence, and the law applied to all proposed research and commercial uses of genetic manipulation (GM) techniques and their products.
Daniel Ghezelbash
Daniel Ghezelbash is a Professor and Director at the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW Law & Justice, UNSW Sydney
Pam Stavropoulos
Pam Stavropoulos, PhD is a consultant with a particular interest in politics and mental health. A former Fulbright Scholar, she left her tenured academic position to pursue study of psychotherapy and is co-author of nationally and internationally endorsed guidelines for treatment of complex trauma. She has held lectureships at Macquarie University and the University of New England, and is a former Program Director of the Jansen Newman Institute. The author of Living under Liberalism: The Politics of Depression in Western Democracies (Florida: Universal, 2008) she has written research reports, political commentary, and is a clinical supervisor in private practice.
Stuart Rollo
Stuart Rollo is a researcher and educator focused on imperial history, geopolitics, and US-China-Australia relations at the Centre for International Security Studies at the University of Sydney. His recent book ‘Terminus: Westward Expansion, China, and the End of American Empire’ examines the origins and trajectory of American empire in the Asia-Pacific region, focusing on its westward expansion and historic entanglement with China.
Alex Baumann
Dr. Alex Baumann is a Degrowth Academic at Western Sydney University. His work highlights the significant role of land ownership in shaping collective reliance on economic growth. This structural analysis is gaining recognition in Degrowth scholarship, with recent publications in The Journal of Australian Political Economy and the De Gruyter Handbook of Degrowth, alongside several discussion pieces. To address this structural impediment to degrowth, Alex advocates for revitalising housing and food land commons, in modern urban contexts. To this end, he is involved in practical policy development through the “Neighbourhood That Works” project, which seeks to reframe public housing initiatives to support commons-based alternatives.
Watch Alex and his Sustainable Futures students deliver a short presentation on this analysis here: https://youtu.be/zuaWj58eIvI
Char Weeks
Char Weeks is the founder of the award-winning secure digital information safe, Secure My Treasures. Way back, she championed innovation and improvement in healthcare delivery. She campaigns against job ageism, elder abuse, and domestic violence. Char has owned three strata title units, two in Melbourne and in Sydney, and has been a member of a strata committee of management.
Jill Klein
Professor Jill Klein is the daughter of a Holocaust Survivor. She has published research on Holocaust and has written the book We Got the Water: Tracing My Family’s Footsteps Through Auschwitz.
Jawad Khalid
Jawad Khalid is a climate finance specialist based in Islamabad. He works on green innovation, low-carbon investment, and climate resilience in South Asia. He writes frequently on climate justice and adaptation policy for regional and international outlets.
Graham Maddox
Graham Maddox is Emeritus Professor of Politics, University of New England. He is author of five editions of Australian Democracy in Theory and Practice, and more recently Stepping Up to the Plate. America, and Australian Politics.
Warwick Anderson
Warwick Anderson AO is Emeritus Professor at Monash University and Chair of the Global Biodata Coalition. He was Secretary General of the International Human Frontier Science Program Organisation (2015 to 2021) and Chief Executive Officer of the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (2006-2015). He authored Trust in Medical Research: What Scientists Must Do to Enhance It.
Richard Mathews
Richard Mathews was Australia’s first Consul-General in Makassar, eastern Indonesia from 2016 – 2020. He retired from DFAT in 2021 after a 30-year career which included postings to Brunei, Greece, Taiwan and Indonesia. Since retirement he has published articles in the Canberra Times and Lowy Interpreter on climate change and is currently writing a crime-thriller set in eastern Indonesia, and short-stories about travel.