Laurence McCook
Prof. Laurence McCook works in science-based policy for conservation and sustainability. He is a Professorial Research Fellow (Adjunct) at James Cook University, Visiting Professor at Hasanuddin University in Makassar, Indonesia, and Scientific Adviser to Seneca Impact Advisers in Hong Kong. He has worked in government, academic, non-government and private sectors, in Australia, Indonesia, China and Hong Kong.
Christopher Walker
Rev. Dr Christopher Walker an ordained minister of the Uniting Church. He currently is a sessional lecturer at the United Theological College in North Parramatta. He holds a PhD in theology from Claremont University in California and has served in a range of positions and places in the Uniting Church, including as principal of the Uniting Church theological college in South Australia, and for the Assembly as national consultant: Christian unity, doctrine and worship. Chris also taught at Murdoch University in Perth. He has written or edited over a dozen books.
Amy McQuire
Amy is a Darumbal/South Sea woman and PhD candidate at the University of Queensland. Occasional freelancer. Curtain Podcast. Her topics are Racism, feminism, justice, wrongful convictions.
Adam Bartley
Adam Bartleyis a Fulbright Scholar and resident fellow at the Elliot School for International Affairs, the George Washington University. In addition to this, he is a post-doctoral fellow at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and program manager of the AI Trilateral Experts Group. Twitter: @AaBartley
William Yang
William Yang is a second year student at the University of Sydney, and President of the Sydney University Labor Club.
Warwick Powell
Warwick Powell is Adjunct Professor at Queensland University of Technology. He is the author of China, Trust and Digital Supply Chains. Dynamics of a Zero Trust World (Routledge 2023), and numerous peer review articles on global supply chain digitalisation. He is a frequent media contributor on issues of international geopolitical economy, digitalisation and technology, with outlets such as TI Observer (a monthly publication of Taihe Institute), Aljazeera, CGTN, Guancha.cn, South China Morning Post, China Daily and Global Times.
Julianne Schultz
Julianne Schultz was a friend of Anne Coombs. Her most recent book is The Idea of Australia: A search for the soul of the nation, Allen & Unwin, 2022.
Jonathan Rispler
Jonathan Rispler is a renewable energy engineer and a senior research consultant in the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology Sydney. His work focuses on modelling the transition of Australia’s energy system and developing sectoral decarbonisation pathways.
Margo Reynolds
Margaret Reynolds AC served as an Australian Labor Party Senator for Queensland from 1983 to 1999.
Reynolds had two ministerial appointments during her time in the Senate, serving as Minister for Local Government from September 1987 to April 1990 and as Minister assisting the Prime Minister for the Status of Women from January 1988 to April 1990.
Saori Miyake
Dr Saori Miyake is an environmental scientist and an expert in research on renewable energy and land use change in Australia and Europe. She is a senior research consultant in the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology Sydney.
Amy Maguire
Amy Maguire Associate Professor in Human Rights and International Law, University of Newcastle
A researcher and teacher in international law and human rights at the University of Newcastle Law School, Australia.
Disclosure statement
Amy Maguire does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Amad Mohamed
Amad Mohamed is a young leader of the Australian-Sudanese diaspora. He works as a Senior Policy Officer for a Canberra-based organisation. Previously, he had worked in the private sector and for a Middle Eastern diplomatic mission on international and bilateral diplomacy, trade and investment, and defence relations.
George Williams
Professor George Williams AO is the Vice-Chancellor and President of Western Sydney University. He previously served as Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Dean of Law and Anthony Mason Professor at the University of New South Wales. He is a leading constitutional lawyer, co-author with Professor Megan Davis of Everything You Need to Know about the Uluru Statement from the Heart and author and editor of dozens more books. He has appeared as a barrister in the High Court and led major public inquiries. His book Vantage Point, Aiming Higher: Universities and the future of Australian democracy is published by the Australia Institute.
Elianor Gerrard
Dr Elianor Gerrard is an applied social researcher working in the Energy Futures team and the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology Sydney. She applies her background in community development to explore solutions to complex social and technical challenges in the energy transition.
Craig Murray
Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was British ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010. His coverage is entirely dependent on reader support. Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.
APAN/AFOPA
The Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) and the Australian Friends of Palestine Association (AFOPA)
Jim McMorrow
Dr Jim McMorrow as held a senior position in education at both the national level and in NSW.
In 2015, he co-authored with Lyndsay Connors AO.
Imperatives in Schools Funding: Equity, sustainability and achievement.
Chris Douglas
Chris Douglas served for 31 years with the AFP. He is the owner of Malkara Consulting, a consultancy firm that specialises in the provision of training and advice in relation to financial crime including money laundering, terrorist financing, corruption and bribery in Australia, Asia, and Africa. He is not affiliated with any political party. He may be contacted at Chris.douglas@malkaraconsulting.com.
Anne Hurley
CEO and founder of James & Co business of women’s sustainable clothing and accessories. In keeping with her earlier career experiences in the telco/ IT sector and as a lawyer which included involvement in and commentary on relevant policy areas, Anne advocates for changes required in and by the fashion industry and by Government to address the known challenges to the future of the planet.
James&Co Fashion. Plant Based. No Plastic. Women’s Organic Vegan Clothing & Accessories
Wang Huiyao
Wang Huiyao is the founder of the Centre for China and Globalisation, a Beijing-based non-governmental think tank.
Kurniawan Arif Maspul
Kurniawan Arif Maspul is a researcher and interdisciplinary writer focusing on Islamic diplomacy and Southeast Asian political thought. He holds an MEd in Advanced Teaching, an MBA and an MA in Islamic Studies and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Islamic Banking and Finance at Al-Madinah International University in Malaysia.
Huw Price
Huw Price is an Australian philosopher, recently retired after nine years as the Bertrand Russell Professor of Philosophy, Cambridge. In Cambridge he was also co-founder of the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, and Academic Director of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence. Before moving to Cambridge in 2012 he was Challis Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sydney, and Director of the Centre for Time.
Marinella Marmo
Prof Marinella Marmo is a multiple award-winning tertiary education academic, with over 50 publications on the area of human mobility, human rights, modern slavery and gendered violence. Her research has been cited worldwide also by policy makers, profiled by several prominent international media outlets, and used to inform documentaries in Britain and Australia.
Alison Gerard
Alison is the Deputy Chair of the Australasian Law Academics Association (ALAA) and has served on the Executive of the Council of Australian Law Deans (2018-2020). Alison also contributes to the CALD Working Party on First People’s Partnership and the Working Party on Legal Profession Admission Standards. Alison is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law.
Jenny Goldie
Jenny Goldie is immediate past national president of Sustainable Population Australia and formerly on the Board, then staff, of Australian Reproductive Health Alliance.
Ramia Abdo-Sultan
Ramia Abdo-Sultan is an Australian Palestinian with family in Gaza. Ramia is also an executive committee member of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network and practising lawyer.
Quentin Parker
Quentin Parker is a professor in the Faculty of Science at the University of Hong Kong, the director of its Laboratory for Space Research, and vice-chairman of the Orion Astropreneur Space Academy.
SERAJ ASSI
Seraj Assi is a Palestinian writer living in Washington, DC, and the author, most recently, of My Life As An Alien (Tartarus Press).
Peter Blunt
Peter Blunt is Honorary Professor, School of Business, UNSW (Canberra); a former full professor of management in Australia, Norway, and the UK; a consultant for UN and other development agencies (40 countries); and an editorial board member of several international journals. His commissioned publications on governance and public sector management informed UNDP policy on these matters and his books include the standard works on management in Africa and, most recently, (with Cecilia Escobar and Vlassis Missos) The Political Economy of Bilateral Aid: Implications for Global Development (Routledge, 2023) and The Political Economy of Dissent: A Research Companion (Routledge, forthcoming 2026).
Violet Coco
Violet CoCo is an artist, musician, aunty and climate activist. She was the first person sentenced under controversial new anti-protest laws in NSW, receiving a sentence of 18 months in prison for blocking the harbour bridge under the banner Fireproof Australia, a campaign supporting firefighters. Her sentence was dropped on appeal. She feels this repression should not waver our commitment to defend our planet. Violet has been arrested 33 times, and imprisoned four times, including famously for burning a pram outside Parliament House on the same day the IPCC declared a Code Red for Humanity due to climate breakdown. Violet Coco describes herself as a conscientious objector to the murder of our planet. She has been a part of organising major disruptive festivals of civil disobedience with Extinction Rebellion, supported First Nations and the decolonisation of so called ‘Australia’, while also advocating for world peace, justice for women, refugees, and queer communities.
Michelle Grattan
Michelle Grattan is one of Australia’s most respected political journalists. She has been a member of the Canberra parliamentary press gallery for more than 40 years, during which time she has covered all the most significant stories in Australian politics.
She was the former editor of The Canberra Times, was Political Editor of The Age and has been with the Australian Financial Review and The Sydney Morning Herald.
Michelle currently has a dual role with an academic position at the University of Canberra and as Associate Editor (Politics) and Chief Political Correspondent at The Conversation.
In her role at the University of Canberra, Michelle is teaching, working on research projects in politics and political communication, as well as providing public commentary and strategic advice.
She is the author, co-author and editor of several books and was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 2004 for her long and distinguished service to Australian journalism.
Chris Taylor
Dr Chris Taylor is an environmental scientist and researcher with a strong focus on landscape ecology, forest management, and conservation. With a background in studying the impacts of land use on biodiversity, Chris has contributed significantly to our understanding of how human activities affect natural ecosystems. His work often involves collaborations with Indigenous communities and other stakeholders to develop sustainable land management practices. Chris is known for his dedication to preserving Australia’s unique environments, particularly in the context of climate change and habitat loss, and has published extensively in the field of environmental science.
Jim Everett-puralia meenamatta
Jim Everett, also known as puralia meenamatta, is a Palawa Elder from Tasmania and a passionate advocate for Aboriginal cultural heritage. A prolific writer, poet, and filmmaker, Jim has dedicated his life to preserving and promoting the history, stories, and rights of the Palawa people. His work is deeply rooted in the land and culture of Tasmania, focusing on decolonisation and the empowerment of Indigenous communities. Jim’s contributions to Aboriginal literature and film have made him a key figure in the fight for Aboriginal rights and the preservation of cultural identity in Australia.
Peter T. C. Chang
Peter T.C. Chang is a research associate at the Institute of China Studies, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He is trained in the field of comparative philosophy and religion.
Gary Murray
Gary Murray is a respected Elder of the Dja Dja Wurrung and Yung Balug Clans and serves as the Chair of the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria. With a deep commitment to Indigenous rights, Gary has been instrumental in advocating for the recognition and preservation of Aboriginal culture and heritage. His work spans over decades, focusing on land rights, sovereignty, and self-determination for First Nations people. Gary is also a dedicated leader in community development, working tirelessly to ensure that the voices of Aboriginal people are heard and respected in all aspects of governance and society.