Patricia Weston
Patricia Weston, aka Patriciawa.
I am a well-trained fact checker from BBC overseas news room in London some sixty years ago. I also spent time with the CBC in Toronto on my first overseas trip, 1960, before going north to Alaska. After marriage and very happy motherhood in the midst of Mau Mau terrorism I became a successful high school language teacher by default before assisted migration to Australia.
Here I continued as a married temp in low socio-economic area schools. Finally I had a brief, but enjoyable, four years running an Australian wheatbelt DHS, where success retaining black students was not popular with local pastoralists. After 1985, though technically very generously retired I ran a Fremantle charitable organisation, Walyalup Craft Enterprises helping Noongah and various other day release prisoners. From 1993 I developed and managed two Sydney centres for the Australian Scholarships Group, meeting thousands of local and migrant families
Guest author Joseph Gerson
Joseph Gerson is President of the Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security, Co-founder of the Committee for a SANE U.S. China Policy and Vice President of the International Peace Bureau. His books include Empire and the Bomb, and With Hiroshima Eyes.
Mick Hall
Mick Hall is an independent journalist based in New Zealand. He is aformer digital journalist at Radio New Zealand (RNZ) and formerAustralian Associated Press (AAP) staffer, having also writteninvestigative stories for various newspapers, including the_New__Zealand Herald._
Ronald C. Keith
Ronald C. Keith is a retired Professor of China Studies (Griffith University, Australia) and former head of political science at the University of Calgary. I published seventeen books and 48 journal articles, most of which appeared in prestigious international journals such as the China Quarterly, London, and China Information, Leiden.
Ronald C. Keith, has most recently published: Deng Xiaoping and Chinas Foreign Policy, London & New York: Routledge, 2018 and China Change and Confucian Benevolence: Human Values, Truth and Policy, New Jersey, London, Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, 2023.
Yehonathan Tommer
Yehonathan Tommer is an Australian journalist, translator and novelist living in Israel.“1944"1944. He has degrees in Political Science and International Relations from Melbourne and Monash Universities. He was a correspondent on Israel and the Middle East for news media in Australia, New Zealand, India and Canada.
Kyle Church
Kyle Church is a contributor for 1/200 media where they cover and critique culture, politics and media in Aotearoa.
Juan Cole
John Ricardo Irfan “Juan” Cole (born October 23, 1952) is an American academic and commentator on the modern Middle East and South Asia. He is Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. Since 2002, he has written a weblog, Informed Comment (juancole.com).
Ashley Wearne
Ashley has developed and managed a variety of clean development projects with a focus on sustainable, decentralised infrastructure that is deeply integrated in the local community. Outside Australia, he has worked for Germany and the EU’s international development programs in Timor Leste, Uganda, Mozambique, and Europe, partnering with farmers, local and national governments, energy regulators and ministries. Currently, Ashley focuses on urban ecology projects connecting local communities to sustainable, low-tech approaches to environmental management. This work involves the piloting of local technologies and operational strategies and the engagement with land managers both government and private.Ashley holds a MA degree in international economics from Monash University. He is a founding member of the Australian Local Community Composters Alliance. He is also the Site and Sustainability Manager for 9 acres of crown land, and runs his own research and pilots through his organisation Ecology and Community.
Ewan McArthur
Ewan McArthur is a Sydney-based advocate and public servant, working for better Government responses to poverty and inequality for children, young people, their families, and communities.
Ewan graduated with a Bachelor of Politics, Philosophy and Economics from the Australian National University and is now the Director, Change and Reform for the ACT Governments Child Protection and Youth Justice services.
He is fiercely passionate about promoting the rights of First Nations people in Australia, and about building strong public service capacity to tackle wicked problems.
Guest author Lincoln Booth
Lincoln Boothhas a Masters Degree in International Commercial Law and a Master of Arts (Laws) degree. He is a legal academic with research interests including international commercial law and constitutional law. He is also a candidate in the Executive MBA programme, Judge Business School, Cambridge University.
Ken Russell
Ken Russell spent his working life in the Electricity Supply Industry, initially in England, and subsequently in Queensland, responsible for the supply and spare parts management of large coal-fired power stations. He has been a long-time advocate for rapid climate action.
Jimmy Lanyard
Jimmy Lanyard is a contributor for 1/200 media where they cover and critique culture, politics and media in Aotearoa.
Imad Mahmoud
Imad Mahmoud is of Palestinian origin. He is an Executive Member of the Australian Friends of Palestine Association in South Australia. Imad is interested in religion and hopes that progressive religious ideas might help push forward an end to the Palestinian conflict.
Guest author Ricardo Vaz
Ricardo Vazgrew up in Mozambique. With very strong political leanings from an early age, and a clear anti-imperialist outlook, he always felt a very strong affinity towards the Bolivarian Revolution and Chavismo, and has closely followed political developments in Venezuela. After living in different countries and continents, he moved to Venezuela in 2019.
Ellen Koshland
Ellen Koshland established the Koshland Innovation Fund to stimulate new thinking about education in Australia.
Her commitment to education in Victoria represents one of the most remarkable and relentless campaigns to address the serious inequities facing many young people and their families.
In 1989, she established the Small Change Foundation to improve learning and life outcomes for young people in the public education system. Renamed the Education Foundation, it raised more than $10 million to fund over 500 innovative programs in Victoria and nationally, supporting many students in government schools to develop their talents and foster a love of learning. In 2008, the Education Foundation became a permanent division of The Foundation for Young Australians.
She is a founding partner of the Global Education Leaders Partnership, a powerful alliance of global education leaders who seek to transform education to meet the needs of the future through new methods, curriculum and assessment.
Teesta Prakash
Dr Teesta Prakashis a policy analyst with expertise in strategic and foreign policy in the Indo-Pacific. She has a PhD in Australias strategic foreign policy during the Cold War and has worked at the Lowy Institute and Australian Strategic Policy Institute previously.
Dr Tamara Wood
Dr Tamara Wood is a Senior Research Fellow at the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW Sydney; Postdoctoral Researcher (external) at the Hertie School, Berlin; and a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Tasmania. She is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Platform on Disaster Displacement and the founding Co-Chair and current Steering Group member of the Climate Mobility Africa Research Network (CMARN). In 2022, she acted as Deputy Lead for the technical team commissioned to draft the Pacific Regional Framework on Climate Mobility.
John Hendry
John Hendry OAM (Education & Cricket)
Educator for 55 yrs and still involved with schools through his Relationship based Education, a joint project with Parents Victoria. Life Member of the Careers Development Association of Australia.
Consultant to Primary and Secondary Schools across all systems in Australia, Hong Kong, Mainland China, and a consultant to UNESCO on Bullying and school violence. John has been a cricket coach at Junior and elite levels for over 45 yrs. Coached and played at Premier Grade level and State level and spent 40yrs coaching school cricket. He believes sport does influence culture.
Professor Jane McAdam AO
Professor Jane McAdam AO is Scientia Professor of Law and Director of the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at UNSW Sydney. She is an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow, and a Fellow of both the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and the Australian Academy of Law. In 2022, she was commissioned to lead the drafting of the worlds first regional framework on climate mobility for Pacific governments. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for distinguished service to international refugee law, particularly to climate change and the displacement of people.
Guest author Sarah Kendall
Sarah Kendall is a PhD candidate and Sessional Academic at the University of Queensland. She is an interdisciplinary scholar with expertise in criminal law and procedure, evidence law, and national security. Currently, she is researching the nature, effectiveness and appropriateness of measures used to prevent emerging (often cyber) national security threats, including espionage, sabotage and foreign interference. She is also researching domestic violence law and trials, with a focus on the treatment of vulnerable victim-witnesses.
Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin Johnstone is a reader-supported independent journalist from Melbourne, Australia. Her political writings can be found on Medium. Articles are re-posted from Caitlins Newsletter.
M. K. Bhadrakumar
M. K. Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat by profession. For someone growing up in the 1960s in a remote town at the southern tip of India, diplomacy was an improbable profession. My passion was for the world of literature, writing and politics roughly in that order.
Luke Slawomirski
Luke Slawomirski is a health economist, most recently with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). He lectures in health policy at Imperial College London and is currently a PhD candidate with the Menzies Institute for Medical Research, UTAS. A former clinician, he has worked with remote Indigenous communities in the Kimberley and Pilbara regions of Western Australia.
Rick Sterling
Rick Sterlingis a retired Canadian American electronics engineer. Over the past decade, Rick has researched and written exposes of western media misinformation about international conflicts, especially Syria, as well as the politicisation of international sports and doping. His writing is published at sites such as AntiWar.com, LA Progressive and Sports Integrity Initiative.
Carla Wilshire
Carla Wilshire, is a published Author and the founding CEO of the Social Policy Group. Her background is in political strategy and policy.
Kellie Tranter
Kellie Tranter is a lawyer, researcher, and human rights advocate. She tweets from @KellieTranter
Cheng-Chwee Kuik
Cheng-Chwee Kuik is Professor in International Relations at the National University of Malaysia and concurrently a non-resident scholar at Carnegie China.
Edmond Chiu
Edmond Chiu A.M. is an Emeritus Professor of The University of Melbourne. He arrived in Australia from Hong Kong in 1952 and experienced the bureaucratic discrimination of the White Australian Policy. Since 2010 he has been a Volunteer Researcher with the Museum of Chinese Australian History (The Chinese Museum) in Melbourne, undertaking research into Chinese Australians who served in two World Wars. He co-authored the book, For Honour and Country- Victorian Chinese Australians in World War Two (Museum of Chinese Australian History, 2021)
David Meredith
David Meredith is co-author of Australia in the global economy: continuity and change (Cambridge University Press, 2nd edn 2012). He has written extensively on British and Australian economic history, and British social history and imperialism. Formerly at the University of New South Wales, Sydney and more recently the University of Oxford, he now lives in regional New South Wales. David is currently researching the history of unjust enrichment in colonial Australia.