Mark Christensen
Mark Christensen is Professor, Management Control, at ESSEC Business School in Singapore. He has previously been a business academic in Australian and Danish tertiary institutions with a research interest in accounting as a socio-technical construction, especially in public sector reform.
Fiona McDonald
Fiona is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia. Fiona is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Department of Bioethics, Dalhousie University, Canada. Fionas research encompasses issues related to health governance and has four broad themes:
Dally Messenger III
Dally R. Messenger STB, LCP, BEd, DipLib, GDCel, ALAA. Foundation Secretary of the Association of Civil Marriage Celebrants of Australia (1975-1980). Foundation President of the Australian Association of Funeral Celebrants (1978). Foundation President and administrator of the Australian Federation of Civil Celebrants (1994-1999). Life Member of the Australian Federation of Civil Celebrants (1996). Life Member of the Celebrants and Celebrations Network (2014). Principal of the International College of Celebrancy (current). Celebrant Books: Ceremonies & Celebrations (Hachette),Murphy’s Law And The Pursuit Of Happiness: A History Of The Civil Celebrant Movement (Spectrum).
Greg Bean
Greg Bean has 50 years experience in software development and in the last 18 months has undertaken a deep analysis of information available from the Australian Electoral Commission. All but 5 years self-employed, and has worked in Canada, Europe and Australia. Latest, 30,000 hours Data Warehouse/Business Intelligence. His employers/customers include Macquarie Bank, Bankers Trust, Reserve Bank Aus, BHP, Sony, AstraZeneca, Pirelli, many SAP sites. Greg is a free speech advocate.
Jee Young Lee
Jee Young Lee is a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Arts and Design at the University of Canberra.
Peter Cook
Peter Cook, PhD, is vice-president of Sustainable Population Australia (SPA). He is co-author, with Jonathan Sobels, Sandra Kanck and Jane O’Sullivan, of the discussion paper Big thirsty Australia: how population growth threatens our water security and sustainability (2024), published by SPA.
Stephen Downes
Stephen Downes is a Melbourne writer and journalist. His debut novel The Hands of Pianists was among five (of 105) shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards in 2022. Several of his short stories have been shortlisted and longlisted in the best UK short-fiction prizes. Last Meal won the 2020 Fiction Factory award. He covered a Middle-East war for Agence France-Presse, and a Pacific insurrection for The Age.
Stephen Downes’s new novel Mural was published by Transit Lounge in September 2024. The criminal narrator of Mural wrestles with the knowledge that Australia’s most prominent public artist Napier Waller painted erotic watercolours years before the religious and military stained-glass windows for which he is best-known. [https://transitlounge.com.au/shop/mural/]
Caroline Fisher
Caroline Fisher is an Associate Professor of Communication and a core member of the News & Media Research Centre.
Carla Treloar
Carla Treloaris Scientia Professor at the Centre for Social Research in Health and the Social Policy Research Centre, UNSW Australia. She is a leading international expert in social research in health in marginalised groups with a focus on stigma and trust in health and social care systems.
Haneen Abo Soad
Haneen, a Palestinian from Gaza, currently resides in Portugal. She is a writer, community organiser, and activist advocating for the Palestinian cause. Haneen is dedicated to promoting peace.
Justin OConnor
Justin OConnor is Professor of Cultural Economy at the University of South Australia and visiting Chair in the School of Cultural Management, Shanghai Jiaotong University. He has held professorships at Monash University, Queensland University of Technology and the University of Leeds, and is a former Director of the Manchester Institute for Popular Culture at Manchester Metropolitan University. He also helped establish and was first chair of Manchesters Creative Industries Development Service (CIDS), the UKs first dedicated local economic development agency for the creative industries. Justin led the team which established Manchesters first Creative Quarter - the Northern Quarter. Between 2012 and 2018 he was a member of the UNESCO 2005 Convention’s Expert Facility, supporting cultural policy development in Mauritius and Samoa.
John Barclay
John Barclay led ground-breaking Library Association of Australia China Library Study tours in 1976 and 1983 and later cultural tours to China. He has been committed to educational and cultural exchange between Australia and China for over fifty years.
Sora Park
Sora Park is a Professor of Communication at the University of Canberra and the Director of the News & Media Research Centre.
Guest authors Farida Rustamova and Maxim Tovkaylo
Farida RustamovaIndependent journalist. Ex-BBC Russian, Meduza, RBC, TV Rain.
Maxim TovkayloI started this blog after Russian government destroyed all the remaining independent media. Because someone has to.
Brian Lawrence
Brian Lawrence LL.B. M.Ec. prepared submissions and appeared on behalf of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference and agencies of the Catholic Church in the national annual wage reviews from 2003 to 2019. He is a former barrister and was a Deputy President of the Industrial Relations Commission of Victoria, the functions of which have been transferred to national tribunals.
Jenna Price
Jenna Price is a regular columnist and a visiting fellow at the Australian National University.
Trita Parsi
Trita Parsi is the Executive Vice President of theQuincy Instituteand author ofLosing an Enemy - Obama, Iran and the Triumph of Diplomacy.
Megan Russell
Megan Russell is CODEPINK’s China is Not Our Enemy Campaign Coordinator.
She graduated from the London School of Economics with a Master’s Degree in Conflict Studies. Prior to that, she attended NYU where she studied Conflict, Culture, and International Law. Megan spent one year studying in Shanghai, and over eight years studying Chinese Mandarin. Her research focuses on the intersection between US-China affairs, peace-building, and international development.
Michael Dove
Michael Dove is a geographer, a demographer, and convenor of the Secularism Australia Forum and the ‘Census21 – Not Religious?’ campaign.
Michael Dove is Convenor of the Secularism Australia Forum
Stewart Sweeney
Stewart Sweeney is a writer and public policy advocate with a longstanding interest in the evolution and future of capitalism. He migrated from Scotland to Adelaide in 1975 to work with Premier Don Dunstan on industrial democracy. A former academic and trade unionist, he continues to contribute to public debate on economic justice, democratic reform, and sustainable development. His work reflects a deep commitment to the common good and the role of public purpose in shaping Australia’s future.
Phyllis Bennis
Phyllis Bennisis afellow of the Institute for Policy Studies and serves as international adviser for Jewish Voice for Peace. Her most recent book is the7thupdated edition of_Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: APrimer_.
Larry Stillman
Dr Larry Stillman is an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at Monash University and a committee member of the Australian Jewish Democratic Society. He writes on his own behalf.
Pearls and Irritations guest Omar Ahmed
Omar Ahmed is a UK-based analyst and journalist focused on the political and religious affairs of West Asia. He holds an MSc in International Security and Global Governance from Birkbeck, University of London.
Irene Watson
Irene Watson belongs to the Tanganekald, Meintangk, Portuwutj and Bunganditj Peoples. With a long commitment to obligations to care for country and people Irene is a research Professor of Law at the University of South Australia. A prolific writer her book Aboriginal Peoples, Colonialism and International Law: Raw Law, was published in 2015.
Fengshi Wu
Fengshi Wu is Associate Professor in Political Science and International Relations at the School of Social Sciences, the University of New South Wales, Sydney.
Vibhu Mishra
Public Information Officer at UN News, specialising in reporting on the UN’s global efforts across political, security, humanitarian, and development sectors. Passionate about delivering accurate and impactful information to highlight the Organisation’s diverse initiatives and contributions to solving global challenges.
Chelsea Hunnisett
Chelsea Hunnisett is a Laureate PhD Candidate and Government Relations Specialist in the Planetary Health Equity Hothouse at The Australian National University. Chelsea’s research focuses on planetary health equity metrics within Australia’s approach to the wellbeing economy. Chelsea is also an experienced policy, advocacy and government relations specialist with expertise in planetary health, commercial determinants of health and preventive health policy.
Wang Wen
Wang Wen is the dean of Chongyang Institute of Financial studies, Renmin University of China, and the executive director of the China-US People to People Exchange Research Centre.
Liu Chang
Liu Chang is a senior editor at the International News Department, Chinas Xinhua News Agency. He used to station in the agencys Cairo office for two years, and was a visiting scholar to Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey in 2018.
Andrew Jaspan
Andrew Jaspan is the Editor-in-Chief and Founder, 360info; previously created and founded The Conversation websites; Editor-in-Chief of The Age; Editor of The Observer, The Scotsman, The Big Issue (London), Glasgow Sunday Herald
Stephen Lake
Dr Stephen Lake is a founding member of Academics for Public Universities and Public Universities Australia. He studied history and theology at Flinders University and completed his PhD on medieval monasticism at the University of Cambridge. He subsequently taught at the University of Tbingen and the Universit de Paris IV-Sorbonne followed by a research position at the Universitt Konstanz. He is currently enrolled in a second PhD at the University of Sydney with a project on ‘The Contingency of Perception: The Responses of the Frankfurt School and Contemporaries to Fascism, ca. 1920-ca. 1950’. He lectures regularly for his local U3A group in the Southern Highlands, NSW.
Yunkang Liu
Yunkang Liu is PhD candidate in Politics and International Relations at the School of Social Sciences, the University of New South Wales, Sydney.
Amy King
Amy King is Associate Professor in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University’s Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs. She has published widely on China-Japan relations, the economics-security nexus in Asia, and the role of ideas in International Relations. The author of China-Japan Relations After World War II: Empire, Industry and War, 1949–1971 (Cambridge University Press, 2016),
Paul Smyth
Honorary Researcher, University of Divinity Formerly, Profesoor of Social Policy, University of Melbourne Director of Research & Policy, Brotherhood of St Laurence Research Officer, Uniya- Jesuit Research and Action Centre, Kings Cross.
Terence Wood
Terence Wood is a Fellow at the Development Policy Centre. His research focuses on political governance in Western Melanesia, and Australian and New Zealand aid.
Gregory Elich
Gregory Elich is a Korea Policy Institute board member. He is a contributor to the collection, Sanctions as War: Anti-Imperialist Perspectives on American Geo-Economic Strategy (Haymarket Books, 2023). His website is https://gregoryelich.org Follow him on Twitter at @GregoryElich.