Alex Vickery-Howe
Alex Vickery-Howe is an award-winning screenwriter, playwright, social commentator, rambling podcaster and emerging novelist. His work spans political satire, environmental polemic, dark comedy and fantasy fiction. He is currently a Senior Lecturer at Flinders University.
Chris Hedges
Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor, and NPR. He is the host of show The Chris Hedges Report.
Don Sutherland
Don Sutherland is now retired and formerly a union educator and organiser at TUTA and the AMWU.
Sue Barrett
Sue Barrett is a business leader and community activist based in Goldstein, committed to fostering dialogue and fairness in Australian democracy.
Fadlullah Wilmot
Fadlullah Wilmot formerly served at universities in Indonesia, Malaysia and Australia but after the tsunami in Aceh became involved in the humanitarian and development sector. He has worked in Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Solomon Islands, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Jordan, Lebanon, Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Gwyn McClelland
Dr Gwyn McClelland is Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies at the University of New England (UNE), Armidale. An oral historian, he conducts research engaging with religious discourses in memory and history. His first book, Dangerous Memory in Nagasaki: Prayers, Protests and Catholic Survivor Narratives, described how the memory of the atomic bombing is viewed through the lens of the Roman Catholic community which had experienced suffering and marginalisation for more than 400 years. Between 2020 and 2025, Gwyn has completed extensive fieldwork in the Goto Archipelago, Japan.
Esther Linder
Esther Linder is an Australian photojournalist covering social affairs, gender issues, food security and more. Her work has appeared in The Saturday Paper, The Monthly and The Age. She tweets and grams @estherlinder_.
Anne Barker
Producer: Anne Barker has been the ABC’s Indonesia Correspondent since September 2018, based in Jakarta. She was previously the Middle East Correspondent, based in Jerusalem from 2009-2012 where she covered the start of the Arab Spring and the Israel-Palestine conflict. Before that she spent several years in Darwin where she covered events in the NT and East Timor for the ABC. She won a Walkley award in 2007 for her coverage of the Federal Government’s intervention in remote indigenous communities.
Victor Gilinsky
Victor Gilinsky is a physicist and was a commissioner of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission during the Ford, Carter, and Reagan administrations.
Richard Brennan
Rick Brennan is an emergency medicine and public health physician specialising in humanitarian assistance, epidemic and pandemic preparedness, and emergency management. He was Regional Emergency Director for the World Health Organisation in the Eastern Mediterranean Region from March 2019 to January 2025.
Connie Peck
Dr. Connie Peck, AO, is the Founder/Former Principal Coordinator of the UNITAR Programme in Peacemaking and Conflict Prevention – the first-ever training programme in negotiation and mediation in the United Nations (now in its 33rd year). When lecturing at La Trobe University in the 1980s, she also founded Psychologists for the Prevention of War (now called Psychologists for Peace) during the height of the Cold War and acted as its first Convenor. She is the author of several books and numerous articles on conflict resolution and the nuclear threat.See also: www.linkedin.com/in/connie-peck-b92a403a0
Andrew Whelan
Andrew Whelan is a Senior Lecturer in sociology at the University of Wollongong. He writes about public administration, universities, and the social implications of emerging technologies.
Louise Adler
Louise Adler is a former Australian publisher and former board member of numerous arts organisations.
Yiping Huang
Yiping Huang is Professor and Deputy Dean at the National School of Development and Director of the Institute of Digital Finance, Peking University.
Jasper Lindell
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times’ Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
Marie Healy
Marie Healy helped to co-ordinate the formation of the Residents Action Coalition. Marie was instrumental in obtaining an Upper House Inquiry in the Metro Conversion of the Bansktown Line and in saving many of the heritage-listed railway buildings that had been marked for demolition. Marie lives in a Heritage Conservation Area, and around 6 years ago joined the NSW Greens.
Abby Zimmet
Abby Zimet has written Common Dream’s Further column since 2008. A longtime, award-winning journalist, she moved to the Maine woods in the early 70s, where she spent a dozen years building a house, hauling water and writing before moving to Portland. Having come of political age during the Vietnam War, she has long been involved in women’s, labor, anti-war, social justice and refugee rights issues.
Stephen Gapps
Historian and Conjoint Lecturer, University of Newcastle
University of Technology, Sydney, PhD
Research interests: Conflict and resistance warfare in early Sydney 1788-1817. The Bathurst War, the First War of Wiradjuri Resistance 1822-1824. The Australian Frontier Wars. Public History, historical reenactments and commemoration
Professional Historians Association, NSW and ACT. History Council of NSW
Publications
2024The Rising - Resistance Warfare 1838-1842, 2021 Gudyarra - The First Wiradyuri War of Resistance, the Bathurst War 1822-24, 2019 The Sydney Wars - Conflict in the early colony 1788-1817,
Robert Clines
Robert Clines is Associate Professor of History and International Studies at Western Carolina University. His scholarship focuses on Islamophobia, antisemitism, and Orientalism in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, as well as the history of premodern Arab Christianity.
Prue Brown
Prudence R Brown is an academic with rich practitioner experience. This mix grounds a vibrant program of research which informs both policy and practice, and which recognises that successful policy reform relies on the complex interplay between policy design, stakeholder interests, implementation context and management capacity. She adapts her professional experience to scholarly frameworks to ensure her research has a real impact on public sector effectiveness.
Sandra Kanck
Sandra Kanck was a member of the South Australian Legislative Council where she represented the Australian Democrats for 15 years, retiring in early 2009. She has continued her activism on numerous fronts, including voluntary assisted dying and heading the state branch of ABC Friends. However, her continuing focus has been on two issues, one being the need for Australia to have population numbers in keeping with the environment’s capacity to sustain them, and Palestinian human rights. In relation to Palestine, Sandra has been active in the BDS (boycott, divest and sanction) movement for more than 13 years.
Brendon O’Connor
Brendon O’Connor is Professor of US Politics and Foreign Relations, US Studies Centre/Discipline of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney.
Mandar Oak
Mandar Oak is an Associate Professor in the School of Economics and Public Policy, The University of Adelaide. He works in the fields of economic development, political economy and public economics.
Ken Coghill
Adjunct Professor Hon. Ken Coghill (BVSc, PhD) members of the Accountability Round Table
For the Accountability Round Table’s broader recommendations on integrity reforms see ‘Integrity Now!’
Martin Newman
Martin Newman Lecturer in Journalism at University of Technology Sydney. Coordinator of Media Law & Ethics. Publishes media blog News2Me.
Michael Stewart Borgas
Dr Michael Borgas, Yanakie Research Institute.CSIRO Atmospheric Scientist, 30 years; President CSIRO Staff Association, 15 years; Physics and Mathematics education, Cambridge University, Trinity College; Adelaide University. Avid volunteer Mongolia, Air Pollution. Grew up in Port Augusta.
Maha Hussaini
Maha Hussaini is an award-winning journalist and human rights activist based in Gaza. Maha started her journalism career by covering Israel’s military campaign on the Gaza Strip in July 2014. In 2020, she won the prestigious Martin Adler Prize for her work as a freelance journalist.
Ayman Qwaider
Ayman Qwaider, a Palestinian Australian educator, was born and raised in Gaza. He holds an International Master’s degree in Peace, Conflict, and Development Studies. Ayman has participated in number of research programs and has worked in the field of emergency education.
Hena Prince
Hena Prince is a Doctoral Candidate and policing researcher at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland.
Patrick Mazza
Patrick Mazza - Progressive activist and journalist since 1981. Lived in Seattle since 1998, and the Pacific Northwest, aka Cascadia, since 1977.
Keith Mascord
I am a Canadian-born Australian. I am recently retired - most recently from managing the NSW multi-faith prison chaplaincy team. I am an Anglican priest, an academic having taught (philosophy and pastoral ministry) in a conservative theological college in Sydney. I now identify as progressive. I trace my own intellectual and spiritual journey in 3 books, A Restless Faith: leaving fundamentalism in a quest for God (2012); Faith without Fear: risky choices facing contemporary Christians (2016) and An Honest Faith: the possible friendship of Athens and Jerusalem (2015).
Mel Gurtov
Mel Gurtov is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Portland State University, Editor-in-Chief of Asian Perspective, an international affairs quarterly and blogs at In the Human Interest.
Dan Yu
Dan Yu, is a China-based international education analyst and digital media specialist with over ten years of experience in the outbound education sector. She has led content strategy and audience research across major Chinese platforms, including Zhihu, WeChat, Weibo, RedNote, and LinkedIn, working closely with international schools and education organisations. Dan Yu’s work focuses on how Chinese public opinion, digital discourse, and policy shifts shape perceptions of overseas education.