Editors --- "Contributors" [2010] SGSocUphAUCon 17; (2010) 22 Upholding the Australian Constitution 158

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Contributors

The Honourable Colin Barnett, MLA, has been Premier of Western Australia since 2008. Educated at the University of Western Australia, he held a range of research and academic posts in both Canberra and Perth prior to becoming Executive Director of the WA Chamber of Commerce and Industry in 1985. He was elected to the Western Australian Legislative Assembly in 1990. He held various ministries in the Court Liberal Government, 1993-2001, including Energy, Resources Development, and Education. He was Deputy Leader of the Parliamentary Liberal Party from 1992 until 2001 when he became leader. He was Leader of the Opposition from 2001 until 2005 and again in 2008.

The Honourable Keith De Lacy, AM, has been chairman of Macarthur Coal since 2001. He was educated at Townsville Grammar School, Queensland Agricultural College and the University of Queensland. He held the seat of Cairns in the Queensland Legislative Assembly from 1983 until 1998 and was Treasurer in the Goss Labor Government from 1989 until 1996. Since leaving Parliament he has been chairman of several companies including Nimrod Resources Ltd and Queensland Sugar Ltd and held directorships in others.

Grant Donaldson, SC, was Senior Assistant Crown Counsel in the Crown Solicitor’s Office, Western Australia from 1996 to 1998 before commencing private practice as a Barrister at the Western Australian Bar. A graduate of the University of Western Australia in Jurisprudence and Laws, he took a Bachelor of Civil Law at Oxford where he was a Rhodes Scholar for Western Australia. He was a Manager at Whitlam Turnbull Ltd from 1989 to 1991 and a partner at Mallesons Stephen Jacques from 1991 until 1995.

Richard Douglas holds degrees in Arts and Laws from the Australian National University. He was admitted to practice in Western Australia in 1995 and New York in 2001. He previously practiced as a solicitor at Blake Dawson Waldron in Perth and as an attorney with Simpson Thacher and Bartlett in New York. He is currently a member of the Law Reform Commission of Western Australia.

Lorraine Finlay graduated in Arts and Law at the University of Western Australia. She subsequently took a dual LL.M. in Law and the Global Economy from New York University and a Master’s from the National University of Singapore. Admitted as a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Western Australia and of the High Court of Australia in 2004, she worked at the High Court, initially as a Legal Research Officer and later as Associate to Justice J. D. Heydon. After a period as a State Prosecutor in Western Australia she joined the School of Law at Murdoch University in 2010.

The Honourable Justice John Gilmour has been a member of the Federal Court of Australia since 2006. He was born in Scotland and studied at the University of Dundee. He settled in Australia in 1976 and was admitted to the Western Australian Bar in that year (QC since 1994); he was also admitted to practice at the Victorian Bar in 1994 (QC since 1995).

The Honourable Justice Dyson Heydon, AC, has been a member of the High Court of Australia since 2003; he was previously a justice of the New South Wales Court of Appeal from 2000 until 2003. He was educated at the University of Sydney and, as a Rhodes Scholar, at Oxford University. He was subsequently a Tutor and Fellow at Keble College, Oxford, 1967-73, and CUF Lecturer at Oxford, 1969-73. Upon return to Australia in 1973, before practicing at the Bar, he held a chair in the Faculty of Law at the University of Sydney until 1981, and was Dean, 1978-79. He has published extensively on legal matters and, since 1990, been the General Editor of Halsbury’s Laws Australia. He has been an Honorary Fellow of University College, Oxford, since 2003; and of Keble College since 2006. He has also been an Honorary Bencher of Gray’s Inn since 2005.

Julian Leeser, Conference Convenor of The Samuel Griffith Society, took degrees in Arts and Laws from the University of New South Wales. He was an elected Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy delegate to the 1998 Constitutional Convention and, subsequently, a member of the No Case Committee for the Republic referendum. In addition to a year as Associate to Mr Justice Callinan of the High Court of Australia, he has been an adviser to the federal Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations (the Honourable Tony Abbott, MP) and the federal Attorney-General (the Honourable Phillip Ruddock, MP). He is now Executive Director of the Menzies Research Centre and is working on a biography of Sir William McMahon.

Des Moore studied Law at the University of Melbourne before taking a M.Sc.(Econ.) at the London School of Economics. He joined the Commonwealth Treasury in London in 1958 and was a Deputy Secretary from 1981 until 1987 when he became a Senior Fellow with the Institute of Public Affairs in Melbourne, in charge of the Economic Policy Unit. When he left the IPA in 1996 he established the Institute for Private Enterprise of which he is Executive Director. He publishes widely on economic and related policy matters.

J. R. Nethercote studied at the University of Sydney, the Australian National University and the London School of Economics. An officer of the Australian Public Service from 1970 until 1999, he had assignments in, among other organizations, the Public Service Board, the Cabinet Office, the Royal Commission on Australian Government Administration, the Public Service Commission of Canada, the National Inquiry into Local Government Finance and the Department of the Senate. Editor of the Canberra Bulletin of Public Administration from 1980 until 2000, and of Australasian Parliamentary Review from 2001 to 2003, he has edited many books including Liberalism and the Australian Federation and jointly edited others such as The Menzies Era and Restraining Elective Dictatorship. He is currently Adjunct Professor, Public Policy Institute, Australian Catholic University.

Dr Dan Norton, a graduate of the University of Melbourne, the University of New England, North Carolina State University and the University of Hawaii, has held a variety of senior posts in government. These include Deputy Secretary, Tasmanian Department of Treasury and Finance; Secretary, Tasmanian Department of the Premier and Cabinet; Chief Executive Officer, Hydro-Electric Corporation; and Chairman, National Electricity Market Management Company. He also held major posts in business including directorships. Since 2008, he has been Chairman, Capital P&O Logistics Pty Ltd.

Bryan Pape, a Barrister since 1977, joined the Law School at the University of New England in 2000. He has specialized in taxation and corporation law cases and is a former full-time member of the Taxation Board of Review (No 1) and a part-time member of the Australian Accounting Standards Board. Early in 2009, on his own initiative and at his own financial risk, he mounted a case in the High Court of Australia where, representing himself, he sought to have the Rudd Government’s Tax Bonus legislation declared unconstitutional. Although narrowly unsuccessful (4:3) in that regard, the Court’s judgments when dealing with the Commonwealth’s defences represent major victories for constitutional propriety. As such, the Pape case will come to hold an honoured place in the cause of constitutional federalism.

Professor Emeritus Jonathan Pincus was educated at the University of Queensland and Stanford University. He has since been a Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies, Australian National University (1974-85) and held chairs at Flinders University (1985-91) and the University of Adelaide (1991-2002), where he was Convenor of the Academic Board. From 2002 until 2007 he was Principal Adviser, Research, at the Productivity Commission.

Andrew Podger was educated at the University of Sydney and the Australian National University. He served in the Bureau of Census and Statistics (now the Australian Bureau of Statistics), the Social Welfare Commission, the departments of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Social Security, Finance and Defence before appointment as Secretary, Department of Administrative Services and the Arts in 1993. The following year he became head of the Department of Housing and Regional Development and, in 1996, Secretary of the Department of Health and Aged Care. He was Public Service Commissioner from 2002 until 2004 and subsequently chairman of the Prime Minister’s Task Force on Health. He was National President of the Institute of Public Administration Australia from 2004 until 2010.

The Honourable Christian Porter, MLA, has degrees from the University of Western Australia in Economics, Arts and Laws, and from the London School of Economics. After admission to the Western Australian Bar in 1996, he worked as a commercial litigator at Clayton Utz (1996-99), as an adviser to the federal Minister for Justice (2001), and as a Senior State Prosecutor in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions for Western Australia (2002-07). He has also lectured at Edith Cowan University and the Law School at the University of Western Australia. He was elected to the Legislative Assembly in 2008, at a by-election, and, upon the election of the Barnett Liberal Government later that year, was appointed Attorney-General.

Sir David Smith, KCVO, AO, studied at the University of Melbourne and the Australian National University. He joined the Commonwealth Public Service in 1954. He served in the departments of Customs and Excise, Interior, Works and Prime Minister’s before appointment as Official Secretary to the Governor-General in 1973. He served five Governors-General in that post from which he retired in 1990. He was personally knighted by Her Majesty the Queen. He has been a Visiting Scholar at the Faculty of Law in the Australian National University. In February 1998 he attended the Constitutional Convention in Canberra as an appointed delegate, and subsequently played a prominent role in the “No” Case Committee for the 1999 Referendum.

John Stone was educated at Perth Modern School, the University of Western Australia (BSc Hons, 1950) and then, as a Rhodes Scholar, at New College, Oxford (BA Hons, 1954). He joined the Australian Treasury in 1954, serving in a number of posts at home and abroad, including as Australia’s Executive Director in both the IMF and the World Bank in Washington, DC (1967-70). In 1979 he became Secretary to the Treasury, resigning from that post – and from the Commonwealth Public Service – in 1984. He has since been, at one time and another, a Professor at Monash University, a newspaper columnist, a company director, a Senator for Queensland and Leader of the National Party in the Senate (1987-90) and Shadow Minister for Finance. In 1996-97 he was a member of the Defence Efficiency Review, and in 1999 a member of the Victorian Committee for the No Republic Campaign. A principal founder of The Samuel Griffith Society, he has served on its Board of Management since its inception in 1992 and was Editor and Publisher of its Proceedings until 2010. Today he writes frequently for Quadrant. In 2008 he became a member of the Mont Pelerin Society.