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Walking a Tightrope
Notes on Contributors
Paul Ashton
Paul Ashton is adjunct professor at the University of Technology Sydney, Macquarie University and the University of Canberra. He has written, co-written and edited over 40 books, has written a number of children’s creative non-fiction history books (the Accidental Histories series published by Halstead Press) and is editor of the journal Public History Review. In 2020 he was awarded the History Council of New South Wales’ Annual History Citation for his outstanding contribution to Australian history and the international practice of Public History.
Kylie Andrews
Kylie Andrews is an Australian historian who works in across a range of disciplines and mediums. Her writing covers a wide field, from media and communications to corporate and military history. Her recent history of women at the ABC, titled Trailblazing Women of Australian Public Broadcasting, 1945-1975, is a feminist revisioning of radio and television history in Australia. Kylie is a recipient of the UNSW Frank Crowley Australian History Prize, the Clare Burton Scholarship and a National Council of Women Australia Day Award. She is associated with the University of Technology Sydney and The Centre for Media History at Macquarie University. In her capacity as a professional historian, Kylie also produces histories for commercial, heritage and philanthropic organisations.
Michael Bennett
Michael Bennett has worked in history and heritage for over 20 years and currently works with the Sydney firm Coast History and Heritage. He is author of Pathfinders: A history of trackers in NSW (2020).
Brett Bondfield
Brett Bondfield worked as an investigatory lawyer in a different range of fields before embarking on an academic career. Brett is recognised for his research into the process of developing Australia’s tax policy and its implementation as well as the collection and sharing of tax relevant information between nations. He is a senior Executive member of the Australian Tax Teachers Association.
Frank Bongiorno AM
Frank Bongiorno AM is Professor of History and a historian of Australia. He was formerly Head of the School of History (2018–21), and Deputy Director (Education) of the Research School of Social Sciences (2012–14). He is currently President of the Australian Historical Association. (See Twitter/X: @fbongiornoanu). He is most recently the author of Dreamers and Schemers: A Political History of Australia (La Trobe University in conjunction with Black Inc.): Frank is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and the Australian Academy of the Humanities and a Whitlam Institute Distinguished Fellow at Western Sydney University. He is a Member of the Order of Australia.
Roberta Carew
Roberta Carew is a retired archivist who worked in a number of New South Wales government departments including State Records. She was awarded a MA from the University of NSW in 2008 for her thesis ‘A Landscape of Compliance, Conflict and Invention: An administrative history of the NSW Treasury, 1824-1976’. She also holds an MLit with Merit in public history from the University of Sydney.
Nina Giblinwright
Nina Giblinwright is an IPEd Accredited Editor. She holds a Graduate Certificate of Editing and Publishing, a Bachelor of Laws and a Diploma of Environmental Science. She has completed the Capstone Editing course, Your Editing Career Launched, and has worked on a diverse range of materials, from business brochures to PhD theses. Her focus is academic editing for postgraduate students and scholarly publications.
Anne Gilmore
Anne Gilmore graduated in Economics and Accountancy at Monash University, then worked in business and finance for 10 years in Australia and the UK, and then at UNICEF. In the 1990s she was part of the Monash University team that developed what is now Open Universities Australia. She did her PhD at the University of New England on the early aspirations of Deakin University to create innovative approaches to teaching and learning. At the University of Queensland, she held both academic policy and teaching positions and later undertook an oral history project about the creation of the Queensland Cultural Centre at Southbank.
Peter Hobbins
Peter Hobbins is Acting Head of Content at the Australian National Maritime Museum, where he leads the curatorial, exhibitions, library and publications teams. This role also includes overseeing the acquisition of new objects for the National Maritime Collection. As a historian, Peter’s publications have spanned medical research, venomous creatures, epidemics, quarantine, aviation and maritime history. He is the author of two books, Venomous Encounters: Snakes, Vivisection and Scientific Medicine in Colonial Australia (2017) and, with Dr Ursula K Frederick and Associate Professor Anne Clarke, Stories from the Sandstone: Quarantine Inscriptions from Australia’s Immigrant Past (2016). Over 2018-19 he led a community history project to mark the centenary of the pneumonic influenza or ‘Spanish’ flu pandemic and was a key participant in the 2020 Australian Story episode on that calamity. Peter is also Chair of the Professional Historians Association (NSW and ACT) and is an Honorary Affiliate in the Department of History at the University of Sydney.
Marilyn Hoey
Marilyn Hoey is a lawyer who has been closely involved the NSW Aboriginal trust fund repayment scheme. Her experience in this scheme led her to write an MA (Research) at the University of Technology Sydney: ‘Repaying the trust: a history of the operation and outcomes of the NSW Aboriginal trust fund repayment scheme 2005-2011’.
Paul Irish
Paul Irish is a historian and archaeologist with Sydney firm Coast History & Heritage. For the past 20 years he has been piecing together the Aboriginal history of coastal Sydney with researchers from the La Perouse Aboriginal community. His book Hidden in Plain View (NewSouth 2017) won the 2018 NSW Premier’s History Award for community and regional history.
Patrick Keyzer
Patrick Keyzer is Dean of the Thomas More Law School and Professor of Law and Public Policy at Australian Catholic University. He is a human rights lawyer and advocate and was shortlisted for an Australian Human Rights Award in 2010.
Carol Liston
Carol Liston is an associate professor and Australian historian who specialises in the history of early New South Wales (1788-1860). Her research covers early colonial history with interests in people (convict, colonial born and free immigrant and their family histories), local history, heritage and the built environment. Her particular interest is the colonial development of the County of Cumberland (Greater Western Sydney), using land records, family history and surviving buildings to document the past. She was until recently co-editor of the Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society.
Chris Lloyd
Chris Lloyd is Emeritus Professor of Economic History in School of Business, University of New England, Armidale, Guest Professor at Finnish Centre of Excellence for Historical Research, Tampere and Jyväskylä Universities, Finland and Adjunct Professor (Docent) in Social Science History, Department of Political and Economic Studies, Helsinki University, Finland. He has published extensively in the field of economic history.
Minna Muhlen-Schulte
Minna Muhlen-Schulte is a historian at GML Heritage. Minna specialises in historical research and interpretive content development for a diverse range of formats including online heritage databases, websites, signage copywriting, ABC Radio National, exhibitions, landscape and architectural designs. Her latest publication is ‘Screening into the Void: Social Media and History’, in Paul Ashton and Paul Hamilton (eds), The Australian History Industry (Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2022).
Peter Read
Peter Read is Honorary Professor at the Australian National University and a distinguished historian who has spent most of his career working in Aboriginal History, especially in New South Wales. He coined the term ‘the Stolen Generations’ in 1980 in a pamphlet of that name, and subsequently co-founded Link Up (NSW) Aboriginal Corportation which reunites separated children with their families and communities. He is currently a member of Governing Body of Link Up. Among his many historical works are Charles Perkins A Biography, the on-lineHistoryofaboriginalsydney.edu.au, the biography of Joy Janaka Wiradjuri Williams Tripping Over Feathers. A Stolen Generations Narrative, and (with Uncle Dennis Foley) What the Colonists Never Knew. A History of Aboriginal Sydney. He is a Member of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and is a Member of the Order of Australia for ‘Services to Aboriginal History’.
Matthew Richardson
Matthew Richardson was a lawyer with the New South Wales Government Insurance Office, then a specialist history editor. As publisher at Halstead Press, he focusses on history, including Australian authorities and instrumentalities. His studies include exploration and mapping, ideas and institutions, and ancient Chinese and Western historians. Other roles include Director of Australian Book Group, Associate of the Australian Centre for Public History, Honorary Associate of La Trobe University and member of the Royal Society of NSW. He is an author of history books, edited collections, and articles essays and talks on history and literature. With Professor Patrick Keyzer, he was engaged by the NSW Government to research the state’s history of disability services.
Peter Spearritt
Peter Spearritt is Emeritus Professor at the University of Queensland and co-editor of five major public websites, Queensland Places (over 1100 places, with their history and economy), Queensland Speaks (interviews with key government ministers and public servants), the Queensland Historical Atlas and Text Queensland, a resource for studying the state. He is also the co-editor of Victorian Places, a project with Monash University, detailing over 1500 settlements in Victoria. A Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, his research interests include coastal urbanisation and conservation, housing and the developer-led apartment boom, green space provision in urban areas and the use and abuse of water in our cities.
Garry Wotherspoon
Garry Wotherspoon is a writer and historian, a former academic and a former New South Wales History Fellow. His books include Sydney’s Transport: Studies in urban history; Being Different: Nine gay men remember; The Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts: A history (shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s History Awards); and Gay Sydney: A history (shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Awards). He was awarded Australia’s Centenary of Federation medal for his work as an academic, researcher and human rights activist.