SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES
Host
Wendy Harmer
Wendy Harmer is one of Australia’s best-known humorists. As a stand-up comedian she performed her one-woman shows at the Melbourne, Edinburgh, Montreal and Glasgow Mayfest Comedy Festivals, in London’s West End and the Sydney Theatre Company. Wendy enjoyed huge popularity leading Sydney radio station 2Day FM’s top-rating Breakfast Show for 11 years and winning 84 of the 88 ratings surveys for that period. She has hosted, written and appeared in a variety of TV shows including ABC’s THE BIG GIG.
A former political journalist, Wendy is the author of seven books for adults including her best selling novel FAREWELL MY OVARIES, LOVE AND PUNISHMENT and NAGGING FOR BEGINNERS, a how-to guide for women. Her latest novel ROADSIDE SISTERS was published in April 2009, and her first teen novel I LOST MY MOBILE AT THE MALL was published in November 2009. Wendy’s children’s book series about Pearlie the park fairy have sold more than 400,000 copies in Australia and internationally since the first title PEARLIE IN THE PARK was published in 2003. A stage show of the books adapted by Wendy played at the Seymour Centre in Sydney and toured regional NSW in 2005 and then nationally in 2007. The animated television series based on Wendy’s PEARLIE books, co-produced by Sticky Pictures and Canadian broadcaster Nelvana, recently premiered on Network Ten in October 2009. Wendy developed the series as Creative Producer and has written many of its episodes.
STUFF, a four-part television documentary series which Wendy produced, wrote and presented, premiered on ABC TV in March 2008. In late 2008 Wendy and Angela Catterns recorded a 16 part podcasting series for ABC Radio Local called IS IT JUST ME? which returned for a second season in 2009. Together they debate and discuss their observations and conclusions on everyday life. The podcasts are currently available for download from the ABC Radio Local website.
Wendy and her husband Brendan have two young children and live on Sydney’s Northern Beaches.
Speakers:
Noel Pearson
B.A (Hons), History, L.L.B., University of Sydney, Australia
Noel Pearson was born in Cooktown and grew up at Hope Vale, a Lutheran Mission on south-east Cape York Peninsula. Noel Pearson is a history and law graduate from Sydney University.
He is the Director of the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership, a body that drives new directions in public policy on indigenous issues.
Noel Pearson was involved in the establishment of the Cape York Land Council in 1990 and the other regional indigenous organisations representing the people of Cape York Peninsula, including Apumipima Cape York Health Council in 1994 and Balkanu Cape York Development corporation in 1996.
Noel Pearson works in a voluntary capacity as the Chairman of Cape York Partnerships, a project negotiated between the Queensland government and Aboriginal Leaders of Cape York to plan and implement projects centred on a reform agenda for Cape communities.
He also chairs the board of Cape York Partnerships Projects office and is a board member of Indigenous Enterprise Partnerships.
Noel Pearson’s current work draws widely on his thoughts on breaking down “passive welfare dependency” amongst Cape York Aboriginal people, by reinstating the rights of Aboriginal people to take responsibility for their lives. Descriptions of these ideas can be found in Pearson’s monograph “Our Right to Take Responsibility” (self-published, 2000) as well as his recent papers.
Peter Sellars
Peter Sellars is a leading theatre, opera, and festival director. He has received acclaim for his re-envisioning of classics, including works by Mozart, Shakespeare, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and the 16th-century Chinese playwright Tang Xianzu, to engage contemporary social and political issues. Recent projects include John Adams’ Doctor Atomic, Tan Dun's composition Peony Pavilion, a new version of Stravinsky's The Story of a Soldier, the premiere production of Kaija Saariaho's opera L'amour de loin and For an End to the Judgment of God / Kissing God Goodbye, a production of Antonin Artaud's radio play with the poetry of the late June Jordan staged as a United States Department of War press conference.
Sellars has led several major arts festivals including the 1990 and 1993 Los Angeles Festivals; the 2002 Adelaide Festival; and the 2003 Venice Biennale International Festival of Theatre. In celebration of Vienna’s 2006 Mozart Year, Sellars was the director of the New Crowned Hope Festival. He is a Professor in UCLA’s World Arts and Cultures Department and resident curator at the Telluride Film Festival. He is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, the Erasmus Prize, the Sundance Institute Risk-Takers Award and the Gish Prize. He was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Eva Cox AO
Eva Cox was born Eva Hauser in Vienna in 1938, and was soon declared stateless by Hitler so grew up as a refugee in England, till 1946, Italy and then Australia from age 10. She remembers being cross in Kindergarten that boys were offered drums, and girls the tambourine or triangle. All these early experiences primed her political activism and made her an irrepressible advocate for creating more civil societies. She is an unabashed feminist and passionately promotes inclusive, diverse and equitable communities. Her 1996 book (Leading Women) explained why women who made a difference were usually labelled as difficult. She has been an academic, political adviser, public servant, and runs a small research consultancy. A sociologist by trade, she has published widely and eclectically in books, journals and newspapers. Now a Research Fellow at Jumbunna Aboriginal House of Learning at UTS, Eva has been recognised in various ways: Australian Humanist of the Year, a Distinguished Alumnus at UNSW, and was the ABC Boyer Lecturer (1995) on social capital and making societies more civil. She also stirs through being a Fellow of the Centre for Policy Development, a Research Fellow at Jumbunna (UTS) and the Chair of WEL Australia (Women’s Electoral Lobby).
Dr Michael Spence
Dr Michael Spence took up his appointment as Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Sydney on 11 July 2008.
Dr Spence is an alumnus of the University, having graduated with First Class Honours in English, Italian and Law (BA (Hons)’85 and LLB (Hons)’87). Before leaving for the University of Oxford in 1988 to undertake doctoral studies, Dr Spence lectured in Law at the University and also worked for the Australian Copyright Council.
At Oxford, Dr Spence obtained his DPhil and continued to develop his career there over the next 20 years. He became a Fellow of St Catherine’s College and a Lecturer of the University of Oxford in 1992. Three years ago he also obtained a Postgraduate Diploma in Theology from the University of Oxford.
During his time at Oxford, Dr Spence became internationally recognised as a leader in the field of intellectual property theory. His work includes articles and books on both intellectual property law and the law of obligations, with a critical focus on suggested ethical and economic justifications of the existing regimes. He remains a consultant to the London law firm, Olswang and serves as a WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center Panelist. He has lectured on intellectual property-related topics around the world, and held a number of visiting appointments in Boston, Munich and Siena. He has twice been a Parsons Fellow at the University of Sydney Law School.
Yar Mayen
Yar Mayen is a 20 year old Sudanese refugee who came to Australia in 2006. She has just completed a nursing degree at the University of Notre Dame, Sydney and hopes in the future to become a doctor.
Yar’s homeland is Southern Sudan, however she lived in Kenya from 1999 until arriving in Australia. Due to outstanding academic achievement, she was offered a scholarship to study in Canada but choose to relocate to Australia on a refugee VISA so she could remain with her siblings.
In 2010 she looks forward to beginning her career as a nurse and also returning to Sudan, for the first time in many years, to visit her mother and younger sister who she hasn't seen for 10 years.
Yar lives with three of her siblings in Doonside in Sydney’s west.
Laurie Wallis
Laurie Wallis is an aspiring writer and poet living in the Blue Mountains, West of Sydney. He is 18 years old and has just completed his NSW HSC at his local comprehensive high school. Laurie was awarded first in the state in Extension 2 English for his major work of nature based poetry.
Laurie was born in Bristol, England but relocated to Australia in 1992 as his family sought a fresh start after financial difficulty in the UK.
He is now looking to complement his interests in contemporary poetry with a degree in communications at the University of Sydney in 2010.
