Dirty secrets

Gary Foley is an Australian Aboriginal Gumbainggir activist, academic, writer and actor. He is best known for his role in establishing the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra in 1972 and for establishing an Aboriginal Legal Service in Redfern in the 1970s. He is currently a Professor of History at Victoria University.

Foley also co-wrote and acted in the first indigenous Australian stage production, Basically Black.

Michael Kirby is one of Australia’s most admired public figures. When he retired from the High Court of Australia in February 2009, Kirby was Australia’s longest serving judge.

In addition to his judicial duties, he has served on many national and international bodies, including the World Health Organisation’s Global Commission on AIDS, the International Commission of Jurists, the UNESCO International Bioethics Committee, the UNAIDS Reference Group on HIV and Human Rights, and the UNDP Global Commission on HIV and the Law.

Kirby’s book, A Private Life, is a very personal memoir in which he reflects on his early life, about being gay, about his 42-year relationship with Johan van Vloten, about his religious beliefs and even about his youthful infatuation with James Dean. The biography of Michael Kirby, written by Daryl Dellora, is called Michael Kirby: Law, Love and Life.

Meredith Burgmann became radicalised at Sydney University in the sixties, when her ASIO file began. She was an academic at Macquarie University for 18 years, becoming president of the Academics Union. She was elected as a Labor MP and later president of the NSW Legislative Council.

Her other books are on early environmentalism and Australian misogyny.

Dr Anne Summers AO is a journalist, researcher, commentator and best-selling author of nine books, including the classic Damned Whores and God’s Police, first published in 1975, and still in print. Her most recent book Unfettered and Alive, a memoir, was published in 2018. In 2021 Anne was appointed a Paul Ramsay Foundation Fellow, located at UTS, and commissioned to undertake original data-based research that will throw new shocking light on the incidence and nature of domestic violence in Australia. The result of that research is the report, The Choice: violence or poverty was published on 7 July 2022 Previously Anne has advised Prime Ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, on women’s issues, run the Office of the Status of Women, been editor-in-chief of America’s leading feminist magazine Ms., editor of Good Weekend, chair of the Board of Greenpeace International and a Trustee of the Powerhouse Museum. She has been an activist in the women’s movement since its inception and in 1974 was involved in establishing Elsie Women’s Refuge the first modern shelter for women and children escaping domestic violence. She was appointed an officer of the Order of Australia for her services to journalism and to women in 1989; had her image on a postage stamp as an Australian Legend in 2011 and in 2017 was inducted into the Australian Media Hall of Fame