Julian Burnside is a Melbourne barrister. He joined the Bar in 1976 and took silk in 1989. He specialises in commercial litigation, and has acted in many very contentious cases - the MUA Waterfront dispute; the Cash-for-Comment enquiry; cases for Alan Bond and Rose Porteous - but has become known for his human rights work and has acted pro bono in many refugee cases. 

He is an outspoken opponent of the mistreatment of people who come to Australia seeking protection from persecution. His latest book is Watching Out: Reflections on Justice and Injustice (Scribe).

Oslo Davis is an illustrator, cartoonist and artist who has drawn for a number of organisations worldwide, including the New York Times, the Age, the Monthly, Meanjin, SBS and the Guardian.

He has also been commissioned to draw for the National Gallery of Victoria, the Golden Plains music festival, State Library Victoria and Melbourne Writers Festival, among many others. Oslo’s latest book is Overheard - The Art of Eavesdropping.​

Geraldine Doogue is a highly accomplished Australian journalist and presenter whose career in print, television and radio includes Four Corners, the Australian, Life Matters, Compass and Saturday Extra.

While originally planning a career as a schoolteacher after completing her Arts degree, in 1972 Geraldine applied on an impulse for a journalism cadetship with The West Australian instead.

Since then she has thrived on that impulsive decision. Within the first ten years of her career, Geraldine had carved out a reputation in print, television and radio, including two years at the London Bureau working for the Murdoch group’s Australian papers.

Her entrance into television was unexpected. While she was covering a story for the Australian, an ABC Television reporter interviewed her for a Four Corners program. When the head office executives saw the interview, they were so impressed with her on-camera presence that they offered Geraldine the Perth compere’s position for ABC Television’s then new program Nationwide.

She soon moved to Sydney to host the NSW edition of the program and established herself as one of the most respected and popular personalities on national television. Geraldine then worked for a time on commercial radio with 2UE and on commercial television, co-presenting Channel 10’s main news bulletin, before returning to the ABC in 1990.

She played a major role in ABC TV’s coverage of the Gulf War. During this period Geraldine was awarded two Penguin Awards and a United Nations Media Peace Prize.

In 1992 Geraldine began presenting Life Matters, a new RN program which set out to cover the full gamut of social issues in everyday life. In 1998, she also became host of ABC TV’s Compass program, which looks at issues of spirituality, philosophy and belief every Sunday evening. After 11 years with Life Matters, she moved to host the influential program Saturday Extra, which focuses on international politics, Australia’s role on the world stage, and business.

In 2000 Geraldine was awarded a Churchill Fellowship for social and cultural reporting. In 2003, she was recognised with an Officer in the Order of Australia for services to the community and media.

She is married with two children and two step-children.

Lauren Duca is an award-winning and -losing freelance journalist best known for her viral piece 'Donald Trump is Gaslighting America', and calling Tucker Carlson a 'partisan hack' on national television. In addition to working on her Thigh-High Politics column for Teen Vogue, Lauren's work can be found in/on New York magazine, the New Yorker, the New Inquiry, the Nation, Pacific Standard, Cosmopolitan and Complex, among other publications.

Gareth Evans is a writer, academic, lawyer and former cabinet minister.

He was a Cabinet Minister in the Hawke and Keating Governments for thirteen years, as Attorney General, Minister for Resources & Energy, Transport & Communications, and Foreign Affairs; Leader of the Government in the Senate for four years; and Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the House of Representative for three years. After 21 years in the Australian Parliament, he led the Brussels-based International Crisis Group from 2000-2009.

Gareth Evans has been Chancellor and Honorary Professorial Fellow of the Australian National University since 2010, and has written or edited twelve books on international relations, government, and legal and constitutional reform.

Deborah Frances-White is a stand up comedian, writer, speaker and podcaster. She is best known as the creator and host of The Guilty Feminist Podcast – which has had 20 million downloads in its first 18 months. It has just been nominated for a 2017 Aria Award for Best Podcast. She is currently writing a Guilty Feminist book for Virago at Little, Brown.

Her BBC Radio 4 show Deborah Frances-White Rolls the Dice is an anthology of stand-up comedy and dramatised stories about her real life experiences, including finding her biological mother and leaving a cult. The first series won The Writers’ Guild Award for Best Radio Comedy in the UK, and the second series has just aired.

Deborah is a screenwriter whose first feature film Say My Name is currently in post-production with Electric Entertainment.

She regularly speaks about diversity and inclusion in the business world, and her clients include Facebook, LinkedIn, EY and Microsoft. She was nominated for a First Woman Award for her work in diversity in 2016. Deborah is also the host and creator of Global Pillage, a diversity-based comedy panel show podcast. She is currently curating a podcast season in association with Time Peace, a British app which connects local people with refugees to build community and share skills.

Rebecca Huntley is one of Australia's most respected researchers on social and consumer trends, and head of research at Essential Media. She is the author of Still Lucky: Why You Should Feel Optimistic About Australia and Its People.

Krissy Kneen is the award-winning author of fiction, poetry and non-fiction, including An Uncertain Grace, which was shortlisted for the Stella Prize.

She has written and directed broadcast television documentaries and is the current Copyright Agency Ltd Non-fiction Fellow. The Three Burials of Lotty Kneen is her latest book. 

Anna Krien is the author of the award-winning Night Games and Into the Woods, as well as two Quarterly Essays, Us and Them and The Long Goodbye, and a novel Act of Grace. Anna’s writing has been published in ...

Jack Latimore is an Indigenous researcher with the Centre for Advancing Journalism. He is currently involved in the development of several projects aimed at improving the quality of Indigenous representation and participation in the mainstream media-sphere. His journalism work has appeared in Koori Mail, Guardian Australia, Overland and IndigenousX.

Kenan Malik is a writer, lecturer and broadcaster. He is a presenter of Analysis on BBC Radio 4, and a panellist on The Moral Maze. He has taught at universities in Britain, Europe, Australia and the USA, presented many TV documentaries and writes regularly for newspapers across the world including the New York Times, the Guardian, Göteborgs-Posten and the Australian. His books include The Meaning of Race, Man, Beast and Zombie, Strange Fruit: Why Both Sides are Wrong in the Race Debate and The Quest for a Moral Compass.

George Megalogenis has thirty years’ experience in the media, including over a decade in the federal parliamentary press gallery. His book The Australian Moment won the 2013 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Non-fiction ...

Shireen Morris is a lawyer, postdoctoral fellow at the University of Melbourne Law School, and a senior adviser on constitutional reform to Cape York Institute. She is the author of Radical Heart (MUP, 2018), the co-editor of The Forgotten People: Liberal and Conservative Approaches to Recognising Indigenous Peoples with Damien Freeman (MUP, 2016) and the editor of A Rightful Place: A Roadmap to Recognition (Black Inc, 2017). Shireen is a regular commentator on TV, radio and print media.

Shen Narayanasamy is GetUp!'s Human Rights Campaign Director. She founded the No Business in Abuse project, targeting corporate involvement in offshore detention of asylum seekers, and led #LetThemStay, which prevented the deportation of hundreds of asylum seekers to Nauru.

Recently, she led GetUp's response to the Federal Government's attempts to change the Racial Discrimination Act, and ongoing attempts to change citizenship requirements. Shen's background is as a human rights lawyer and advocate, working in Australia and across the Asia Pacific on issues of economic justice and land rights.

Rita is a Herald Sun columnist. She can be heard on radio 3AW, 2GB with Steve Price and appears regularly on Sunrise on Seven, and Sky News.

Jordan is a world class comedian, actor, singer and digital content creator. She is best know for her work as the front woman for comedy rock band The Axis of Awesome.

Jordan has written about transgender issues and spoken about her personal experience for numerous publications and media programs, including The Project, Archer Magazine and JUNKEE, and is an outspoken voice for trans rights and representation. She has become an inspiration to young LGBTQIA+ people by living her genuine life, openly and publicly, and being an outspoken campaigner for progress and understanding.

Jordan came out as a transgender woman in February 2016 on the Axis's YouTube channel, with a  funny yet touching video, What’s Happened to Jordan’s Beard?. In the video, Jordan explained the reason for her absent facial hair with grace and humour.

Since then, Jordan has become a role model to young trans people. She has brought transgender issues into her comedy routines and live performances. She has promoted awareness and understanding to a broad audience through humour. Her song about the trans experience, 'The Elephant in the Room', has reached over 180,000 people online and speaks straight to the hearts of trans people and allies alike.

Helen Razer was a broadcaster and is now a writer. Her appointments in radio were at the Triple J national network and ABC Melbourne. Her books include A Short History of Stupid, co-authored with national affairs correspondent Bernard Keane, a 2015 work on the history of bad Western thought shortlisted for the Russell Prize; and Total Propaganda, a popular work on Marxism recently published by Allen & Unwin.

Helen has written on social and political matters for the Age and Australian. She now contributes news and cultural analysis to outlets including Crikey, the Saturday Paper, Daily Review, Frankie, SBS and Atlantic digital publication Quartz.

Geoffrey Robertson QC is founder and head of the world’s largest human rights practice, in London. He has prosecuted Hastings Banda, defended Julian Assange and acted for Human Rights Watch in the proceedings against General Pinochet.

He served as the first president of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (which indicted Charles Taylor) and as a ‘distinguished jurist’ member of the UN’s Internal Justice Council. He has argued landmark cases at the European Court of Human Rights and The Hague war crimes tribunals, and has held office of Recorder (part-time judge) for many years in London.

His books include Crimes Against Humanity – The Struggle for Global Justice; The Tyrannicide Brief (the story of how Cromwell’s lawyers mounted the first trial of a head of state); Statute of Liberty and an acclaimed memoir, The Justice Game. He is a Master of the Middle Temple and a Visiting Professor at the New College of the Humanities. In 2011 he was awarded the New York Bar Association’s prize in international policy and law.

He lives in London.

Sally Warhaft is a Melbourne broadcaster, anthropologist and writer. She is the host of The Fifth Estate, the Wheeler Centre’s live series focusing on journalism, politics, media, and international relations, and The Leap Year ...

Tim Wilson is the Member for Goldstein. He was first elected in 2016 and achieved the strongest result in the Goldstein’s history for the Liberal Party. As a proud liberal he is committed to economic and social freedom, underpinned by the preservation of our culture and institutions.

He formerly served as Australia’s Human Rights Commissioner. In that role he worked with the government to reform laws to stop and prevent terrorism, improving economic opportunities for indigenous Australians as well as standing up for laws to protect free speech and stop marginalised communities from public harassment.

Prior to serving as Commissioner he ran his own business, was a regular contributor on television and radio, was a policy director for a public policy think tank and worked in international development across South East Asia.

Amongst many awards, he was recognised as one of the ten emerging leaders of Australian society by The Australian newspaper in 2009.

He has a Bachelor of Arts (Policy Studies) at Monash University as well as a Masters of Diplomacy and Trade (International Trade) from the Monash Graduate School of Business.  

Tim and his partner Ryan are passionate supporters and members of the mighty Melbourne Demons, and as a hobby collect gins from across the world.