Keynote speakers
- Hon Jay Weatherill MP, South Australian Minister for Housing
- Brendan Gleeson, Professor, Urban Policy and Management and Director of the Urban Research Program, Griffith University
- Pauline McGuirk, Director, Centre for Urban and Regional Studies and Professor of Human Georgraphy, University of Newcastle
- Steve Dovers, Professor, Fenner School for Environment and Society, The Australian National University
- Ruth Fincher, Professor of Geography, University
of Melbourne
Keynote speaker biographies
Jay
Weatherill was born and educated in Adelaide’s western suburbs,
completing his secondary education at Henley High School. He supported
himself through university, working part time as a cleaner. Jay is a lawyer
with an economics degree and established his own law practice in 1995,
Lieschke and Weatherill. He practised law until he was elected as the Member
for Cheltenham at the 2002 State election.
In addition to his housing portfolio, Jay Weatherill is Minister for
Families and Communities, Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation, Ageing and
Disability. He is also Minister Assisting the Premier in Cabinet Business
and Public Sector Management. He is also a former Minister of Urban
Development & Planning.
Brendan Gleeson is Professor of
Urban Policy and Management and Director of the Urban Research Program at
Griffith University. Before joining Griffith in 2003, he was Deputy Director
of the Urban Frontiers Program, University of Western Sydney. His research
interests include urban planning and governance, urban social policy,
disability studies, and environmental theory and policy. Gleeson co-authored
The Green City: sustainable homes, sustainable suburbs (2005) and Justice,
Society and Nature: an Exploration of Political Ecology (1998), which
received the International Studies Association’s Harold and Margaret Sprout
award. He co-authored (with Nicholas Low) Australian Urban Planning: New
Challenges, New Agendas (2001), which received the Royal Australian Planning
Institute’s National Award for Excellence in Planning Scholarship. Gleeson’s
2006 books are Creating Child Friendly Cities and Australian Heartlands:
Making Space for Hope in the Suburbs, which won the inaugural John Iremonger
Award for Writing on Public Issues. Professor Gleeson has worked
professionally in Britain, Germany, New Zealand, the USA and Australia.
Pauline McGuirk is Director of the
Centre for Urban and Regional Studies and Professor of Human Geography (from
July 2007) at the University of Newcastle. Her primary research interest is
urban political geography, specialising in urban governance and policy, the
politics of urban development, and urban and regional socio-economic
transformation. She is widely published internationally on urban governance
transformations, changing geographies of governance, and the politics of
planning and urban policy. Her current research focuses on Sydney's
reterritorialisation and the transformation of the city’s governance as it
has emerged as a global city-region and on new forms of governance
associated with the emergence of residential master-planned estates. Pauline
has been a visiting fellow at the University of Dublin (Trinity College),
University of Glasgow, Durham University and Bristol University. She is a
former President of the Geographical Society of NSW and associate editor of
the society's journal Australian Geographer.
Steve Dovers is Professor in the Fenner
School for Environment and Society at The Australian National University,
where he undertakes research and teaching in the policy and institutional
dimensions of sustainability. His recent works include the books Environment
and Sustainability Policy (Federation Press, 2005), Institutional Change for
Sustainable Development (Edward Elgar, 2004, with Robin Connor), and the
forthcoming Handbook of Disaster and Emergency Policies and Institutions (Earthscan,
2007, with John Handmer).
Ruth
Fincher is Professor of Geography at the University of Melbourne.
Previously she was Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Building and
Planning (2003-2006) and Professor of Urban Planning (1997-2006) there. She
was Director of the Centre for Australian Studies at the University of
Melbourne in the mid 1990s, and has held the positions of Assistant
Professor of Geography at McGill University (Canada), and McMaster
University (Canada). In the early 1990s, she worked as Research Manager in
the Federal Government’s Bureau of Immigration Research. With research and
teaching interests in the urban outcomes of immigration policy and
multiculturalism, diversity and difference in cities, gender issues,
inequality and locational disadvantage, Professor Fincher is widely
published internationally. Her books include Creating Unequal Futures?
Rethinking Inequality, Poverty and Disadvantage (Allen and Unwin, 2001)
co-edited with Peter Saunders, Australian Poverty: Then and Now (Melbourne
University Press, 1998) co-edited with John Nieuwenhuysen, and Cities of
Difference (Guilford Press, New York, 1998) co-edited with Jane Jacobs. A
new book, Planning Cities for Diversity, co-authored with Kurt Iveson
(Palgrave), should appear at the end of 2007. Ruth was elected a Fellow of
the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia in 2002.