Convenors

Our Nationwide Team

Alongside the Governance Board, Director, Coordinator, and Research Council, the Network’s Convenors in every State and Territory across Australia drive the Network’s nationwide activities. Convenors contribute to the Network by: organising events annually; organising and presenting at the Electoral Regulation Forum; conducting research projects; facilitating sessions at our practitioner course; and contributing to the Newsletter.

Check Out Our Editorial Teams

Australian Capital Territory

  • Dr Peter Brent's PhD dealt with the history of electoral administration in Australia and he has researched and written extensively on electoral matters, particularly registration (enrolment). He also writes on electoral behaviour. From 2011 to 2013 he was a member of the Australian Electoral Commissioner’s Advisory Board for Electoral Research (CABER).

  • Dr Paul Kildea is a Senior Lecturer at UNSW Law School and the Director of the Referendums Project at the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law. His primary areas of research are referendums, election law and federalism. He is a co-editor of Tomorrow’s Federation: Reforming Australian Government (Federation Press, 2012) and has published in law and political science journals, both within Australia and internationally, including the Public Law Review, the Australian Journal of Political Science and the Election Law Journal. Paul is currently undertaking research into the use and regulation of referendums in Australia, the UK, Ireland and New Zealand.

  • Dr Michaela Spencer is a Post-Doctoral Fellow with the Northern Institute at Charles Darwin University. Her background is in environmental science, sociology, geography and Science and Technology Studies (STS), with her doctoral studies focusing on recent practices of environmental management and governance in Tasmania. Her current research involves working from the ‘Ground Up’ with Indigenous knowledge authorities, and differing traditions of knowledge and governance. This involves collaborative research for policy development, and engaging with government, service providers, university staff and Indigenous people in remote communities. So far this research has been focused around issues such as disaster resilience, emergency management, governance and leadership, remote engagement and coordination, volunteering and women’s health and wellbeing.

  • Dr Chiara De Lazzari is a Lecturer in Politics and IR in the School of Social Sciences at Monash University, Australia. She has published journal articles and book chapters in the areas of political participation of migrants, citizenship rights, and language policies in Italy and Australia. Her monograph titled Transnational Politics, Citizenship and Elections: The Political Engagement of Transnational Communities in National Elections was published by Routledge (Taylor and Francis) in 2019. Her research interests include citizenship rights, political participation of diasporas, and the political participation of migrant youth. She has also worked as a Political Analyst for SBS Italian Program and has extensive experience in media engagement and public

  • Martin Drum is an Associate Professor in Politics and International Relations at the University of Notre Dame Australia in Fremantle, WA.  He has recently conducted research projects on parliamentary committees in WA, election promises, and the electoral fortunes of party defectors.  He regularly produces electoral analysis for media outlets ahead of state and federal elections.  His book, Politics in Australia, was published in 2012.

  • Jill Sheppard is a senior lecturer in politics at the Australian National University, and an investigator on the Australian Election Study. Her research focuses on why people participate in politics, what opinions they hold and why. Jill is also an investigator on the World Values Survey and Asian Barometer Survey, and a member of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems planning committee.

  • Mel Keenan is Principal Legal Officer at the NSW Electoral Commission and managed the Secretariat to the 2020-2021 Electoral Districts Redistribution Panel. Mel is currently the chair of the NSW Law Society’s Government Solicitors Committee.

  • Ferran Martinez i Coma is Professor in the School of Government and International Relations. An applied political scientist with consulting, public policy, research and teaching experience, his current research specialises in elections, electoral integrity, comparative politics, political parties and electoral behaviour. Before Griffith, Ferran worked at the University of Sydney and at the Centro de Investigaciones y Docencia Economicas (CIDE) in Mexico City.  Ferran has also been served as a Senior Adviser in the Policy Unit of Spain's Prime Minister's office; as a Technical Adviser at the Ministry of Internal Affair; and as a Technical Adviser  for Barcelona’s City Hall.

  • Jonathon Louth is a research fellow at The Australian Alliance for Social Enterprise (TAASE).

    Jonathon has worked across government, the community sector and academia both in Australia and the United Kingdom. He has previously worked as an advisor for the South Australian Government.

    Jonathon’s research focuses on intersections between political economy and the lived experience of the everyday. An interest in the philosophy of (social) science and complex systems underpins much of this research.

  • Professional Brian Costar graduated BA (1970), MA (Qual) (1973) and PhD (1981) from the University of Queensland. His career included academic positions in Political Science and History at UQ (1971-77), QUT (1974-75),Chisholm Institute of Technology (1978-90) and Monash University (1990-2005) He was appointed to Swinburne University of Technology in 2005 as Professor of Victorian State Parliamentary Democracy—Emeritus since 2016. Research interests are in Australian politics, particularly electoral systems and behaviour, the National Party of Australia and Victorian and Queensland State Politics.

  • Michael Maley had a 30 year career at the AEC from 1982 to 2012, focusing primarily on electoral and legal reform, and the provision of international electoral services.  He also has worked for the United Nations, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), and the Commonwealth Secretariat; and is a member of the editorial board of the Election Law Journal. He was the recipient of the Public Service Medal in 2001, and IFES’s Joe C.Baxter Award for 2015.

New South Wales

Queensland

  • Rodney Smith is Professor of Australian Politics in the Department of Government at the University of Sydney, where he has worked for the past 16 years.  He has published widely on aspects of Australian elections and electoral behaviour.

South Australia

  • Lisa Hill is a Professor of Politics at the University of Adelaide. Her areas of interest are electoral studies, political theory and history of political ideas. She has written extensively on electoral topics including correlates and effects of turnout levels, informal voting  and electronic voting. She is particularly interested in compulsory voting and other institutional mechanisms for enhancing electoral inclusion. She is co-author (with Jason Brennan) of Compulsory Voting: For and Against, New York/London: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Lisa is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences of Australia.

Tasmania

  • Rob is Deputy Director & Senior Research fellow at the Tasmanian Policy Exchange, University of Tasmania. He is a skilled researcher and consultant with over ten years’ experience in international development, academia, and consultancy in the UK, Australia, and the Pacific. He holds an MPhil and DPhil in International Development from the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. Prior to this, he graduated from the University of Tasmania with a Bachelor of Arts (First Class Honours) in International Relations and Indonesian. Rob's research focuses on political institutions and wellbeing in hybrid regimes, and he has previously been seconded to the Australian Electoral Commission's International Engagement Team.

Victoria

  • Yee-Fui is a Senior Lecturer at Monash University. She is the author of The Rise of Political Advisors in the Westminster System (Routledge, 2018) and Ministerial Advisers in Australia: The Modern Legal Context (Federation Press, 2016), which was a finalist of the Holt Prize. Dr Ng has previously worked as a Policy Adviser at the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, a Senior Legal Adviser at the Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet, as well as a Manager at the Victorian Department of Justice. Yee-Fui has also practised as a solicitor at top tier law firms in Melbourne, London and Canberra.

  • Professor Fenna researches and supervises postgraduate students in the areas of Australian government and politics, Australian public policy, and Australian and comparative federalism in The John Curtin Institute of Public Policy (JCIPP).  He is the author of Australian Public Policy, 2nd edn (2004); co-editor of Government and Politics in Australia, 10th edn (2013); co-author of Comparative Federalism: a systematic inquiry, 2nd edn (2015); co-author of Interrogating Public Policy Theory: a political values perspective (2019); and author or co-author of a range of journal articles and book chapters (see below). He has recently completed Australian Research Council funded research on inequality and the distributional effects of the Australian welfare state and an international research project on the dynamics of federal systems (Publius: the journal of federalism, vol. 49, no. 1). Professor Fenna served as President of the Australian Political Studies Association (APSA) 2009-10.

  • Ashley Carr is a Project Officer at the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC). He was also the Electoral Boundaries Commission (EBC) secretary during 2023–24.

Western Australia

  • Justin Harbord is the Director Election Operations at the Western Australian Electoral Commission. He has extensive electoral experience covering operations, legislation, policy, technology, reform, communications and distributions of electoral boundaries spanning more than 20 years.

  • Dr Sarah Murray is a Professor at the University of Western Australia and is an expert in constitutional law and legal institutional change. Her publications include Constitutional Perspectives on an Australian Republic - Essays in Honour of Professor George Winterton (ed) (2010) and The Remaking of the Courts - Less-Adversarial Practice and the Constitutional Role of the Judiciary in Australia (2014). Her doctoral thesis was awarded the 2011 Mollie Holman Doctoral Medal by Monash University and she was the recipient of a 2015 UWA IAS Distinguished Early Career Fellowship. Professor Murray visited the Centre for Court Innovation in New York as the 2017 recipient of the Fay Gale Fellowship.