• Fan is a postcolonial feminist researcher studying technologies and migration politics. She currently works as a postdoctoral research fellow at Melbourne Law School, the University of Melbourne node of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making Society. Fan’s work spans across aspects of digital technologies including cross-jurisdictional governance, political economy, labour, and ethics. Her doctoral thesis, entitled ‘News Manufactories on WeChat: The Word Business, Censorship, and Pseudo-Journalism’ provides the first insight into WeChat’s operation outside China for content production among Chinese diasporic communities. Leading the longitudinal research project ‘RECapture’, she and her team examine public opinions on Australian politics during elections and referenda, and maintain the largest dataset on WeChat outside China. Fan has collaborated with Freedom House, Yale-Wikimedia Initiative, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Lowy Institute, and Double ThinkLab. She has also contributed commentaries to both Australian national and internal media outlets.

  • Louise is a multi-award-winning investigative reporter for the ABC TV Four Corners program and a best-selling author of two non-fiction books – Witness and Cardinal ― and her first novel, Pheasants Nest. Her investigation for ABC TV and for her Walkley-winning book, Cardinal, broke international news, leading to her being a witness in the George Pell case. Her story “I Am That Girl” led to changes in consent laws and her recent expose of The Cranbrook School sparked two government inquiries and the resignation of one of the country’s highest paid principals. Louise is a former NSW political reporter and a High Court Correspondent. Her journalism largely covers social justice, the law and politics.

  • Osbern is a Research Fellow at the School of Government and International Relations, Griffith University. Previously, he served as a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Social Research and Methods at the Australian National University and as an Assistant Research Fellow with the Asian Barometer Survey at National Taiwan University. His research explores political culture, democratic (de)consolidation, and their interplay with economic development and inequality, focusing on the East-Asian region. His work has been published in Political Science Quarterly, Journal of Asian Public Policy, and the Taiwan Journal of Political Science.

  • Michael co-coordinates the Electoral Regulation Research Network in the ACT. He had a 30-year career at the Australian Electoral Commission, retiring in 2012 as a Special Adviser, Electoral Reform and International Services. He has also worked as a consultant to the United Nations, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, and the Commonwealth Secretariat. He is a member of the editorial board of the Election Law Journal, was awarded the Australian Public Service Medal in 2001, and received the Joe C. Baxter Award from the International Foundation for Electoral Systems in 2015.

Chairs & Speakers

The Chairs and Speakers for the 2024 Forum comprised a mix of established and emerging experts from practice, academia and journalism, from across Australia and beyond. They reflect our Network’s mission to bring together different perspectives in a spirit of open and mutually beneficial exchange. Speakers are listed in reverse alphabetical order.

  • Felicity is the Director of the Online Funding, Disclosure and Registration at the NSW Electoral Commission (NSWEC). She joined the NSWEC in 2004 and previously led the client services, compliance and policy teams prior to directing development of the online platform supporting political participants comply with electoral funding laws. Felicity has played a pivotal role in steering the NSWEC through significant legislative and administrative reform including the merging of the Electoral Funding Authority and the Electoral Commission, the introduction and subsequent significant strengthening of funding and disclosure laws and the development of the online funding, disclosure and registration system. Felicity provides expert advice to the Electoral Commissioner and Electoral Commission statutory authority on a range of administrative, policy and technical matters.

  • Ferran is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Government and International Relations at Griffith University, with a focus on elections, electoral integrity, comparative politics, political parties, and electoral behaviour. An applied political scientist, he has extensive experience in consulting, public policy, and teaching. He has worked at the University of Sydney’s Electoral Integrity Project and at the Centro de Investigaciones y Docencia Economicas (CIDE) in Mexico City. He has served as a Senior Adviser in the Spanish Prime Minister’s Policy Unit and a Technical Adviser in Barcelona City Hall.

  • Rob is Deputy Director of the Tasmanian Policy Exchange (TPE) at the University of Tasmania and ERRN’s Tasmanian Convenor. He has over ten years’ experience in policy research 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. At the TPE, Rob works with government, industry, and community partners to produce rigorous, independent evidence and policy analysis, and supports University colleagues to make timely and informed contributions to policy debates.

  • Máiréad is the Executive Director of Governance & Enabling Services at the Victorian Electoral Commission. She oversees and shapes corporate strategy, planning and governance for the VEC. Máiréad’s focus during large-scale elections is through the lens of personnel, information, and cyber security risks.  The VEC recognises that a key external factor of concern is increased election-related misinformation and disinformation, leading to an erosion of public trust.  Máiréad was recently awarded a Churchill Fellowship to investigate the emerging use of AI as tool to spread misinformation and disinformation so that Australian electoral commissions can learn for future elections.

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  • Chris is Professor of Artificial Intelligence, Technology and the Law, Director of the Digital Law Group at Monash. He was appointed to serve on the ARC College of Experts 2024-26. He serves as an Expert in the International Expert Consortium on the Regulation, Economics, and Computer Science of AI (RECSAI) 2024-5.

  • Lisa is Professor of Politics at the University of Adelaide. She works on: democratic theory, electoral studies and the intellectual history of the Western political tradition. She is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences of Australia, Program Director at the Stretton Institute for Public Policy, and Research Chair of the Centre for Public Integrity, an anti-corruption watch-dog.

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  • Charles has a law degree from Melbourne University and a PhD from Rutgers University, specialising in ethics and political philosophy. He has worked in a variety of positions in government and politics, and is a former director of Above Quota Elections Pty Ltd. He has been featured as a commentator in newspapers, radio and television; since 2012 he has written on world politics at his blog, The World is Not Enough, and does periodic consulting work on electoral matters. His research interests include the history of liberal democratic structures and the comparative study of European party systems.

  • Ariel is a Senior Researcher and Trainer at the Hunt Laboratory for Intelligence and Security Studies at the University of Melbourne. Dr. Kruger’s background is in the philosophy of science, and together with the Hunt Lab, he successfully designed and implemented a novel method for crowdsourcing analytic reasoning. His current has built on that success and focuses on methods to accurately and reliably identify misinformation online.

  • Luke is a Senior Lecturer at Deakin University specializing in how emerging technologies impact society and how society can impact emerging technologies. Known for his interdisciplinary approach, he co-leads the Critical Digital Infrastructures and Interfaces group at Deakin University, is an AI at the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child, and a member of the Alfred Deakin Institute. His work is distributed by diverse publishers - from Nature to The New York Times. His research draws on experience serving in Canada’s department of Foreign Affairs and expresses a normative desire to move quickly and mend things.

  • Peter is the Editor of the ERRN newsletter, a member of the ACT ERRN Chapter and a widely-published expert on Australian electoral administration and electoral behaviour. Peter is a former member of the Australian Electoral Commissioner’s Advisory Board for Electoral Research (CABER).

  • Yee-Fui Ng is an Associate Professor at Monash University who researches in the areas of public law and political integrity. She is the author of Combatting the Code: Regulating Automated Government Decision-Making in Comparative Context (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2025), 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 Holt Prize finalist. She has recently written a report on truth in political advertising, commissioned by the Susan McKinnon Foundation, incorporating interviews with former Ministers, MPs, electoral commissioners, party officials, and civil society groups.

  • Paul is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law & Justice at the University of New South Wales. He is also the Director of the Elections & Referendums Project at the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law. Paul has published widely on referendums, election law and federalism. Paul is currently undertaking research into sub-national referendums, such as those run by states, territories and local councils.

  • Election Analyst Antony Green has worked for the ABC since 1989 and has worked on every federal, state and territory election over the last 35 years, around 90 in all.

    He has appeared on camera at ABC elections since 1991 and regularly provides commentary for ABC radio and television. He has also covered UK, New Zealand, Canadian and American elections.

    Antony also designed the ABC's election night results computer, was involved in the design of the ABC's election website and also writes much of the website's content.

    He designed interactive tools to model election results based on uniform swing, as well as a Senate election calculator that has revolutionised coverage of Senate election counting. Antony also writes a popular blog on electoral matters.

    For three decades Antony has produced publications for the NSW and Western Australian Parliamentary Library on elections and redistributions, and at various times had produced publications for the Victorian and Queensland Australian Parliamentary Libraries. Antony also contributes to the public debate on politics with submissions to Parliamentary Inquiries, by his presence at political science conferences and through speeches at political forums.

    In 2006 he co-edited "The Electoral Atlas of New South Wales", a substantial project for the NSW Department of Lands prepared as part of the NSW Sesquicentenary of Responsible Government in 2006. As part of this project, Antony designed and researched a substantial website for the NSW Parliament documenting the state's electoral and political history. 

  • Adrian completed his PhD at the University of Melbourne’s School of Mathematics and Statistics, and graduated 6 August 2016. He is now an Honorary Associate at the School. Since 1998, Adrian has had great interest in electoral politics, and has keenly follow both Australian and US elections. He has been writing poll and electoral analysis articles for The Conversation since prior to the 2013 Federal election on Federal, state and some international elections. In June 2022, Adrian joined The Conversation staff as an election analyst.

  • Sarah (UWA Law School) is an expert in constitutional law and electoral law, court innovation and community justice centres. She is a WA ERRN Co-Convenor, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law, Co-Chair of the International Society of Public Law AUS-NZ Chapter and a former Commissioner with the Law Reform Commission of Western Australia. She has published widely in Australia and internationally.

  • Mel has honours degrees in history and law, a graduate diploma in public administration, and a PhD in law. He was admitted as a solicitor in NSW in 2001 and is currently the chair of the NSW Law Society’s Government Solicitors Committee. He has been with the NSWEC since 2011, during which time he facilitated the NSWEC’s contribution to the Austlii Australian Electoral Law Library. He was the original secretary to the three-member NSW Electoral Committee established in 2014 with Hon Keith Mason AC QC as Chair; part of the research team for the April 2015 ERRN-commissioned report The Challenge of Informed Voting in the 21st Century; initial manager of the NSW Lobbyists’ Register and author of the March 2016 ERRN Working Paper No 36 The Regulation Of Lobbying In New South Wales; and manager of the secretariat of the NSW Electoral Districts Redistribution Panel in 2020-2021. Mel’s Academia page is available here.

  • Jon is a failed shock jock and recovering lawyer and now a Vice Chancellors Fellow at the University of Melbourne, based in the Melbourne Law School. His recent book Apollo & Thelma; A True Tall Tale is a thinly disguised memoir and has not been nominated for any literary awards.

  • Keegan is the Director, Electoral Integrity and Regulation at the Victorian Electoral Commission. He joined the VEC in 2010 and has led the Electoral Integrity and Regulation (EIR) branch of the VEC since 2019. Keegan played a pivotal role in establishing the EIR branch in response to legislative change in 2018 that introduced a new political funding and donation disclosure scheme, administered and regulated by the VEC. Keegan is keenly interested in electoral practice, integrity, transparency, regulation and policy. Keegan provides expert advice and support to the Electoral Commissioner on legal and policy matters and leads strategic relationships with enforcement and integrity agencies.