2008 judging panel members
Fiction panel
Chair
Peter Pierce
Professor Peter Pierce is Honorary Professor and Research Fellow at the National Centre for Australian Studies at Monash University and the immediate past Chair of Australian Literature at James Cook University. He is a non-fiction author, writes book reviews for the national press and has co-edited several books including the anthology Clubbing of the Gun-fire: 101 War Poems and the critical study Vietnam Days: Australia and the Impact of Vietnam, and is also the author of Australian Melodramas: Thomas Keneally's Fiction and The Country of Lost Children: An Australian Anxiety. He is currently editing The Cambridge History of Australian Literature.
Australian author
John Marsden
John Marsden has been principal of Candlebark School, near Romsey in Victoria for the past three years and prior to that taught for nine years at Geelong Grammar School, and was Head of English at the school’s Timbertop campus. His first book, So Much To Tell You was published in 1987 and was followed by a half-sequel Take My Word For It. His landmark Tomorrow series is recognised as the most popular book series for young adults ever written in Australia. The first book of this series, Tomorrow When The War Began, has been reprinted 26 times in Australia. He has sold more than 2.5 million books here and is an international best selling author and winner of many awards.
Recognised cultural figure
Margaret Throsby
Margaret Throsby is one of Australia's leading broadcasters and is an inspiration for women in broadcasting. She presents ABC Classic FM’s Mornings program daily. Margaret was the first woman to read major news bulletins on national radio since World War II and in 1978 became the first woman to read Australian television news. Margaret has hosted a series of her own radio and television programs and has been involved in all facets of broadcast at local and national levels. Margaret has won several awards, including the Golden Gavel Award of the Law Society of NSW, for Excellence in Legal Reporting, the 1990 Rostrum Speaker of the Year Award and the Variety Club Radio Award for 1993.
Non-Fiction Panel
Chair
Hilary Charlesworth
Professor Hilary Charlesworth is Professor in the Regulatory Institutions Network in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies and Professor of International Law and Human Rights in the College of Law, at Australian National University and the Director of the Centre for International Governance and Justice. Her publications include The Boundaries of International Law (with CM Chinkin) and Writing in Rights. She has worked with international human rights standards and was chair of the ACT Government's inquiry into an ACT bill of rights.
Australian author
Sally Morgan
Sally Morgan is an Indigenous Australian author and artist. Her works are on display in numerous private and public collections in both Australia and around the world. The story of her family's past is told in My Place (1987), which sold over half a million copies in Australia. It has also been published in Europe, Asia and the United States. Her second book, Wanamurraganya, which is a biography of her great uncle, Jack McPhee, was published in 1989. Sally has written numerous children’s books. She is the Director at the Centre for Indigenous History and the Arts, in the School of Indigenous Studies, at the University of Western Australia. She has received many awards: My Place won the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission humanitarian award in 1987, the Western Australia Week literary award for non-fiction in 1988, and the 1990 Order of Australia Book Prize.
Recognised cultural figure
John Doyle
John Doyle, one of Australia's best-loved radio and television comedians, is also a writer and presents documentaries. Born in 1953, he graduated from the then Newcastle Teachers College in 1973 with a Diploma of Teaching. He completed a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Newcastle in 1978, before joining the Hunter Valley Theatre Company. He commenced his radio career in 1986, when he and Greg Pickhaver created the characters of "Rampaging" Roy Slaven and HG Nelson. Doyle has also developed a successful parallel career as a writer of serious television drama, including the ABC-TV miniseries Changi and the drama series Marking Time, which examines contemporary racial and cultural tensions in Australian society.
