Greg O'Connor: President of the NZ Police Association and Police Welfare Fund Chairperson, a police officer of over 30 years experience with a detective background, Greg has served in rural towns and major cities in New Zealand and leads the International Council of Police Representatives and Association.While he misses the cut and thrust of frontline policing and detective work, he appreciates the challenge of ensuring that half-baked ideas and ill-informed commentators are balanced with some common sense. A spokesman for front-line police at the coal-face, Greg is supported by a well-informed network of supportive members, and has continued both to alert and inform officials and the public on serious issues affecting police and public safety, and to provide a voice of reason in the often reactive and politicized environment of law and order. He believes the opportunity New Zealand has to be the safest destination to visit, do business and live in, is in danger of being squandered in the absence of a strategy to do that. As Chairman of Police Welfare Insurances, Health Insurance and Mortgages Boards, he also enjoys gaining an understanding of the realities of day-to-day to day business as head of an organization which owns its own Medical Insurance Scheme, 52 holiday homes, and administers the biggest group life insurance scheme in NZ.

Iain Saunders has been a member of Police for 17 years. In that time he has worked as a Detective, Armed Offenders Squad member and uniform member in both Auckland and Wellington cities. For the past five years he has been in a training role, and currently works as an Organisational Capability Development advisor for the Royal New Zealand Police College, specifically managing and monitoring the performance of Recruits in training. This role allows him to extend his academic interests in Industrial Psychology and apply them to his work for the benefit of Police. Iain has research interests in the fields of stress in Police work, including the effects of a non-English speaking background on training effectiveness, diversity and gender issues in Police and public sector ethics. He is also employed as a contract lecturer teaching a third year university paper in organisational psychology.

Chris Finlayson is a Member of Parliament from Wellington and the National Party’s Shadow Attorney-General, Spokesman on Arts Culture & Heritage, and Spokesman on Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations. He graduated from Victoria University with a BA in Latin and French and an LLM and has practised law in Wellington for over twenty-five years. He was a partner in Bell Gully from 1990 – 2002 and in 2003 became a barrister sole. Over the years, Chris has represented clients in all of New Zealand’s Courts and Tribunals, including nine appearances in the Privy Council. He is currently a member of the Rules Committee of the High Court. Chris served on Creative New Zealand’s Board for six years and Chaired the Arts Board from 1998 – 2001. He is currently a Trustee of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Foundation and is well known for his sponsorship of the arts.

Dr Elizabeth Rata is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education and Honorary Research Fellow in Political Studies at the University of Auckland. She was a Fulbright Senior Scholar to Georgetown University, Washington DC. Her internationally published research examines the politics and ideologies of ethnicity as major forces in contemporary social change, with a focus on the neotraditionalist strategies of emergent ethnicised elites. References to her published works and copies of recent speeches are available at http://www.education.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/education

Warren Reed. Following two years’ national service in the Australian Army, Warren studied at the University of Tasmania, graduating in political science and winning the university’s prize in international relations. Later, as an Australia-Japan Business Co-operation Committee Scholar, he carried out research on Japan’s relations with China and the rest of Asia in the Law Faculty of Tokyo University. He then worked for an Australian resources company in Japan, before being recruited into the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS).

After training with MI6 in London, he served as an intelligence officer for ten years in Asia and the Middle East. Later, he worked as a consultant to Australian firms operating in Asia, published a number of books on the region and also worked for three years as chief operating officer of the Committee for Economic Development of Australia. More recently, he has been occupied in writing, lecturing and commenting in the media on intelligence and security matters, as well as on the emergence of China and India as global players. A Sydney resident, he is also an adjunct professor in the School of Justice, Faculty of Law, Queensland University of Technology.

Mr Li (the family name) Dong, senior lecturer in Chinese at Massey University, Palmerston North, graduated from Shanghai International Studies University, beginning his teaching career shortly before the breakout of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), during which he was sent to factories and villages for “re-education”. In 1983 he won a British Council fellowship to study English lexicology and lexicography at Oxford University Press, was subsequently promoted to full professorship, and later visiting professor at Northern Arizona University, USA. A prominent protestor when the Chinese Government brutally suppressed the pro-democracy movement in Beijing in June 1989, he has published newspaper articles, and presented numerous conference papers and public lectures on current affairs in China. His latest publications are two Chinese dictionaries, which have received all five-star reviews at www.amazon.com. The beginning of this year saw the publication of his third Chinese dictionary (Tuttle Concise Chinese Dictionary).

Hal Gibson Pateshall Colebatch, BA(Hons) MA BJuris LLB PhD, is a writer, journalist, editor and lawyer. He has a PhD in Political Science and has a wide range of publications. His writing is internationally recognised, including six books of poetry and twelve short novels published or accepted for publication in the US. He has lectured and tutored at various universities in political and legal subjects. He has been admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of Western Australia and the High Court of Australia as a barrister and solicitor and as a barrister has had the conduct of major trials and appellant work. He has also had various executive positions in business and publishing and has worked on the staff of two Australian Federal Ministers. He was awarded an Australian Centenary Medal in 2003 for services to writing, poetry, the law and political commentary, the only person to receive an award for this combination of activities. He was Chairman of the Victoria League for Commonwealth Friendship in Western Australia, 2003-2006.