"There is No Justification for Risking Australian Lives in Afghanistan"

Kellie Tranter is a lawyer and commentator who ran as an Independent candidate for the NSW seat of Maitland.

Kellie has practiced as lawyer for more than a decade and established a legal practice in her home town of Maitland in 2003. She stood as an Independent candidate for Maitland at the 2011 NSW election after proudly accepting an unsolicited endorsement of her candidature by anti-corruption fighter John Hatton AO.

She has delivered addresses and chaired workshops on issues like climate change and human rights at local and international conferences, including speeches aimed at empowering women globally. Her activism has been acknowledged by the Womens' Electoral Lobby.

Kellie has been a regular contributor of political and social commentary - particularly in relation to the war in Afghanistan - to various public affairs websites such as ABC’s The Drum, National Times and Online Opinion.

Peter Singer is a philosopher and author of over 25 books on ethics. He is best known for Animal Liberation, widely credited with starting the animal rights movement. Peter Singer was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1946 ...

Raoul Heinrichs is a scholar, editor of the Lowy Institute’s Strategic Snapshots and former foreign and security adviser to Kevin Rudd while in opposition.

Raoul is a Sir Arthur Tange doctoral scholar at the Australian National University’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre. Raoul edits the Lowy Institute’s ‘Strategic Snapshots’ series and is a former Lowy Institute research associate. He is the founding coordinator of the Institute’s MacArthur Asia Security Project and, before that, the Institute’s inaugural Michael and Deborah Thawley scholar in international security, with a research placement at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC. In 2007, Raoul worked on foreign and security policy in the office of then Opposition Leader, Kevin Rudd.

Eva Cox has been an academic, political adviser, public servant, and runs a small research and policy consultancy. A sociologist by trade, she promotes ideas widely and eclectically in books, on line, in journals and other media.

Eva was born Eva Hauser in Vienna in 1938, and was soon declared stateless by Hitler so grew up as a refugee in England, till 1946, Italy and then Australia from age 10. She remembers being cross in kindergarten that boys were offered drums, and girls the tambourine or triangle. All these early experiences primed her political activism and made her an irrepressible advocate for making societies fairer.

She is an unabashed feminist and passionately promotes inclusive, diverse and equitable ways of living together. She was the ABC Boyer Lecturer (1995) on making societies more civil. Her 1996 book Leading Women explained why women who made a difference were usually labelled as difficult, a label she wears.

Eva has been recognised in various ways: Australian Humanist of the Year, a Distinguished Alumnus at UNSW and an Edna Grand Stirrer award. She also stirs through being a Professional Fellow of the Centre for Policy Development and as a Research Fellow at Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning (UTS). She was recently honoured by being picked for a postage stamp as an Australian legend.

Her present project is to engage us in making the societies we live in more civil by setting good social goals via economic means, not gross growth.

Sonia Ziaee is an Afghani businesswoman, Flinders University student, and Afghani student community activist.

Sonia was born in 1984 in Kabul, Afghanistan. Due to the war in her country, she and her family had to flee to Pakistan twice, where she completed her schooling. Sonia is the only female director on the board of directors of an Afghani logistics company. She joined the company in 2006, and has remained a virtual employee since her arrival in Australia in 2009. She also serves voluntarily as president of the Flinders University Afghan Union, helping Afghan students in promoting their academic skills. Sonia is a volunteer member of the Association of Australian Tertiary Students from Afghanistan (AATSA).

Previously Sonia has worked at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) for four years as a lead instructor, teaching computer and networking skills to over 300 Afghani women. Following her degree in accounting, Sonia plans to complete a Masters degree in international relations and international law. Sonia has spoken at fundraising events for the organisations Zonta Intentional Inc. and Support Association for the Women of Afghanistan (SAWA) and has been awarded scholarships including IDP Peace Scholarship, Cisco Systems Inc. Scholarship, Flinders Business School Scholarship, and Flinders Housing Scholarship.

Jim Molan is a retired major-general of the Australian armed forces who, from 2004, oversaw a multinational force of some 300,000 troops in Iraq as the country undertook the first democratic elections after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Jim is the best-selling author of Running the War in Iraq. In 2009 he was named Australian Thinker of the Year. He is a commentator on security and military issues in the Australian print and electronic media and writes regularly for a number of journals. He teaches operational art at the Australian Defence College, is a principal of a company facilitating access to Australian defence technology grants, and is a director of the Saint James Ethics Centre.

As a soldier Jim was an infantryman, an Indonesian linguist, a helicopter pilot, and a commander of army units from a thirty man platoon to a division of 15,000 soldiers. He retired from the Australian army in July 2008 after a 40-year career that included high-level appointments in operations, training and diplomacy.

Jim studied arts at the University of New South Wales and economics at the University of Queensland. He is a graduate of the ADF School of Languages where he studied Indonesian. He maintains an active interest in aviation and is also a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (FAICD).