Welcoming Christopher Sheil

As you’ll notice from the entry immediately below, Christopher Sheil has joined the co-blogger team at Troppo Armadillo. As many readers will be aware, Chris has been a frequent and valued comment box contributor to numerous blogs over the last couple of months, and I thought his talent and scholarship well and truly warranted greater blogospherical prominence. Chris is a well known “public intellectual” and his joining the ranks of ozploggers provides further confirmation that blogging is rapidly becoming a respected and even indispensible component of Australian mass media.

Chris’s numerous academic and other commitments mean that he almost certainly won’t be anywhere near as frequent a contributor as Geoff Honnor, Wayne Wood or myself. However, any level of contribution is welcome as far as I’m concerned. Moreover, as a self-appointed centrist I think it’s important to maintain a degree of ideological balance on the blog. As both Geoff and I tend to lean (almost imperceptibly and very tastefully) to the right on some issues, Chris’s strongly labour-leaning orientation provides an intellectual counterweight that I think will prove beneficial.

Here is a short bio-grab stolen shamelessly from the Evatt Foundation website (as is Chris’s photo at right):

Chris is a Senior Research Fellow in the School of History at the University of New South Wales. Awarded a PhD in history by the University of Wollongong in 1989, he has served as a senior policy official under many Labor and Coalition governments, serving on numerous cabinet and national policy committees, including the 1990-91 Special Premiers’ Conferences. A columnist for the Australian Financial Review, he also holds adjunct appointments with the University of Sydney and Boston University, and is the author, contributing author or editor of over 130 publications, including: Globalisation: Australian Impacts (ed) (UNSW Press, 2001), Water’s Fall: Running the Risks with Economic Rationalism (Pluto Press, 2000), War on the Wharves: A Cartoon History (Pluto Press, 1998), and Turning Point: The State of Australia (ed) (Allen & Unwin, 1997).