Foundation Executive Director of Brisbane Institute sets direction
Professor Peter Botsman has returned to Queensland to lead a new community forum which is expected to establish Brisbane at the forefront of public debate in Australia.
Professor Botsman, formerly Head of Public Health at the University of Western Sydney (Macarthur) has been appointed foundation Executive Director of the Brisbane Institute, launched on March 2.
His appointment has been made possible through the new Institute's major sponsor, the University of Queensland, which has appointed him a professor of the University and seconded him to the Institute for a five-year term. Sponsors of the Institute also include Queensland Newspapers and the Brisbane City Council.
The Institute, a new development for Queensland, is an independent, non-partisan public issues forum dedicated to stimulating open, informed discussion and debate matters of importance.
"Brisbane's ?coming of age' coincides with a need in Australia for a new public policy consensus," Professor Botsman said.
"We must develop a new consensus about the role of government and the role of the market in Australia and this will force people in all areas of public policy to adjust their ideas. The Brisbane Institute will be a leader in this all important debate and will inject some new thinking that is currently lacking in mainstream Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra circles.
"Queenslanders have often supplemented public investment with community voluntarism and private know-how to get things done. That spirit is what is so badly needed to revive the trust of a contemporary Australia that is alienated from big government and unfettered markets.
"Our task will be to develop speakers, research projects and seminars that are outside the ?ideological box'. We will be looking for people who can offer a fresh approach, new ideas and innovative solutions and we will search the nation and internationally to bring them to Brisbane.
"It is also important for the Brisbane Institute to develop its own research agenda and to enlist the support of its academic, corporate and government partners in this process. The true role of a think tank is to develop ideas, not just broadcast received ideas, so that is what we must try to do", Professor Botsman said.
Professor Botsman has a broad, interdisciplinary academic background. He graduated Bachelor of Arts from Cornell University/Griffith University in 1977 and completed his Honours thesis on Manning Clark's A History of Australia. After gaining a Diploma of Education from the University of Melbourne, majoring in teaching in disadvantaged schools, he completed a Master of Philosophy degree at Griffith University on three contemporary philosophers Althusser, Foucault and Donzelot. Professor Botsman's PhD, awarded by the University of NSW in 1987, examined the interplay of sexual and social morality in the history of clinical medicine and social government.
Botsman has made a dynamic contribution to Australian public policy debate through his authorship of a number of books and reports on topics as diverse as population aging, State government finances, unemployment, health policy and privatisation. His academic career has included appointments at the University of New South Wales, University of Technology and as deputy chair of Academic Board at the University of Western Sydney (Macarthur).
His research secondments and fellowships have included the City University of New York, National Academy of the Economy, Moscow and the Mid West Centre, Chicago. He was a Harkness Fellow in 1991 and Executive Director of the Evatt Foundation from 1988 to 1996.
Further information contact:
Professor Peter Botsman (07) 3220-2198 (office) 0417-238-985 (mobile)
UQ Vice-Chancellor Professor John Hay (07) 3365-1300
