News of OGG - May 2022
Tuesday, 31 May 2022
News of OGG Matthew Ricketson (M'75), Ian Chesterman AM (A'76), Richard Marles (P'84), Simon Holmes à Court (P'89), Adriane Howell (Fr'03), James Crawley (P'05), Charlie Vickers-Willis (FB'10), Carl Tomczak (Fr'13), Thomas Hastings (Cu'15), Hamish Wynn-Pope (Cu'18), Ines Leckie (He'19), Angus O'Brien(Fr'20) and Star Rose Miller (He'21) is featured this month.



Matthew Ricketson (M'75)
Matthew has co-authored a defence of the national broadcaster, Who Needs the ABC? (Scribe, March 2022). With co-author Patrick Mullins, Matthew provides a comprehensive guide to the ABC (which celebrates its 90th anniversary this year) and all that it does, as well as a warning that our national broadcaster not be taken for granted. The book is “a compelling explanation of the combination of ideology and commercial self-interest which threatens the ABC and why they must not succeed,” according to Judith Brett, Emeritus Professor of politics at La Trobe University. The book contends that arguments of left-wing bias are largely overplayed, that a publicly funded broadcaster does much to cool down political radicalism by remaining a trusted source of news, and that the ABC remains one of the country’s biggest producers of cultural content. Matthew is currently a Professor of Communication at Deakin University. He was previously the inaugural Professor of Journalism at the University of Canberra (2009-2017) and ran the journalism program at RMIT for 11 years. He is the author of several books, including Upheaval – Disrupted lives in journalism (NewSouth Publishing, 2021) with Andrew Dodd (TT’80), and the biography of Australian children’s author Paul Jennings, The boy in the story is always me (Viking, 2000).  Matthew also assisted former Federal Court judge Ray Finkelstein QC in the Independent Media Inquiry that reported to the Federal Government in 2012. 




Ian Chesterman AM (A’76)  
Ian was elected as President of the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) in April, defeating triple Olympic medallist Mark Stockwell 67-26 in a vote of delegates at the AOC Annual General Meeting (AGM). Ian was first elected to the AOC Executive in 2001, becoming Vice President in 2016, and was made an AOC Life Member in 2018. He was Chef de Mission for the Australian Winter Olympic Teams at Nagano 1998, Salt Lake City 2002, Torino 2006, Vancouver 2010, Sochi 2014 and Pyeong Chang 2018. In 2021, Ian was Chef de Mission of the Australian Team at the Tokyo 2020 Summer Games, becoming the first Australian to head both a summer and winter Olympic Team, and the first to lead a total of seven Olympic teams. 

Ian becomes the seventh AOC President, succeeding John Coates, who stepped down after 32 years. “My vision for the Olympic movement is about making sure we continue to create opportunities for young Australians,” Ian said. “We really want to use this opportunity going forward to Brisbane, having built a fantastic platform in Tokyo, to drive our Olympic sports, to encourage kids to dream, not about becoming an AFL player or an NRL player, but becoming an Olympian.” Ian was the Executive Director of the Australian Ski Federation before founding communications and events company Sportcom in 1988, working with AFL Tasmania, Targa Tasmania and the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia.  




Richard Marles (P’84) 
Richard was sworn in as Australia’s 19th Deputy Prime Minister following the 2022 Australian federal election. Richard is expected to also serve as the Minister for Defence in the new Labor Government, led by Australia’s 31st Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese. Richard was almost immediately thrust into the role of Acting Prime Minister when Albanese flew to Tokyo for a meeting of the quadrilateral security dialogue (Quad) with the US, India and Japan. Richard said that being sworn in as Deputy PM was one of the highlights of his political life, “up there with the moment of entering the parliament” in 2007. “I feel very lucky to have been able to have the opportunity that I have,” he said. “The starting point of that is being able to represent the people of Geelong. Whatever else we do, the most significant thing for me is being the member for Corio. It’s particularly the case given this is the place where I’ve spent most of my life and where I grew up.” 

Whilst most sources trace the beginning of Richard’s political journey back to when he joined the Melbourne University Labor Club in his first week at university (where he went on to graduate with a Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Laws with Honours), others recall his active role in Debating at GGS. He reflected on his schooldays in a pre-election interview with the Sunday Herald Sun. “I loved my time at Geelong Grammar. I had a unique experience in that my father taught there, so it’s not just where I went to school, it is where I grew up. It had a wonderful sense of community. It had an incredible ability to find a place for every kid.” 
  
Richard has been the deputy leader of the Labor Party since 2019 and previously served as Deputy Leader of the Opposition. He was a Parliamentary Secretary from 2009 to 2013, and served as Minister for Trade in the second Rudd Government in 2013. He was a member of the Shadow Cabinet from Labor’s defeat at the 2013 election to their victory at the 2022 election. His appointments included Shadow Minister for National Reconstruction, Employment, Skills and Small Business, Shadow Minister for Science, Shadow Minister for Defence, and Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection.  




Simon Holmes à Court (P’89) 
Simon was another OGG active during the election campaign as the founder of Climate 200, a crowd-funding initiative that financially supported 23 independent political candidates, including Kylea Tink in North Sydney, Allegra Spender in Wentworth, Zoe Daniel in Goldstein, Dr Monique Ryan in Kooyong, and Dr Sophie Scamps in Mackellar. Simon established Climate 200 in the lead up to the 2019 election, frustrated by a perceived lack of meaningful government action on climate change, which he outlined in a 2018 article for The Guardian website about why the Liddell coal-fired power station in New South Wales should close. Climate 200 super-charged its fundraising and advocacy ahead of the 2022 election, raising more than $9 million from more than 11,000 donors from across all 151 electorates. Simon addressed the National Press Club in February to discuss the three criteria (action on climate, integrity, and gender diversity) for candidates to receive funding and support from Climate 200. He weathered a storm of media attention throughout the election campaign and said the subsequent result (6 independent candidates supported by Climate 200 were elected to the lower house) was “a moment to celebrate the success of these community independents and the support they have received across the country”. Simon has since indicated that Climate 200 would support candidates in Victoria’s November election and NSW’s election in March. “Climate 200 didn’t start the movement and we are only a small piece of the tapestry. But where we can help it along, we’ll be there.” 

After graduating from GGS, Simon studied computer science at Dartmouth College in the USA and began his career as a software engineer in Silicon Valley. He returned to Australia in 2001, working for his family’s Heytesbury Group, which owns a number of large cattle stations in Northern Australia, including the famous Victoria River Downs (referred to as ‘The Big Run’). Simon spent more than a decade in water management/precision agriculture, establishing a company (Observant) to develop remote water monitoring systems. He was a driving force behind the country’s first community-owned wind farm, Hepburn Wind, near Daylesford in Central Victoria, and became an energy analyst, investor and philanthropist. Simon is a director of the Smart Energy Council and is a senior advisor to the Climate and Energy College at the Energy Transition Hub at Melbourne University, which is a joint project between Melbourne University, the Australian National University (ANU) and three major German universities. 




Adriane Howell (Fr'03) 
Adriane’s debut fiction novel Hydra (Transit Lounge) https://transitlounge.com.au/shop/hydra/ is due for release in August. Hydra is a novel of dark suspense and mental disquiet, struck through with black humour. Adriane beguilingly explores notions of moral culpability, revenge, memory, and narrative – all through the female lens of freedom and constraint. 

"From the treacherous auction houses of Melbourne to the sun-struck islands of Greece, Hydra took me places I never expected to go. Adriane Howell writes with the dreamy precision of Marguerite Duras, the humour-laced disquiet of Patricia Highsmith. A fever dream of a debut – elegant, savage, and delightfully unhinged."  - Laura Elizabeth Woollett, author of Beautiful Revolutionary and The Newcomer 

Melbourne-based arts worker and writer who has lived in Paris and Johannesburg, Adriane graduated from the University of Melbourne with a Master of Creative Writing, Publishing and Editing in 2013. She is co-founder of the literary journal Gargouille.  http://www.gargouille.com.au/ 




James Crawley (P'05) 
A feature documentary Volcano Man will be premiering at this year's Melbourne International Film Festival in August. The film written and directed by James is produced by Good Thing Productions . 

James runs an independent advertising agency, Common Ventures, in Sydney and has done for the past decade. This film represents years of work as a creative passion project of his and it is expected to attract attention towards the end of the year along with mainstream distribution.   




Charlie Vickers-Willis (FB’10) 
Charlie will appear in the hugely anticipated Amazon series Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power in the role of Halbrand; a new character in the LOTR universe but one that is expected to play a major role in what is predicted to be the most expensive television series ever made. Charlie, who goes by Charlie Vickers, has appeared in Netflix’s Medici and 2019 Australian film Palm Beach, but The Rings of Power shapes as Charlie’s breakout role. He was School Captain in 2010 and received the Juan Jose Garcia Prize for Drama. 

You can see Charlie as Halbrand in The Rings of Power when it is released on Amazon Prime Video on September 2.  



 
Carl Tomczak (Fr'13), Thomas Hastings (Cu'15), Hamish Wynn-Pope (Cu'18) and Star Rose Miller (He'21)
Our OGG rowers performed brilliantly at the 2022 Australian Rowing Championships, held at Nagambie Lakes between March 28 and April 3. Representing the Barwon Rowing Club, Carl and Thomas each won three gold medals; in the Open Lightweight Men's Coxless Pair, Coxless Four and Coxless Eight. Hamish, representing the Melbourne University Boat Club, won gold in the Under 23 Men's Coxed Eight, while Star Rose won Gold as part of the Sydney Rowing Club's Under 21 Women's Coxed Four. 


 

Ines Leckie (He'19) 
In the Sydney ANZAC Day march on 25 April, Ines had the honour of joining her grandfather, ex-serviceman Ron Leckie who also celebrated his 100th birthday that same day. Ron, who served with 21 Squadron in WW2 was a navigator in a twin-engine Beaufighter based in Darwin (he learnt to fly on a Tiger Moth). He was the first person from his squadron to stand on Japanese soil. “The Beaufigher was a great aircraft; it brought me back with only one engine an hour and a half over the sea,” he said. 




Angus O’Brien (Fr’20) 
Angus completed his first season of collegiate golf at Seton Hall University earlier this month, contesting the NCAA Regional finals at Yale University between May 16-18 to round-out an exciting first year. With the top five schools advancing to the NCAA Finals, Seton Hall settled for an eighth-place finish in their season finale. 

The highlight of Angus’s season came at the Big East championships in late April. Seton Hall won the Big East title – contested by the 10 Big East member schools – for the first time in 22 years, with Angus finishing in a tie for sixth individually after shooting 2-under across three rounds.