Robert Victor Macklin (born 1941 in Brisbane) is an Australian author and journalist. He was educated at Ironside Primary School, Brisbane Grammar School and the Australian National University.
He began his writing career for the Courier-Mail in Brisbane, later moving to The Age in Melbourne, The Bulletin in Sydney and the Canberra Times in Canberra. In 1967 he became press secretary to Deputy Prime Minister John McEwen shortly before the death of Harold Holt when McEwen briefly became Prime Minister.
In 1974 while working in the Philippines at the Asian Development Bank he began writing both fiction and non-fiction books, beginning with the novel The Queenslander. Awarded a Commonwealth Writer's Fellowship, he returned to Australia in 1975 and wrote The Paper Castle (1978) and Juryman (1980), adapted by MGM to the film Storyville (1994) starring James Spader and Jason Robards.
His non-fiction work includes Seven Cities of Australia, Dark Paradise, Norfolk Island: Isolation, Savagery, Murder; 100 Great Australians, The Secret Life of Jesus, Jacka VC: Australian Hero, Fire in the Blood: The epic tale of Frank Gardiner and Australia's other bushrangers, Bravest: How Some of Australia's Greatest War Heroes Won Their Medals, the memoir War Babies, Kevin Rudd: The Biography, My Favourite Teacher, The Great Australian Pie, One False Move, SAS Sniper (with Rob Maylor), Redback One, SAS Insider, Warrior Elite, Hamilton Hume, Dragon & Kangaroo.
With Peter Thompson he co-authored The Battle of Brisbane, The Man Who Died Twice – the life and adventures of Morrison of China, Kill The Tiger, Keep Off the Skyline and The Big Fella: The Rise and Rise of BHP Billiton.
His awards include the Blake Dawson Prize for Business Literature (with Peter Thompson) in 2009, and Canberra Critics Circle awards for One False Move, Dark Paradise and Hamilton Hume - Our Greatest Explorer.
He is a graduate of the screen writing course of the Australian Film, Television and Radio School and has written and directed documentary films in 32 countries of Asia and the South Pacific. With producer Andrew Pike he has written the screenplay Barefoot on Australia’s only Chinese bushranger, Sam Poo.
Married to Wendy Macklin, he has two sons, and currently divides his time between Canberra and Tuross Head.
With Peter Thompson
Bushrangers were originally escaped convicts in the early years of the British settlement of Australia who used the bush as a refuge to hide from the authorities. By the 1820s, the term had evolved to refer to those who took up "robbery under arms" as a way of life, using the bush as their base.
The Special Air Service Regiment, officially abbreviated SASR though commonly known as the SAS, is a special forces unit of the Australian Army. Formed in 1957 as a company, it was modelled on the British SAS with which it shares the motto, "Who Dares Wins". Expanded to a regiment in August 1964, it is based at Campbell Barracks, in Swanbourne, a suburb of Perth, Western Australia, and is a direct command unit of the Special Operations Command.
Kevin Michael Rudd is an Australian diplomat and former politician who served as the 26th prime minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010 and June 2013 to September 2013. He held office as the leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). Rudd has been the 23rd and current ambassador of Australia to the United States since 2023.
Walter James Lewis AM is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, and coached in the 1980s and 1990s. He became a commentator for television coverage of the sport. A highly decorated Australian national captain, Lewis is widely regarded as one of the greatest ever players of rugby league. His time as a player and coach was followed by a career as a sports presenter for the Nine Network.
Air Vice Marshal Francis Hubert (Frank) McNamara, was an Australian recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest decoration for valour in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to a member of the British and Commonwealth forces. Serving with the Australian Flying Corps, he was honoured for his actions on 20 March 1917, when he rescued a fellow pilot who had been forced down behind enemy lines. McNamara was the first Australian aviator—and the only one in World War I—to receive the Victoria Cross. He later became a senior commander in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).
Edward "Teddy" Sheean, was a sailor in the Royal Australian Navy during the Second World War. Born in Tasmania, Sheean was employed as a farm labourer when he enlisted in the Royal Australian Naval Reserve in April 1941. Following training at HMAS Derwent and the Flinders Naval Depot, he was posted to Sydney, where he joined the newly commissioned corvette HMAS Armidale in June 1942. Sheean served aboard Armidale as she took part in escort duties along the eastern Australian coast and in New Guinea waters. In October he transferred with the ship to Darwin, where Armidale was tasked with assisting Australian operations in Timor.
Australian rules football in Queensland was the first official football code played in 1866. The Colony of Queensland was the second after Victoria to adopt Australian rules football, just days after the rules were widely published. For two decades it was the most popular football code, however a strong desire for representative football success saw Queenslanders favour British football variants for more than a century. As a result, Queensland is one of the two states to the east of the Australian cultural divide described as the Barassi Line. 120 years later in 1986 Queensland was the first state awarded a licence to have a club, the Brisbane Bears, in the national (AFL) competition, also its first privately owned club. However the Gold Coast based Bears had a detrimental effect until the 1993 redevelopment of the Brisbane Cricket Ground (Gabba). In contrast the Bears transformation into a Brisbane and traditional membership based club resulted in enormous growth, and a tripling of average AFL attendances by 1996.
Australia was a member of the international coalition which contributed military forces to the 1991 Gulf War, also known as Operation Desert Storm. More than 1,800 Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel were deployed to the Persian Gulf from August 1990 to September 1991, while contingents from the Royal Australian Navy circulated through the region in support of the sanctions against Iraq until November 2001. In August 1990, two frigates HMAS Adelaide and HMAS Darwin and the replenishment ship HMAS Success left for the Persian Gulf. HMAS Success had no air defences, so the Army 16th Air Defence Regiment was embarked. On 3 December 1990, HMAS Brisbane and HMAS Sydney (IV) relieved HMAS Adelaide and HMAS Darwin. On 26 January 1991, HMAS Westralia replaced HMAS Success. A Navy clearance diving team was also deployed for explosive ordnance disposal and demolition tasks. Australian ships were in danger of sea mines and possible air attacks. In a number of recorded incidents, HMAS Brisbane encountered free floating mines, on one occasion narrowly avoiding a collision. Both HMA Ships Brisbane and Sydney encountered significant air threat warnings from Iran and Iraq throughout the initial period of the commencement of the Desert Storm Campaign. The detection of land based Silkworm anti-ship missiles from Iran throughout the campaign also added to the challenges for both crews as well as the multi-national Naval Forces.
Sam Poo was a Chinese bushranger in Australia who was active in New South Wales during early 1865. Poo emigrated to Australia in the early 1860s during the gold rush. Being an unsuccessful miner, he turned to bushranging. He robbed travellers on the Gulgong–Mudgee for several weeks. On 3 February 1865, Poo killed Senior Constable John Ward, who was looking for him. After the murder of Ward, the New South Wales Police organised a large-scale manhunt, which lasted two weeks and resulted in Poo being arrested and seriously injured during his arrest.
The Victoria Cross for Australia is the highest award in the Australian honours system, superseding the British Victoria Cross for issue to Australians. The Victoria Cross for Australia is the "decoration for according recognition to persons who in the presence of the enemy, perform acts of the most conspicuous gallantry, or daring or pre-eminent acts of valour or self-sacrifice or display extreme devotion to duty."
Anthony Lister is a contemporary Australian artist. Lister helped pioneer the street art movement in his home city as a teenager. His artistic style employs charcoal, acrylic, spray paint, and oil. His exhibitions include those held at the Urban Spree Gallery in Berlin, Robert Fontaine Gallery in Miami, Allouche Gallery in New York, Olsen Gallery in Sydney and Black Art Projects in Melbourne.
High-speed rail in Australia has been under investigation since the early 1980s. Every Federal Government since this time has investigated the feasibility of constructing high-speed rail with speeds above 200 km/h, but to date nothing has ever gone beyond the detailed planning stage. The most commonly suggested route is between Australia's two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, which, as of 2023, is the world's sixth busiest air corridor. Various corridors have been proposed for a potential high-speed line. The distance between them is around 800 km (500 miles), which requires very high speeds to make trains competitive with air travel.
Ross Gregory Garnaut is an Australian economist, currently serving as a vice-chancellor's fellow and professorial fellow of economics at the University of Melbourne. He is the author of numerous publications in scholarly journals on international economics, public finance and economic development, particularly in relation to East Asia and the Southwest Pacific.
Radioactive ores were first extracted in South Australia at Radium Hill in 1906 and Mount Painter in 1911. 2,000 tons of ore were treated to recover radium for medical use. Several hundred kilograms of uranium were also produced for use in ceramic glazes.
Carl Adolph Feilberg, also spelt Carl Adolf Feilberg, was a Danish-born Australian journalist, newspaper editor, general political commentator, and Indigenous rights activist.
The Gillard government was the Government of Australia led by the 27th Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, of the Australian Labor Party. The Gillard government succeeded the first Rudd government by way of the Labor Party leadership spill, and began on 24 June 2010, with Gillard sworn in as Prime Minister by the Governor-General of Australia, Quentin Bryce. The Gillard government ended when Kevin Rudd won back the leadership of the Australian Labor Party on 26 June 2013 and commenced the second Rudd government.
The Long Range Patrol Vehicle (LRPV) is a 6x6 patrol vehicle that was used by the Australian Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Norfolk Island convict mutinies were a series of armed uprisings by convicts on the penal colony of Norfolk Island, Australia. All were unsuccessful.
Triumph and Demise: The broken promise of a Labor generation is a 2014 book which chronicles the rise and fall of the Australian Labor Party governments of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard (2007-2013) by the Australian author and journalist Paul Kelly.
Herbert Felix Farnworth is an English professional rugby league footballer contracted to play as a centre for the Dolphins in the National Rugby League (NRL) from 2024 onwards.