...to create a safer world, a fairer world, a more sustainable world...
OFFICERS AND BOARD
President: (Dr) Chris Hamer
Chris Hamer is Honorary Associate Professor in the School of Physics, University of New South Wales. He was active in Scientists Against Nuclear Arms (SANA) (now Scientists for Global Responsibility) of which he is now President, in a caretaker role. He is the founder of the World Citizens Association of Australia. He teaches a general studies course on “Nuclear Arms, Peace and Global Governance”, and has written a book on the topic of ‘A Global Parliament: Principles of World Federation’ (available through Amazon).
Email: C.Hamer@unsw.edu.au
Vice-President, Bangladesh Aid Project: (Dr) Wali Islam
Abul Wali Islam obtained a PhD in Health Science from the University of New South Wales in 1997. He is the Founder and Director of Study Support Australia where he mentors and supports tertiary students with special interest in his PhD programs in health science and education. He is also Vice-President of the World Citizens Association of Australia, and Director of the Aid Project in Bangladesh.
Email: a.islam@UNSWalumni.com
Immediate Vice-President, Asia-Pacific Engagement: (Dr) Zeny Edwards OAM
Zeny Edwards is an architectural historian, award-winning biographer and cultural heritage advocate. Zeny served in various lead roles: as president of the National Trust of Australia (NSW); chair of UN Women Australia (NSW); trustee of Women’s Plans Foundation; and immediate president of the Australian Council for Human Rights Education and immediate vice-president of WCAA. She was a committee member of the Australian Peacekeeping Memorial Project (ACT) and joined the United Nations Association of Australia in 2013 and retired her position as Director of the UNAA Peace Program in 2018. She currently serves as President of the Institute for Global Peace and Sustainable Governance, Coordinator of International Relations for Australian Graduate Women and Director of Museum of Understanding through Tolerance and Inclusion. Zeny is committed to serving the community and the preservation of heritage, which formed the basis of her citation for the Order of Australia Medal Award.
Email:zedwards.igpsg@gmail.com
Treasurer: Nadia Toumi
Toumi is a former Board member of the Australian Institute for International Affairs (1985-1995). Ms. Toumi holds a career in IT Engineering with large corporations such as IBM USA (1983-1993) and OKI Japan (1993-2002). Nadia states "I feel accountable for my influence on the world, and I want to bring about structural change, peace, progress, and happiness for everyone because I am sympathetic to issues and suffering everywhere. I don't consider myself to be a citizen of just one nation, but of the entire planet. Developing into a World Citizen is vital for everyone and developing one's own grasp of International Affairs is one benefit of being a World Citizen. Respect for human rights and cultural diversity characterise a World Citizen."
Director of Education: (Dr) Daryl Le Cornu
Daryl Le Cornu is currently a history curriculum lecturer at the Australian Catholic University. He has had many years experience teaching history and legal studies in state schools in New South Wales. His last position in the NSW Department of Education was as the Senior Curriculum Officer for History at the Curriculum Directorate (2011-2012). As a high school teacher Daryl was a passionate supporter of student-led human rights groups. Daryl is an author of the Cambridge Legal Studies textbooks for the Preliminary and the HSC courses. His main areas of interest are peace groups in WW1, contemporary history, human rights, international law, world order, global governance and geopolitics. He is committed to teaching high school students.
Email: djlecornu@hotmail.com
Executive Director and Secretary: (Mr) Luiz Bispo
Luiz Bispo is a Brazilian-World Citizen. He has joined WCAA in 2018. He has a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from Torrens University Australia. He is a member of the World Constitution and Parliament Association (WCPA) and the World Security Community of Democratic Nations (WSC). In 2014, he was awarded with a full scholarship to study social, political and environmental related subjects at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). Luiz started to be involved in world citizenship initiatives when working as volunteer for the United Nations Association of Australia (UNAA). Among other initiatives and engagements, Luiz is also one of the delegates of the "UNESCO's Man and Biosphere Programme".
Email: luizfbispo03@gmail.com
Founding Director: Model Global Parliament Program: (Dr) Pera Wells
Pera Wells is a former Australian diplomat whose postings to Africa, the United Nations in New York, the Commonwealth Secretariat in London and to India inspired her to think deeply about how people in Australia, living in a multicultural, ethnically diversified, essentially egalitarian, democratic country on one continent, could help to start a conversation about the possibility of creating a global parliament. Her last appointment was as the Secretary-General of the World Federation of United Nations Associations, so she brings to the Association the hands-on experience of running a global civil society organization as well as a sense of pragmatic idealism about the future possibilities for democratic and inclusive global governance. She is the founder and Director of the Model Global Parliament program.
Life Members
Michelle Cavanagh
Michelle Cavanagh is a long time feminist and retired businesswoman who graduated with a BA, majoring in English and History, from Macquarie University. Michelle is President of the Dickens Society of Australia and is a member of various organisations including the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Amnesty International, Pennant Hills Peace Group and the NSW History Council. She has been a member of the World Citizens Association since its inception when she became the society’s Treasurer. Michelle’s biography entitled “Margaret Holmes: The Life and Times of an Australian Peace Campaigner” was published in 2006. She served as Treasurer of the WCA from its foundation until 2015, and remains on the Council.
Email: michcav@gmail.com
Michael de Mol
Michael de Mol is retired after nearly 30 years as a Senior Technical Officer at the University of New South Wales, initially in the School of Geology, and then in the School of Biological, Environmental and Earth Sciences when the two Departments merged. He is currently living on the Mid North Coast of NSW and is undertaking a Bachelor of Sustainability with the University of New England, Armidale. He is also a member of the Baha'i Faith, and a long-term campaigner for peace and better global governance. He served as Secretary of the WCA from its beginning until 2015, as well as assisting with the Aid Project, and he remains on the Council. Email: mdotdemol@hotmail.com
Radhiga Dey
Rada Dey was born in India, raised in the Middle East and now calls Australia home. She has Masters degrees in Public Administration and Psychology. She has worked as a Management Consultant, and is currently a Public Servant of the NSW State government. She works with vulnerable children, families and communities at the frontline of Child Protection services.
Zeny Edwards
Zeny Edwards is Immediate Vice-President - see above
Peter Davidse
Peter Davidse learned about world federalism and world citizenship during his service as draft military officer in the army of the Netherlands. It is much better for mankind to organize itself in a democratic, hierarchical way. Let parliaments and courts speak, not arms and military forces.
He has a masters degree in macro economics with his thesis on the idea of Pieter Kooistra on alleviating poverty by 'An additional basic income organized and distributed by the United Nations Organization'. And a bachelor degree in Information technology.
Work: Teacher, director of World Federalist Beweging Nederland - WFBN (1992-2000), ICT programmer and consultant.
He presently lives in Paris, France. At 60 years of age he became life member of WCAA because he believes it will take at least several decades for democratic world government by world citizens to become reality, but it can be attained in the 21st century.
Peter Grullemans
Peter Grullemans was born in Singapore of Dutch background. He trained in marketing (BCom), theology (Dip Min) and professional accountancy (MCom), now providing tax agency services and the audit of self-managed superannuation funds. He is a fellow of the National Tax and Accountants
Association (NTAA), a member of the Australian Institute of International Affairs (AIIA), the Independent Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN), the Sydney West Peace Group (SWPG), the Society for the Study of
Early Christianity (SSEC) and a supporter of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). He is passionately committed to helping Australians do better than cowering to the irrational and
materialistic fear that our government upholds in its international alliances.
Daniel Blewitt - dtblewitt@gmail.com
Co-Founder of the Young World Federalists, Daniel is a passionate supporter of the cause of World Federalism having gotten started in 2014 with his own project the 'United Republic of Humankind'.
Working now with the highest levels of the WFM regularly and expanding the membership of the YWF, Daniel hopes to fundamentally reinvent the popular brand of World Federalism. Daniel also hosts a podcast that releases weekly, and deals specifically with the topic of human unification and the future.
As a full-time professional salesperson, he tries to find time to squeeze everything in for the movement where he can.
Honorary Life Members
John Hegarty
John Hegarty has been passionate about a more peaceful and cooperative society since his early teenage years. He is an octogenarian and has many decades of experience in community groups and roles in education including teacher, Principal and School Counsellor covering K to Year 12 and TAFE. He is an ‘aspiring elder’. He describes himself as “Teacher, counsellor, dreamer, achiever, ordinary, extraordinary & unique. Just like you!” Re all people, he quotes “It’s not them and us, it’s just us”. He has written an inspiring affirmation of world citizenship which is recited by MPs at our Model Global Parliaments.
Advisory Board
Dr. Keith Suter
Keith Suter is (among many other titles) Consultant on Social Policy, Wesley Mission, Sydney, and Vice-President of the International Commission of Jurists (NSW). He was awarded the Australian Government’s Peace Medal in 1986, the International Year of Peace. He is the author of “A New International Order” (1981), and “Reshaping the Global Agenda” (1986), among other titles.
Bob Brown
Acclaimed author, photographer and lifelong activist, Bob Brown rose to prominence when he led the campaign to save the Franklin River in the 1980s. After 10 years in the Tasmanian Parliament, Bob was elected to the Senate in 1996 where he served for 16 years. In 2003 he unsuccessfully moved for the Senate to back global democracy. He was leader of the Australian Greens from 2005 to 2012, when he retired from the parliament to establish the Bob Brown Foundation.
Liliane Metz-Krencker
Liliane is the founder of our World Citizens Australian Association along with Dr Chris Hamer our current President and is now a life member of our Australian Association. Liliane settled in Australia for her retirement, after a long career in Gynaecology and family planning across the globe, working with USAID and John Hopkins University in Africa, Americas, Kazakhstan and Asia. She also worked with AUSAID in the Pacific to promote healthy and balanced families across cultures. She was the General Secretary of the French World Citizens Association for which she is still active remotely. She was also the Vice President of the World Movement for Global Democracy Steering Committee in India, and the former President of the People's Congress. Also, very active in the Founding and Executive Committee of Global Citizens for Peace, in Melbourne.
State Contacts
New South Wales
Daryl Le Cornu - djlecornu@hotmail.com
Chris Hamer – C.Hamer@unsw.edu.au
Luiz Bispo - luizfbispo03@gmail.com
(Board Members - see above)
Victoria
Michael Ellis - mindquest@ozemail.com
Daniel Blewitt - dtblewitt@gmail.com (Life Member - see above)
Queensland
(Dr) James Page <jamessmithpage@hotmail.com>
An Australian educationist and anthropologist, and a recognized authority within the field of peace education. He is an Adjunct Professor with the University of New England, Armidale, and also works in teacher education with Australian Catholic University, Brisbane. [The photograph for this profile is licensed CC-BY]
Richard Mochelle <rmochelle@gmail.com>
Concern for global problems led Richard to abandon his architectural career in 1982 and pursue ethically-oriented, system-changing imperatives. Following a decade of experimentation in world futures education he returned to university to study political, economic and environmental ethics. Completing a PhD on global responsibility and constitutionalism (accessible online), he subsequently lectured in global ethics and systems design. His abiding obsession: the categorical imperative and its implicit
transformative call to co-constitute and develop a globally responsible civilisation, bringing it forth not by political imposition, nor by efforts to persuade UN authorities, but with integrity. He challenges cosmopolites to 'be the change', to co-constitute and experimentally develop a prefigurative culture, an exemplar, service-based, cosmopolitan civic organization, planting it within the current world as an act of social entrepreneurship.
Western Australia
Crawford Yorke – crawfordyorke@yahoo.com.au
Tasmania
Nigel Davidson <nigel.j.davidson@gmail.com>
Nigel has been in practice as a barrister with Michael Kirby Chambers in Hobart, Tasmania since
November 2016. He is an international law specialist, and his practice includes taking cases
before international law bodies such as the United Nations Human Rights Committee and the
World Trade Organisation. He has appeared before all levels of the Tasmanian judicial system,
weaving human rights arguments into his advocacy. Nigel has a doctorate from the Australian
National University on the topic of "blood diamonds" and the response of the international
legal system to deal with it. His undergraduate degrees are from the University of Tasmania.
Nigel worked in the Australian public sector in the early 2000s, working on ground-breaking
legislation such as the International Criminal Court Act 2002 (Cth) and the Human Rights Act
2004 (ACT). In 2007, he interned with the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the
Former Yugoslavia in the Netherlands, and later that year started a decade of work with the
United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Tanzania. He worked with the
UNICTR initially as a judge's associate and subsequently as a Prosecution appeals counsel. Nigel
has a variety of extra-curricular interests including classical violin, community theatre and
motorcycle riding. He is a passionate supporter of global democracy, also known as world
federalism.
