The CAS23 Speakers
The Hon John Anderson AC FTSE is a sixth-generation farmer and grazier from North-West New South Wales, who spent 19 years from 1989 in the Australian Parliament. This included six years as Leader of the National Party and Deputy Prime Minister as a member of the reformist government led by John Howard. The Liberal-National Party coalition oversaw enormous economic reform, including taxation modernisation and the maintenance of a string of budget-surpluses, which resulted in the Australian government leaving a cash surplus when it left office in 2007.
John’s recent contributions to public debate have included his Conversations YouTube and podcast series, where he interviews various thought leaders from around the world. His interviews have now been viewed and listened to millions of times and the influence they have on the wider debate is growing all the time.
John is also active in the not-for-profit sector and has been a sought-after speaker in both Australia and abroad. On leaving politics, Anderson, known as a man of simple Christian faith, was saluted by figures on both sides with overflowing praise; the then Prime Minister John Howard extolling: “I have not met a person with greater integrity in public life”.
Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price is a vibrant contradiction of the racist worldview that all members of an ethnic identity group must share the same politics.
Jacinta was elected as the Deputy Mayor of Alice Springs and served that council since 2015. She’s fought hard to improve the lives of Indigenous kids and tackled the tough issues that face our community, like domestic violence. Jacinta has been working to practically bridge the gap between outcomes for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in the Northern Territory, especially in remote communities, for nearly two decades.
Jacinta was elected to the Australian Commonwealth Parliament as a Senator for the Northern Territory last year, and has taken the fight for children and families to Canberra. Her purpose is to fearlessly pull back the covers of permitted conversations and ensure we take a cold, hard look at the difficult truth to aid finding realistic solutions to the toughest issues.
Senator Malcolm Roberts puts the cat of common sense among the pigeons of preferred narratives, asking piercing questions that hold bureaucrats and governments to account. His passion for freedom, responsibility and service are his guiding principles in his work as a Senator for Queensland. He was first elected in 2016 and returned to the Federal Senate again in 2019.
Committed to removing excessive government intervention and optimising our productive capacity, Malcolm promotes Australians’ ability to take responsibility and have freedom in our lives by halting the slow march towards centralisation.
George Christensen MP is served four terms as the increasingly popular Federal Member for Dawson (Qld). He’s also had a career as a local councillor, community newspaper publisher and journalist, and now edits one of Australia’s most subscribed daily, political newsletters.
He is continuing as a fearless campaigner for real justice and God-given freedoms, against tyranny and globalism, and is host of a new 3 hour TNT radio show on Sunday afternoons with a large global audience.
Topher Field is an independent political commentator, multi-award-winning documentary director, Libertarian of the Year, and was one of Australia’s first online independent journalists having started his YouTube channel back in the dark ages of 2009.
By far his proudest professional achievements are the two criminal charges he was awarded by Victoria Police for his role in standing up for human rights during Premier Dan Andrews’ draconian Covid lockdowns, criminal charges he is still fighting to this day.
Raised as an obedient Conservative and the law abiding son-of-a-preacher-man, Topher has undergone a transformation to be one of Australia’s leading Christian libertarian advocates for civil disobedience and for doing what is right even when your government is wrong. Today Topher lives by the motto, “Good people break bad laws.“
Dr Stephen Chavura is an audience favourite at many past CAS Summits. He is an in-demand speaker, teacher, and author who has (co)written three books and written many articles for The Australian and the Spectator Australia. He researches and teaches the history of Western civilisation and is Senior Lecturer in history at Campion College, Sydney – Australia’s first liberal arts college.
Stephen holds a Ph.D. in the history of early-modern English political thought. His research interests include the history of political thought, Church and state in history, modern political philosophy, recognition theory, and freedom of speech.
Joel Jammal is an independent media personality & conservative commentator, heading up Turning Point Australia. He’s a proud Christian Australian of Syrian/Lebanese descent promoting respectful dialogue and intellectual honesty.
Turning Point Australia is the vehicle that Joel operates to better educate people for elections, increase awareness on under-reported stories. They are also taking back universities with their first Turning Point Chapter launched at Macquarie University.
Kirralie Smith is an activist for justice and truth in the public square who speaks fearlessly about the inherent differences between boys and girls, men and women. She was recently kicked off one social media platform for challenging a local soccer administrator over his dangerous inclusion of men in a women’s only competition. As the founder and national spokeswoman of Binary, Kirralie challenges the aggressive agenda to remove biological sex from education, health, politics and law, and protects children from those who would seek to indoctrinate them.
Prof Augusto Zimmermann is Professor of Law and Head of Law at the Sheridan Institute of Higher Education, Perth. He is also Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame Australia, Sydney campus. In addition, Professor Zimmermann is a former Law Reform Commissioner with the Law Reform Commission of Western Australian (2012-2017) and a former Associate Dean (Research) and Postgraduate Research Director at Murdoch University’s School of Law.
Professor Zimmermann is also the founder and President of the Western Australian Legal Theory Association (WALTA), a former Vice-President of the Australasian Society of Legal Philosophy (ASLP), an Elected Fellow at the International Academy for the Study of the Jurisprudence of the Family, and Editor-in-Chief of the Western Australian Jurist law journal.
Professor Zimmermann is a fierce advocate of the Rule of Law, contributing with an important book on the subject edited by the-then President of the American Bar Association (ABA). He is the author/co-author/editor/co-
James Macpherson is a sought-after speaker and commentator. He writes daily for Rebel News, a weekly column for Sky News, and a twice weekly column for The Spectator. He appeared on Sky TV last year as a political commentator on The World According to Rowan Dean and this year has been given his own nightly show, The Late Debate.
Professor Gabriël A. Moens AM is Emeritus Professor of Law, The University of Queensland. He served as Pro Vice Chancellor, Dean and Professor of Law, Murdoch University; Head, Graduate School of Law, The University of Notre Dame Australia; Garrick Professor of Law, The University of Queensland; and Professor of Law, Curtin University. He was a Visiting Professor of Law at J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University, and at Loyola University, New Orleans.
In 1999, Professor Moens received the Australian Award for University Teaching in Law and Legal Studies. In 2003, the Prime Minister of Australia awarded him the Australian Centenary Medal for services to education. He was named the “International Alumnus of the Year” by the Pritzker Law School of Northwestern University in 2019. In June 2019 he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for services to the law and higher education. Professor Moens is a Member of the International Academy of Comparative Law, Paris; a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management (WA); a Fellow of the College of Law; a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law; and a Fellow of the Australian Centre for International Commercial Arbitration (ACICA).
Gabriël also authors novels, short stories, and opinion pieces. His debut novel, A Twisted Choice, is a thriller about the origins of the COVID-19 virus, published in October 2020. The Coincidence was published in November 2021. His most recent short story, The Assistant Librarian’s Ambition, was published last year.
Ps Todd Weatherly is a church planter and pastor’s pastor, founding Field of Dreams Church in Adelaide with his wife Rachel. A brilliant communicator, he has never shied away from prophetically preaching Truth to power in the pulpit or in his many private opportunities throughout business and politics. Though faithfully nonpartisan, he has been instrumentally used of God to help renew the South Australian Liberal Party membership democratically and organically, helping save the party in that state (without blind support).
Ps Joshua Pellowe is the senior pastor at Kingdom Hope, Logan. He has a Bachelor of Ministry and is a Sessional Lecturer for the School of Ministry at Christian Heritage College. Joshua graduated with his Bachelor of Ministry from CHC, and his research interests are eschatology, Revelation and Israel.
Joshua convenes the annual Future Hope Conference at his church in Logan, Qld. This significant conference centres around the return of Jesus and what the Spirit of God is doing through His last days Church and in the world today.
And yes, he and the other Pellowe are brothers.
John Steenhof is the Managing Director and principal lawyer at the Human Rights Law Alliance. Since commencing as a law firm in 2019, HRLA has provided legal advocacy and advice to people who are under attack for living out their faith and convictions in public. Previously, John led the corporate and commercial practice at Steenhof Brothers together with his brother Simon Steenhof. During that time, he built up a strong practice in commercial law, business sales and purchases, domestic and international contracting, and property law.
Ps Rob Norman planted and had pastored Southland Church, Adelaide, for 27 years when he accepted the invitation to become the State Political Director for QLD/NSW/ACT at Australian Christian Lobby.
A mentor to pastors, business leaders and church planters, Rob knows what it takes to promote the unity of the Body of Christ, maintain the priority of the Gospel and equip Christians to understand and engage on the important public issues being debated.
Rev David Ould is Senior Associate Minister at St John’s Anglican Cathedral in Parramatta. He writes boldly on his thoughts about life and Jesus, and in particular how those things are worked out in the Anglican Church into which he was ordained in 2008. David sits on the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia.
Rev Ould has made regular appearances on Australian TV in shows like SBS’s “Living with the Enemy“, ABC’s “The Drum” and “Lateline”, and Channel 10’s “The Project” where he unapologetically & charismatically defends Biblical Christianity.
Mrs Deborah Acason née Lovely is arguably Australia’s most accomplished female weightlifter. Having competed and experienced the unfairness of being forced to compete against a male in the female category at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, she has more recently been speaking on the topic of ‘transgender’ athletes.
Deborah is a two time Olympian at Athens 2004 (13th) and Beijing 2008 Olympics (finalist) placing 6th, a five time Commonwealth Games representative and medalist (2002 Manchester (3 silver), 2006 Melbourne (Gold), 2010 Delhi (Bronze), 2014 Glasgow (4th), 2018 Gold Coast (4th)), and a seven time World Championship representative. Deborah was the first women inducted into the Australian Weightlifting Federation Hall of Fame.
Deborah was a Director of Australian Weightlifting Federation for five years and is the only Australian weightlifter to compete at 5 Commonwealth Games. Only one other athlete shares this level of success with her in the whole Commonwealth. Deborah completed a double Law (Hons) and Criminology and Criminal Justice degree on sports scholarship with Griffith University where she was recently inducted into their Sports College Hall of Fame. Deborah is a nationally accredited mediator and is undertaking her Masters in Teaching and Learning.
Andrew McColl is the Queensland Director of FamilyVoice Australia. Andrew (B.A., Dip.Ed., M. Ed) completed his BA and Dip. Ed at the University of New England, and worked for 8 years at Australian Christian Academy, and later 8 years as a Distance Education teacher with Jubilee Christian College, from 2014-2021.
Andrew & his wife Sue home educated their 3 sons for 13 years, and they retain a strong interest in this vital form of education. Now, their 4 grandchildren are being home educated.
Andrew wrote “They Shall Become One” and “The Significance of the Godly Family” in 2008, “Inherit the Earth” (for mid-high school students) in 2018, and he has recently published (for senior students) “The Great Christian Revolution”, a series of 11 studies dealing with some of the applications of a Christian worldview.
Sandra Godde, MA(Theol), LLB(Hons), BA, Grad Cert(Research) is the author of “Reaching for Immortality: Can Science Cheat Death? A Christian Response to Transhumanism“. She has lectured in Christian studies and Theology at Christian Heritage College, Brisbane, as well as Harvest Bible College, and taught religious and sociocultural worldviews.
Her research interests lie in the areas of Christology, apologetics, worldviews, and the interactions between science and faith.
Dave Pellowe co-founded the Church And State ministry in 2017 and has convened the annual Australian Church And State Summit in Brisbane since 2018, as well as many regional and interstate Church And State conferences. He researches & teaches how & why Christians should be interested & influential in the public square and be ready to debate important public issues with full regard to Scripture.
As the editor of The Good Sauce, an opinion & news website producing videos, podcasts and articles by some of Australia’s leading independent thinkers, he also helps promote constructive conversations shunned by corporate media. As a Christian conservative political commentator Dave’s articles have also been published in The Spectator, Quadrant, Online Opinion, Caldron Pool & elsewhere.
Daniel & Emma May are musicians with an extraordinary resume, and this year are blessing Church And State attendees by leading us in worship during the Friday night Gospel Rally.
Daniel is a graduate of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and has since worked around Australia and abroad, touring with bands and artists including The Usual Suspects, Carl Risely (Australian Idol) and Chris Ninni (The Voice Australia).
You may even recognise Emma from the first season of The Voice Australia where she advanced in the competition for many episodes. A self-described ‘jazz cat’ who grew up listening to ‘the greats’ on vinyl with her Poppa, she also made many musical appearances on the TV show Love Child.
But where they love to serve together most of all is in leading believers into the throne room of God where we can know and love Him more, worshipping Him and declaring His greatness and goodness.
Supported by a band of vocalists and musicians from multiple churches across South East Queensland, please ensure to thank them and the technical crew for so generously bringing their gifts to this conference.
