Christine Wallace (born 1960) is an Australian political journalist, biographer and academic. She is currently an

Australian Research Council The Australian Research Council (ARC) is the primary non-medical research funding agency of the Australian Government, distributing more than in grants each year. The Council was established by the ''Australian Research Council Act 2001'', ...

DECRA fellow at the National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. Her publications include biographies of

John Hewson John Robert Hewson AM (born 28 October 1946) is an Australian former politician who served as leader of the Liberal Party from 1990 to 1994. He led the Liberal-National Coalition to defeat at the 1993 Australian federal election. Hewson w ...

(1993),

Germaine Greer Germaine Greer (; born 29 January 1939) is an Australian writer and feminist, regarded as one of the major voices of the second-wave feminism movement in the latter half of the 20th century. Specializing in English and women's literature, she ...

(1997), and

Don Bradman Sir Donald George Bradman (27 August 1908 – 25 February 2001), nicknamed "The Don", was an Australian international cricketer, widely acknowledged as the greatest batsman of all time. His cricketing successes have been claimed by Shane ...

(2004).

Education

Wallace is a graduate of the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public university, public research university and member of the Group of Eight (Australian universities), Group of Eight, located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton, A ...

(BA, politics and history),

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...

(BEc) and the

Australian Graduate School of Management The Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM @ UNSW Business School) is a postgraduate management and business school that is part of the UNSW Business School at the University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney), in Sydney, New South Wales, ...

(MBA). In 2015, she completed her PhD (Australian National University) on political biography as political intervention.

Career

Political journalist

Wallace was a member of the

Canberra Press Gallery The Canberra Press Gallery, officially called the Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery, is the name given to the approximately 180 journalists and their support staff, including producers, editors and camera crews, who report the workings of the ...

and worked for a wide range of print and electronic media outlets including ''

The Australian ''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet daily newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964. As the only Australian daily newspaper distributed nationally, its readership of b ...

'', ''

The Australian Financial Review The ''Australian Financial Review'' (''AFR'') is an Australian compact daily newspaper with a focus on business, politics and economic affairs. The newspaper is based in Sydney, New South Wales, and has been published continuously since its foun ...

'', ''

Business Review Weekly ''BRW'' (formerly ''Business Review Weekly'') was an Australian business magazine published by the Fairfax Media group. The magazine was headquartered in Melbourne. It regularly compiled lists which rank corporations and individuals according t ...

'',

ABC Television ABC Television most commonly refers to: *ABC Television Network of the American Broadcasting Company, United States, or *ABC Television (Australian TV network), a division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Australia ABC Television or ABC ...

666 ABC Canberra ABC Radio Canberra (call sign: 2CN) is an ABC Local Radio station based in Canberra and broadcasting to the Australian Capital Territory as well as surrounding areas in New South Wales. This includes the cities and towns of Queanbeyan, Yass, a ...

and the Adelaide radio station

5AA FIVEAA (pronounced ''Five Double A'') is Adelaide's only commercial Talk radio, talkback radio station. The station has a range of programs including news, sports, current affairs, social issues, football calls, gardening, lifestyle, cars, trave ...

. After a decade of political and economic journalism, she became a full-time writer in Sydney following the

1996 Australian federal election The 1996 Australian federal election was held to determine the members of the 38th Parliament of Australia. It was held on 2 March 1996. All 148 seats of the House of Representatives and 40 seats of the 76-seat Senate were up for election. T ...

Biographer

Wallace has published three biographies. * Former leader of the

Australian Liberal Party The Liberal Party of Australia (LP) is the prominent Centre-right politics, centre-right list of political parties in Australia, political party in Australia. It is considered one of the two Major party, major parties in politics of Australia, ...

. **''Hewson: A Portrait'' (1993) Sun Australia, * Feminist and public intellectual,

. The biography was unauthorised, and Greer called Wallace a "flesh-eating bacterium" and the book "a piece of excrement". **''Germaine Greer, Untamed Shrew'' (1997)

Pan Macmillan Pan Books is a British publishing imprint that first became active in the 1940s and is now part of the British-based Macmillan Publishers, owned by the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group of Germany. History Pan Books began as an indepe ...

, ; (1998)

Faber and Faber Faber and Faber Limited, commonly known as Faber & Faber or simply Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, C. S. Lewis, Margaret S ...

, * Cricketer Sir

, based on the 1953 to 1977 correspondence between Bradman and

Rohan Rivett Rohan Deakin Rivett (16 January 1917 – 5 October 1977) was an Australian journalist and author, and influential editor of the Adelaide newspaper '' The News'' from 1951 to 1960. He is chiefly remembered for accounts of his experiences on the Bu ...

, the editor of Adelaide newspaper, ''The News''. **''The Private Don'' (2004)

Allen & Unwin George Allen & Unwin was a British publishing company formed in 1911 when Sir Stanley Unwin purchased a controlling interest in George Allen & Co. It became one of the leading publishers of the twentieth century and established an Australian ...

, She also wrote, but did not publish, an

unauthorised biography An unauthorized biography, sometimes called a kiss-and-tell, or a tell-all, is a biography written without the subject's permission or input. The term is usually restricted to biographies written within the subject's lifetime or shortly after t ...

Julia Gillard Julia Eileen Gillard (born 29 September 1961) is an Australian former politician who served as the 27th prime minister of Australia from 2010 to 2013. She held office as the leader of the Labor Party (ALP), having previously served as the ...

when she was Prime Minister. The book was to be called ''Julia Gillard: unauthorised'', and was to be published by Allen & Unwin in 2011. It was allocated an ISBN, 978-1-74175-848-1, but never published. Her 2023 book, ''Political Lives: Australian prime ministers and their biographers'', was shortlisted for the Australian History Prize at the

New South Wales Premier's History Awards The NSW Premier's History Awards honour distinguished achievement in the interpretation of history, through both the written word and non-print media by Australian citizens and permanent residents of Australia. History The State Government of New ...

in the same year.

Academic

In 2015, she was awarded her PhD for a thesis entitled ''The Silken Cord: Contemporaneous 20th Century Prime Ministerial Biography in Australia and Its Meaning''. It explores the idea of political biography as political intervention, through the contemporaneous political biography of twentieth century Australian politicians. In 2017, the Australian Research Council awarded Wallace a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) for a post-doctoral study entitled ''The Caseys and Pat Jarrett in Washington, 1940–1942''. It will study Australian Minister Richard Gardiner 'Dick' Casey, his wife

Maie Casey Ethel Marian Sumner Casey, Baroness Casey, (; 13 March 1892 – 20 January 1983), commonly known as Maie Casey, was an Australian pioneer aviator, poet, librettist, biographer, memoirist and artist. She was married to Lord Casey, who was Go ...

and their press aide Patricia 'Pat' Jarrett, who served in Washington during 1940–41. She currently holds her DECRA fellowship at the National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.

Personal life

Wallace is married to Michael Costello, a former senior Australian public servant.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wallace, Christine 1960 births Living people Australian National University alumni University of Sydney alumni Australian freelance journalists