http://www.thepunch.com.au/author-bios/thom-woodroofe/ Thom Woodroofe, 21, is a foreign affairs analyst combining journalism, research, teaching and community work to advance an understanding of Australia’s place in the world. In 2009, Thom was recognised as the Young Victorian of the Year for his work in establishing Left Right Think-Tank, Australia’s first non-partisan policy body of young people. He is also the founder of Global Voices which coordinates youth delegations to important diplomatic forums abroad. A freelance commentator on foreign affairs, Thom has contributed on the ground from hotspots such as Burma during parliamentary elections, communist Cuba under Castro, and on the Middle East peace process from inside The West Bank. He has interviewed both the current and former Prime Minister and was responsible for breaking a story concerning their relationship impacting Australia’s attendance at an Asia-Europe Meeting. Thom is also a non-resident Associate Fellow of The Asia Society based in New York and on the Global Agenda Council of the World Economic Forum based in Geneva. Thom has worked for both sides of politics overseas: in the United States Congress for former Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi and for former Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in California. He is the youngest member of the Australian American Leadership Dialogue and the Australia Israel Leadership Forum. Thom has been one of the youngest participants at such high-level gatherings as the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation and the G20 bringing him face-to-face with world leaders such as Presidents Obama, Hu Jintao and Medvedev. A regular public speaker he has addressed audiences such as the White House Press Corps at the National Press Club in Washington DC. Thom has previously been named one of Melbourne’s 100 Most Influential People by The Melbourne Magazine, one of the region’s leading young people by The Asia Society, and one of the world’s emerging security leaders by the St. Gallen Symposium in Switzerland. More recently, Thom was chosen to represent Australia at Commonwealth Day in London where he met Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Thom holds a Bachelor of Arts (Global) from Monash University which involved study across four continents. He is currently teaching and reading for his honours thesis at the University of Melbourne. Thom can be contacted via email - (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) //';l[1]='a';l[2]='/';l[3]='';l[28]='"';l[29]=' 109';l[30]=' 111';l[31]=' 99';l[32]=' 46';l[33]=' 108';l[34]=' 105';l[35]=' 97';l[36]=' 109';l[37]=' 103';l[38]=' 64';l[39]=' 101';l[40]=' 102';l[41]=' 111';l[42]=' 111';l[43]=' 114';l[44]=' 100';l[45]=' 111';l[46]=' 111';l[47]=' 119';l[48]=' 109';l[49]=' 111';l[50]=' 104';l[51]=' 116';l[52]=':';l[53]='o';l[54]='t';l[55]='l';l[56]='i';l[57]='a';l[58]='m';l[59]='"';l[60]='=';l[61]='f';l[62]='e';l[63]='r';l[64]='h';l[65]='a ';l[66]='= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_tAgZWafIVA').innerHTML = output; //]]> - or he can be followed on Twitter - http://twitter.com/#!/thomwoodroofe en Copyright 2012 The Punch penberthyd@newsltd.com.au penberthyd@newsltd.com.au Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:40 +0000 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:40 +0000 Politics, opinion, world news, sports news, latest news, views, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Nathan Rees, Malcolm Turnbull, Peter Garrett, Barnaby Joyce, Australian, federal politics, opinion polls, election, The Punch, thepunch, punch ExpressionEngine 1.6.7 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 15 http://www.thepunch.com.au/images/punch-logo-rss.png http://www.thepunch.com.au/ 144 70 Politics, political opinion, world news, sports news and the latest news and views updated live, daily on The Punch - Australia's best conversation. Search The Punch keywords http://www.thepunch.com.au/search/ http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/If-a-government-falls-in-paradise-does-anyone-hear/ A month ago a radical coup in an island string nation in the Indian Ocean passed with the world barely noticing. To most people the Republic of Maldives is nothing more than a glorious tourist resort. Nestled some four hundred kilometres off the Indian coastline it is home to over one thousand coral islands that collectively form the smallest Asian country in both population and land mass. But on Tuesday 7th February just after noon, the country’s first elected President, Mohamed Nasheed, was ushered into his office and forced to resign at gunpoint according to his own account. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Thom Woodroofe) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/If-a-government-falls-in-paradise-does-anyone-hear/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/If-a-government-falls-in-paradise-does-anyone-hear/#item8037 Mon, 19 Mar 2012 19:35:25 +0000 Thom Woodroofe | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/a-more-permanent-us-presence-no-baseless-rumour/ There has been plenty of diplomatic semantics around the American presence in Darwin but many including the Chinese are still not satisfied. The United States has long wanted a permanent military base in northern Australia. But they are not stupid.  So when Australian officials conveyed that a fixed establishment would not be politically palatable here they saved us the embarrassment of having to say no in a high-level bilateral meeting if the request was made. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Thom Woodroofe) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/a-more-permanent-us-presence-no-baseless-rumour/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/a-more-permanent-us-presence-no-baseless-rumour/#item7421 Tue, 27 Dec 2011 19:50:03 +0000 Thom Woodroofe | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-obls-death/ The death of Al-Qaeda’s leader has sparked a fierce response that lacks an understanding of the real world. The world is not perfect and nobody should pretend that it is. Nor is foreign policy black and white. It is a cocktail of aspirational idealism and hard fought realism but too often we forget this. The last few weeks have seen an army of armchair commentators purporting their often narrow and moralist interpretations of events as the only courses of action that would have been permissible. So let’s set the record straight on ten fundamental questions with some real world answers: 1. Could Bin Laden have been captured rather than killed? No. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Thom Woodroofe) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-obls-death/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-obls-death/#item5933 Fri, 27 May 2011 19:55:42 +0000 Thom Woodroofe | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/a-necessary-attack-now-for-the-really-tricky-bit/ What next in Libya? The initial demonstration of strength we saw yesterday is really just the beginning. (Follow live updates here.) As US Defence Secretary Gates has rightly observed “a no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya to destroy the air defences”. This underscores the inevitability of escalation for which a no-fly zone has set the scene, one way or another. Even if Gaddafi, out of character, orders his aircraft or ground installations not to engage the foreign forces from here on, or they revolt out of fear or relief, that is not the end of it. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Thom Woodroofe) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/a-necessary-attack-now-for-the-really-tricky-bit/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/a-necessary-attack-now-for-the-really-tricky-bit/#item5428 Mon, 21 Mar 2011 02:45:31 +0000 Thom Woodroofe | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/gillards-doing-just-fine-on-the-world-stage/ The Prime Minister has now spent more time overseas than her predecessor ‘Kevin747’ did in the same period. Partly a product of timing – the end of the year begs attendance at a number of multilateral forums – she has visited the troops in Afghanistan; lobbied for the World Cup in Switzerland; conducted bilateral visits to both Malaysia and Indonesia; and attended the Asia-Europe Meeting in Brussels, the East Asian Summit in Vietnam, the G20 in South Korea and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation in Japan. Gillard’s latest trip was to Portugal for a NATO meeting on Afghanistan spending by her calculation “fifty-five hours in the air for eighteen on the ground”. Reflecting earlier this month in Japan on her travels before flying overnight back home for Parliament she said, “There are a few moments when you would have to say it has been a bit slow but overwhelming it has been a good experience”. But just how she has been doing out there on the world stage depends on which audience you speak to. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Thom Woodroofe) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/gillards-doing-just-fine-on-the-world-stage/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/gillards-doing-just-fine-on-the-world-stage/#item4573 Sun, 28 Nov 2010 19:45:55 +0000 Thom Woodroofe | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/who-will-be-our-man-in-beijing/ Australian Ambassador to Japan, Murray McLean OAM, caught up with Thom Woodroofe at APEC this week and discussed the prospect of him moving to be our man in Beijing, and the behaviour of the Chinese at Copenhagen last year . Reports in the Australian Financial Review last weekend suggested that Murray McLean is on the shortlist to be our head diplomat in Beijing. While the job has been advertised internally in DFAT, the mandarin speaking Ambassador humbly brushed off the suggestion he was being considered for the shift to China. He says he will go “wherever the government wants him to go” when his term expires “sometime in 2011”, but he may be asked to pack his bags for Beijing before then. Ambassador McLean has been our main man in Tokyo for almost six years now, a lengthy appointment by any measure. But his CV oozes China. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Thom Woodroofe) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/who-will-be-our-man-in-beijing/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/who-will-be-our-man-in-beijing/#item4456 Fri, 12 Nov 2010 02:05:46 +0000 Thom Woodroofe | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/why-wasnt-rudd-in-brussels-with-the-pm/ The relationship between Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard was bound to be a fragile one. But it now looks like the Prime Minister has grounded her Foreign Minister, potentially damaging our international relations. Kevin Rudd should have been in Brussels this past week with Julia Gillard. The Prime Minister was in town for the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), a gathering of forty leaders from the two continents which Rudd lobbied hard to have Australia become a member of as Prime Minister. The leaders (or their deputies) of major and middle powers like China, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea attended with their Foreign Ministers. But Rudd was nowhere to be seen. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Thom Woodroofe) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/why-wasnt-rudd-in-brussels-with-the-pm/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/why-wasnt-rudd-in-brussels-with-the-pm/#item4209 Sat, 09 Oct 2010 00:03:55 +0000 Thom Woodroofe | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/obama-the-pacific-president-not-so-much/ A year ago Barack Obama declared himself the first ‘Pacific President’ but so far his engagement with the region leaves a lot to be desired. President Obama hosted the second US-ASEAN Summit in New York on Friday. Many are hopeful the insubstantial two-hour lunch meeting on the sidelines of the UN will signal a turning point in the Obama Administration’s approach to Asia. So far the President has visited Europe six times and Asia only once. His European adventures have included spruiking a hometown Olympic bid and accepting the Nobel Peace Prize with one hand while saluting off more troops into harm’s way with the other. While some of his trips across the Atlantic have taken him to important gatherings of the G20 and NATO, declaring war on nuclear arms along the way, it is Asia – not Europe – that should be centre of the world’s attention right now. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Thom Woodroofe) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/obama-the-pacific-president-not-so-much/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/obama-the-pacific-president-not-so-much/#item4143 Wed, 29 Sep 2010 19:30:04 +0000 Thom Woodroofe | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/rudd-or-turnbull-the-only-safe-hands-for-foreign-affairs/ In the next few days we should know whether Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott will be the next Prime Minister. Regardless of whoever prevails they should do the country a favour and appoint the leader they knocked off to be the country’s chief diplomat. The position of Minister for Foreign Affairs, which for the moment at least also has trade tacked on, is a coveted portfolio. Unlike most other ministries it has traditionally involved dealing almost exclusively with matters core to the national interest with a lesser regard for the day-to-day trench warfare of politics. Until Kevin Rudd came along. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Thom Woodroofe) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/rudd-or-turnbull-the-only-safe-hands-for-foreign-affairs/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/rudd-or-turnbull-the-only-safe-hands-for-foreign-affairs/#item3974 Mon, 06 Sep 2010 05:05:46 +0000 Thom Woodroofe | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-foreign-affairs-guessing-game-first-stop-for-the-pm/ With foreign policy barely rating a mention in the election campaign, the strongest indication we will have of the eventual winner’s view on the world is where they decide to go first. Like most elections this campaign wasn’t fought on foreign policy. Even with the tragic deaths of three soldiers in Afghanistan it was a passing topic. Tony Abbott did promise to dump Australia’s bid for a seat on the UN Security Council and appoint a Minister for International Development. But the closest we got to a genuine debate on our place in the world was one about which island country to our north to send asylum seekers. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Thom Woodroofe) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-foreign-affairs-guessing-game-first-stop-for-the-pm/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-foreign-affairs-guessing-game-first-stop-for-the-pm/#item3900 Wed, 25 Aug 2010 19:30:31 +0000 Thom Woodroofe | Author bios | The Punch