Note: the purpose of this speaker biography is to assist those introducing Neil as a speaker to tailor any introductory remarks to the audience involved and to the particular context of the public address concerned. It is not intended that the whole biography be used for such verbal introductions and rarely appropriate to do so. A fuller biography may be suitable if details on the speaker are circulated beforehand in hard copy.

Speaker Biography – Neil James

Neil James is executive director of the Australia Defence Association (ADA), the independent, non-partisan, community-based, national public-interest guardian organisation for defence and wider national security matters. As the ADA official spokesman he is also responsible for the Association's contributions to day-to-day public debate and for helping maintain the long-term and informed perspectives the Association has long brought to such discourse.

Prior to taking up his current position with the ADA in May 2003 Neil served for over 31 years in the Australian army. His military experiences spanned a wide range of regimental, intelligence, liaison, teaching, operational planning and operations research positions throughout Australia and overseas. His more senior appointments included teaching at the army's tertiary-level Command and Staff College (C&SC) at Fort Queenscliff; foundation head of the joint intelligence (J2) branch at Headquarters Northern Command in Darwin; foundation director of the army's 'think-tank', the Land Warfare Studies Centre at Duntroon; and head of the operational plans (J5) branch at Headquarters Joint Forces New Zealand in Wellington.

His overseas experiences included regimental service as a rifle platoon commander in Malaysia and as operations officer of a British electronic warfare unit in the then West Germany; operational service in the field in Kashmir and Iraq; senior operational planning duties at UN headquarters in New York; a senior operational planning staff exchange posting in New Zealand; instructional exchange duties in Canada; and representational or planning staff visits to most South-East Asian and South Asian countries. On behalf of the ADA he has also visited Australian Defence Force contingents deployed in Afghanistan, Iraq and several other Middle Eastern countries.

Neil is a graduate of the Royal Military College, Duntroon (1976), the Army Command and Staff College, Fort Queenscliff (1988), and the University of New South Wales. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Military Studies degree (UNSW, 1976), a Master of Defence Studies degree (UNSW, 1991), and graduate diplomas in management studies and information management and analysis. Neil has been a senior member of the teaching staff at the Australian and Canadian defence intelligence schools and has taught on specialist courses with various Australian and allied intelligence and security agencies. He is a regular visiting lecturer at several civil and military tertiary institutions and a well-known speaker at major conferences in Australia and overseas.

During his defence force service he authored four operational or doctrinal manuals for the ADF and the Army, and contributed to several others including the capstone doctrine publications of both the ADF and the Army. He has also contributed chapters to several books on defence, peacekeeping and human rights law matters; written numerous articles and book reviews for professional and specialist journals; and authored several entries in the Australian Dictionary of Biography. His most recent formal publication was a chapter in Law and Liberty in the War on Terror, The Federation Press (and the Gilbert&Tobin Centre of Public Law at UNSW), Sydney, December 2007.

 In May 2000 the then Australian Defence Studies Centre (ADSC) at the University of New South Wales published Neil's comprehensive and critical study paper on reforming the political and strategic management of Australia's defence. The paper won wide support among serving and former ADF personnel, and in wider national security circles, but was not popular among some longer-serving (and former) public servants in the Department of Defence. Although not intended, planned or foreseen, the paper subsequently earnt him his trans-Tasman exile in 2001-02 and ultimately his current position as executive director of the ADA.

For those interested the paper may be downloaded from http://www.ada.asn.au/papers/Real.Reform.of.the.Defence.Management.Paradigm.pdf.