About

I am Dr Brendan JJ Gibson. I was born in 1958 on Githabul country in Kyogle on the Upper Richmond River, New South Wales. I am a husband, father, grandfather, brother, cousin, son. I am a descendant of Irish, Scottish and English convicts and free settlers/invaders. My ancestry stretches back to Scottish ploughmen, farm labourers and railway porters, Irish farm labourers and dairymaids, English butchers and sawyers, and from thence into Celtic, Catholic and Protestant mist.

I am an historian, biographer, reader and writer. I am concerned with Australian history, literature, and the creation of Australia as an imagined moral community.

In my working life I have been a taxi driver, factory hand, barman, enrolled nurse, home-parent, and community development worker. For most of my career I was a public servant with the Commonwealth Department of Health and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. I worked in aged care, health technology evaluation, HIV/AIDS, program evaluation, hospital financing, organ and tissue donation, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health.

I have a Bachelor of Arts (Sydney University), a Master of Public Policy (University of New England), a PhD in public health and public policy (Australian National University), and a Master of History – Honours (Australian National University).