Tim Soutphommasane

Thinethavone "Tim" Soutphommasane ( ; born 1982) He has previously been a political staffer for Bob Carr, a columnist with The Age and The Australian newspapers, a lecturer at Sydney and Monash Universities, and a research fellow with the Per Capita think tank. He is a member of the board of the National Australia Day Council,

Early life Soutphommasane

His family was resettled by the Family Reunion Program of the Australian Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs to Sydney's south-western suburbs in 1985, where he was raised. He was educated at Hurlstone Agricultural High School.

In 2019, he was appointed Professor of Practice in Sociology and Political Theory at the University of Sydney to teach human rights related theory.

Journalism Soutphommasane was a regular writer for The Australian newspaper, to which he contributed feature articles and the Ask the Philosopher column each Saturday. He also wrote for The Monthly magazine. While living in England, Soutphommasane was a freelance journalist, contributing blog entries to The Guardian and The Financial Times, as well as opinion pieces and reviews to The Spectator, The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

Writing Soutphommasane's first book Reclaiming Patriotism: Nation-Building for Australian Progressives was published in 2009. Loosely based on research undertaken toward his doctoral thesis, the book argues that people with progressive politics must re-engage with ideas of patriotism and national identity, which Soutphommasane claims were surrendered to the right during the Prime Ministership of John Howard.

His The Virtuous Citizen: Patriotism in a Multicultural Society was published in 2012 and Don't Go Back To Where You Came From: Why Multiculturalism Works, published the next year, won the NSW Premier's Literary Award in the 'Community Relations Commission Award' section.

Other roles

Soutphommasane was appointed to the Council for Multicultural Australia in August 2011.

Political activity Soutphommasane joined the Australian Labor Party in 1998, aged 15. He later worked on the speechwriting staff of then New South Wales Premier Bob Carr.

Books Reclaiming Patriotism: Nation-Building for Australian Progressives (Port Melb: Cambridge University Press, 2009) Paperback, Don't Go Back To Where You Came From: Why Multiculturalism Works (New South Books, 2012) The Virtuous Citizen: Patriotism in a Multicultural Society (Cambridge University Press, 2012) I'm Not Racist but... (NewSouth Publishing, 2015) On Hate (Melbourne University Press, 2019)