Peter Hartcher

Peter Hartcher is the Political Editor and the International Editor of The Sydney Morning Herald. He is also chair editor of The Diplomat magazine, and a visiting fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney.

He is a three-time foreign correspondent who worked as a journalist for 25 years writing about politics, economics and foreign affairs. Before taking his current position at the SMH, Hartcher wrote for the Australian Financial Review as its Washington bureau chief, its Asia-Pacific Editor and its Tokyo bureau chief.

Peter Hartcher has developed a reputation as an authoritative, nonpartisan reporter, analyst and speaker. He regularly speaks on the big issues of our times before influential audiences of politicians, government officials, investors, business executives and scholars.

As a Journalist, Peter won a Gold Walkley Award, for his investigative series into how Australia secretly negotiated a security treaty with Indonesia, and was nominated again in 2003 for his analysis of US motives for the invasion of Iraq.

Peter has also been commissioned to write essays on Asia for the Washington-based foreign policy journal, The National Interest. Additionally, Peter writes for The Diplomat magazine, London Financial Times and The American Interest. He’s been interviewed by NPR, CNN, BBC and ABC, among others.

Peter is the Author of numerous books. His latest, Bipolar Nation: How to Win the 2007 Election, published as the first Quarterly Essay of this year. The essay was Australia’s bestselling nonfiction work in independent bookstores. His other books include: Bubble Man: Alan Greenspan and the Missing Seven Trillion Dollars, published in the US in 2006, and The Ministry, a window into Japan’s disastrous bubble economy and an insight into how Japan works. Business Week described it as “a dazzling mix of case studies, juicy anecdotes, and analysis” that was “key to understanding the recent past and future of Japan’s political economy.”