Member (Peter WOOLCOTT) | Asia-Pacific Leadership Network

Members

The Asia-Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (APLN) has over one hundred members from eighteen countries across Asia and the Pacific, consisting of former political, diplomatic and military leaders, senior government officials, and scholars and opinion leaders. APLN aims to inform and energize public opinion, especially high-level policymakers, to take seriously the very real threats posed by nuclear weapons, and to do everything possible to achieve a world in which they are contained, diminished and eventually eliminated.

Peter WOOLCOTT

Vice-Chancellor’s Professorial Fellow at Monash University

Peter Woolcott AO was the Australian Public Service Commissioner from 2018 – 2023.

After a number of years as a practising barrister in Sydney, Mr Woolcott joined the Department of Foreign Affairs in 1981.

Mr Woolcott had a distinguished career in the Australian Public Service, serving in senior diplomatic positions around the world. He served as Australia’s High Commissioner to New Zealand (2016–2017), Ambassador for the Environment (2014–16), and led the negotiations to the Paris Agreement on climate change (2016), Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva and Ambassador for Disarmament (2010–2014), Ambassador for People Smuggling Issues (2009), Ambassador to Italy (2004–2007), and Australian Consul General, Honolulu and Representative to US Commander in Chief Pacific (1998-2001).

Mr Woolcott served as Chief of Staff to former Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull (2017–2018).

Mr Woolcott was appointed an Officer in the Order of Australia in 2017 for his distinguished service to public administration in the field of international relations, and as a lead negotiator in the non-proliferation and arms control fields. Mr Woolcott was Chair of the Final United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty in 2013. Mr Woolcott was also Chair of the First Preparatory Commission of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (2012).

Mr Woolcott retired from Government in 2023 and was appointed a Vice-Chancellor’s Professorial Fellow at Monash University. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Cranlana Centre for Ethical Leadership and an Independent Governor of the Forrest Research Foundation.