Paul Cleary

Paul Cleary is a senior writer with The Australian newspaper and a researcher in Indigenous development at the Australian National University. In a career spanning 20 years he has reported on politics and economics for a decade in the Canberra press gallery, and worked as a correspondent in Southeast Asia and as a political adviser. Awarded a Chevening fellowship by the UK Foreign Office to study at SOAS, University of London, he became an adviser to government of newly-independent East Timor. His work on the Timor Sea resource negotiations led to his first non-fiction book, SHAKEDOWN: AUSTRALIA S GRAB FOR TIMOR OIL. The Timor veterans whom he met while based in East Timor inspired this book. He speaks several languages, including Vietnamese and Tetum, and lives in Sydney with his partner and son.