Academy Fellow

Professor PETER SPEARRITT is an Emeritus Professor of History, University of Queensland. He served as Director of The Brisbane Institute 2001-2006 and, prior to that, Director of the National Key Centre for Australian Studies at Monash University (1989-2001). His book Sydney's Century: a history, UNSW Press,1999, won the NSW Premier's Prize for Australian History in 2000. A third edition of his The Sydney Harbour Bridge: a life, was published in 2011. He is the co-editor of a number of scholarly websites including queenslandplaces.com.au and victorianplaces.com.au His current research interests include:

• Australian cities and settlement patterns, especially the provision of green space
• water supply issues in urban Australia, including desalination plants
• metropolitan growth and decline, including housing and transport
• the preparation of scholarly websites, including the Queensland Historical Atlas
• heritage, cultural tourism and the search for authenticity

• Chair, National Housing Strategy Committee
• Member Public Lending Right Committee
• Prime Minister's Panel on Cultural Policy, Review of Australian Honours and Awards
• Inaugural Director, Australian Centre, University of Potsdam.

• Jim Davidson and Peter Spearritt (2000) Holiday Business: Tourism in Australia Since 1870. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
• Sydney's Century: a history (1999) Sydney: University of NSW Press.
• The Sydney Harbour Bridge: a life, University of NSW Press, third edition, 2011
• 'The water crisis in south-east Queensland' in P.N.Troy ed., Troubled Waters, ANU E Press, 2008
• 'Finding Grandeur: Paris, Venice, Newcastle, Brisbane' in M.Helmrich ed., Margaret Olley: Life's Journey, UQ Art Museum, 2009
• 'The 200 kilometre city: Brisbane, the Gold and Sunshine Coasts' Australian Economic History Review, March 2009