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SCG Australia
It's only logical that an organisation representing the Australian diaspora should have a strong presence in Australia, and we are always pleased to hear from journalists, returned expatriates ("repats") and others interested in what we are doing.
Before you send a question of any nature to the SCG, however, please read our general policy on responding to queries below. If you decide to contact the SCG, please just address your message directly to one volunteer listed below. If you wish further Australian-based SCG volunteers to see your message, please put those people in the cc field of your e-mail. Please do not send your question in separate e-mails to separate volunteers.
SCG Contacts in Australia
Jacqueline Mowbray in Sydney is the SCG's present primary contact person in Australia.
jacqui@southern-cross-group.org
Mobile: +61 419 744 308
Our original Australian Coordinator John ("Sid") MacGregor is based in Canberra, but since 1995 has spent considerable time most years overseas in Europe and North America contributing to the work of the Group, and is one of our founding Committee Members. He was a Commonwealth public servant (accounting/management consultancy) for some 35 years before retiring some years ago. He is presently in Brussels until November 2007, but can nevertheless be e-mailed.
John ("Sid") MacGregor
Australian Coordinator
Southern Cross Group
PO Box 145
Dickson ACT 2602
AUSTRALIA
E-mail: sid@southern-cross-group.org
In Canberra we also have:
Kate Harriden
E-mail: kate@southern-cross-group.org
Kate is currently undertaking a Master of Arts (Asian Studies) at the Australian National University and has spent considerable time in Thailand and South East Asia over the last few years.
New South Wales
SCG volunteer Jo Anne Rey gave up her job as the SCG's coordinator for Switzerland in late 2005 to relocate back to Chatswood, Sydney. During her expat stint, Jo wrote an historical novel recreating the true and fascinating tale of First Fleet convict Mary Bryant, nee Broad, entitled The Sarsaparilla Souvenir (published by Xlibris.com, ISBN 1-4134-8077-2, 2005, 326 pages). We believe Mary may qualify as Australia's very first expatriate by virtue of her daring (and successful) escape in 1791 from Botany Bay back to England!
Jo Anne Rey
Telephone: +61 (0)2 9419 2128
E-mail: jo@southern-cross-group.org
In Eden on the NSW South Coast we have SCG volunteer David Curtis, who worked at a medical college in Wuhan, China for several years before relocating back to Australia in 2005:
David Curtis
E-mail: curtis@southern-cross-group.org
In Taree, NSW, we have Roger Dine, who has spent several years living in Bulgaria, but moved back to Australia (at least temporarily) in early 2006:
Roger Dine
Telephone: +61 (0)2 6551 8613
E-mail: roger@southern-cross-group.org
Victoria
In Melbourne, we have several volunteers, a number of whom have spent considerable periods abroad as expats.
Joanne Gourley, who lives in Ivanhoe, has a background in IT consultancy and international project management. She lived and worked in the UK from 1994 and then in the Netherlands from 2002, where she served as an SCG co-ordinator. She returned to Australia in mid 2004:
Joanne Gourley
Telephone: +61 (0)3 9499 8064
E-mail: joanne@southern-cross-group.org
Anna Ridgway, who lives in Mount Waverley, speaks Spanish and has spent considerable time in El Salvador. She's particularly interested in furthering Australian-South American relations:
Anna Ridgway
Telephone: +61 (0)3 9807 5153
E-mail: ridgway@southern-cross-group.org
Diana Arlen, who is based in Southbank, is a international relations graduate who studied in the UK and is often in Shanghai:
Diana Arlen
E-mail: diana@southern-cross-group.org
Queensland
In Queensland, we have Linda Reeb-Bennett, who lived in Switzerland for four years until April 2004 where she served as our coordinator for Switzerland.
Linda Reeb-Bennett
SCG Volunteer and Former Switzerland Coordinator
17 Omega Avenue
Cleveland, QLD 4163
AUSTRALIA
Telephone: +61 (0)7 3821 6303
E-mail: linda@southern-cross-group.org
Linda and our other SCG Australia volunteers are also interested in developing services and networks to support repats on their return to Australia.
Also in the Brisbane area, our hard-working and indispensable SCG website designer and webmistress Angela Davis continues her volunteer activities for the SCG, after returning from London in 2004. Angela runs her own webdesign business called Spaghetti Designs:
Angela Davis
Telephone: +61 (0)7 3355 3625
E-mail: website@southern-cross-group.org
And Leree Mazzer, who lived in the UK for two years before moving to Atlanta,
Georgia, USA for several years, is now also back in Brisbane, where she is
an assistant primary school principal:
Leree Mazzer
E-mail: leree@southern-cross-group.org
South Australia
In Adelaide, corporate lawyer Rob Lawton moonlights as an SCG volunteer. He lived in the UK for two years as a foreign student, and is married to a Brazilian, so considers himself a true "interpat".
Rob Lawton
E-mail: rob@southern-cross-group.org
Western Australia
SCG volunteer Robyn Ambrosius spent several years in London before returning to Perth in 2005:
Robyn Ambrosius
E-mail: robamb@southern-cross-group.org
Tasmania
Another SCG volunteer in Australia is Angela Ryan, a founding SCG Committee
Member, and a lawyer who has lived in Hong Kong, Brussels, and Alicante. Angela
moved back to Australia to first live in Melbourne in early 2003, following
by time in the Northern Territory, before recently settling in Hobart:
Angela Ryan
193 Tolosa Street
Glenorchy TAS 7010
AUSTRALIA
Mobile: +61 (0)415 875 177
E-mail: angela@southern-cross-group.org
We receive many queries every day from Australians around the world. The flood of e-mails is now of such a volume that our volunteer committee is stretched to its limits. While we want to hear your thoughts and views, before you send us a message, please read the following. This will allow us to use our limited resources as effectively as possible, so that we can spend less time answering e-mails and more time developing policy submissions and doing other work of importance to the whole Australian expatriate community.
Requests to be put on the SCG E-Bulletin List
If you simply wish to be put on the SCG's free e-mail bulletin list, please sign yourself up directly rather than writing to us. This will ensure that you automatically receive updates on the progress of our various issues as events occur. Our e-mail list is powered by List Builder software and you can unsubscribe yourself at any time. We do not share your personal contact details with any other individual or organisation.
Requests for Advice on Citizenship, Immigration and Other Matters - Please Make a Donation
Quite a few questions people address to us by e-mail are already comprehensively answered on our website. Please use the search facility at the top of this page to search our whole website BEFORE you e-mail us. You should also check relevant government websites for information before you write to us.
We are receiving an increasing number of complicated queries from people wanting specific advice on their personal citizenship or immigration situation. Some of these queries can take one of our volunteers several hours to answer properly. Requests of this nature should really be addressed to a qualified immigration lawyer in the relevant jurisdiction, rather than to the SCG. While we aim to provide support to members of the Australian Diaspora within the confines of our limited volunteer resources, we are not a free immigration and citizenship advice bureau. And it is disheartening to spend a great deal of time preparing responses to these queries when often the recipients even forget to thank us.
We do have a number of lawyers on our volunteer SCG Committee, qualified in various jurisdictions. Some of them have expertise in immigration and citizenship matters. If you send us a query which we judge will take more than 15 minutes to answer, we will e-mail you back and ask you to make a donation of a suggested amount to the Southern Cross Group before we provide you with an answer. You can make your donation using the Amazon Honor System. Your donation will help us pay for website hosting and the many other expenses we face in running the SCG. This is a small way that you can say thank you for the support we provide you with.
You can contact us using our general e-mail address or the e-mail address of the SCG Committee Member nearest you.
