Professor Peter van Onselen (born 1976) is the Contributing Editor at The Australian newspaper where he writes a weekly Saturday Focus column, a Wednesday column for the Business back-page and a fortnightly column in the Higher Education section. He also writes a weekly column in the Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Times newspapers. Dr van Onselen is a presenter for Sky News Australia, hosting The Contrarians on Fridays and Showdown on Tuesday evenings. He also hosts Australian Agenda on Sunday mornings, a joint production between Sky News and The Australian newspaper, interviewing politicians such as Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd, Tony Abbott, Barry O'Farrell and Malaysian Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim.
In addition to his journalistic roles, in early 2011 Dr van Onselen became a Winthrop Professor at the University of Western Australia. He was an associate professor in politics and government at Edith Cowan University from 2004-2011, having previously taught political science at the University of New South Wales and before that briefly worked on the staff of Tony Abbott when he was Minister for Workplace Relations in the Howard Government ahead of the 2001 election.
Dr van Onselen has written or edited three books, including the best selling John Winston Howard (with Dr Wayne Errington), rated by the Wall Street Journal Asia as the best biography of 2007. He has also written dozens of refereed journal articles and conference papers, including articles for the Australian Journal of Political Science, the British Journal of Legislative Studies and the Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics. Dr van Onselen's teaching and research areas include Australian political institutions, political communications, public policy and south east Asian politics.
Prior to joining News Limited, while working in academia fulltime, Dr van Onselen wrote a regular column for The Bulletin magazine in 2007-08 and before that wrote numerous opinion columns across a range of newspapers, including the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Australian Financial Review, the Canberra Times and the Courier Mail. He also worked for Channel Nine's current affairs program Sunday in 2007 and 2008, where he presented cover stories on Australian politics and provided expert commentary in the lead-up to the federal election.
Dr van Onselen has been a panelist for state, federal and United States election coverages for Channel's Seven and Nine. For the 2010 federal election he was the host of Sky News' 2010 tally room panel and was satirized by the ABC comedy group The Chaser as part of its Yes We Canberra coverage. Dr van Onselen debated at university World and Australasian championships with members of the Chaser during their studying days. He was a member of the combined Australian University Test Team at the 1998 Australasian Championships in Sydney, and reached the semi-finals of the 1999 World Debating Championships in Manila.
Dr van Onselen holds a Bachelor of Arts with First Class Honours in Political Science and a Masters in Policy Studies (with Distinction), both from the University of New South Wales. Dr van Onselen was awarded his PhD in political science from the University of Western Australia.