Noel Pearson is a lawyer and activist and director of the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership. He has published many essays and newspaper articles.

Up from the Mission (2009), a collection of his essays, charts his life and thought from his early days as a native title lawyer to his position today as one of Australia's most influential figures.

Stan Grant is a Wiradjuri and Kamilaroi man. A journalist since 1987, he has worked for the ABC, SBS, the Seven Network and Sky News Australia.

From 2001 to 2012 he worked for CNN as an anchor and senior correspondent in Asia and the Middle East. As a journalist, he has received a string of prestigious international and Australian awards.

In 2015, he published his bestselling book Talking to My Country, which won the Walkley Book Award, and he also won a Walkley Award for his coverage of Indigenous affairs.

In 2016 he was appointed to the Referendum Council on Indigenous recognition. Stan is now Professor of Global Affairs at Griffith University and International Affairs Analyst at ABC.

Damien Freeman is a writer, lawyer and philosopher who is currently a visiting fellow at the PM Glynn Institute, Australian Catholic University.

Together with Shireen Morris, he edited The Forgotten People Liberal and Conservative Approaches to Recognising Indigenous Peoples (MUP, 2016).

Jackie Huggins is a Bidjara/Birri Gubba Juru woman from Queensland. She is a historian and author, and has worked in Aboriginal Affairs for over four decades in areas of reconciliation, history, the arts, environment, literature, leadership, education, prison reform, domestic and family violence, and many other social justice initiatives. She has held many leading positions including on the Stolen Generations Inquiry, and at Queensland State Library, AIATSIS and University of Queensland. Her previous books are Sister Girl and Jack of Hearts QX11954 (UQP).