Adelaide University law honours graduate Janet Albrechtsen becomes libertarian voice in 'The Australian' newspaper
Janet Albrechtsen was on the board of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation 2005-10, an organisation she previously derided as a “Soviet-style workers collective”.
Janet Albrechtsen, a prominent conservative opinion columnist with The Australian newspaper, was an Adelaide University graduate in law with honours.
The daughter of Danish immigrants to Australia, Albrechtsen was born in Adelaide in 1966 and attended Seacombe High School. After Adelaide University, she attained a doctor of judicial science from Sydney University.
Albrechtsen moved to Sydney to work as a commercial solicitor at Freehills and taught at Sydney University law school.
Turning to newspaper commentary, Albrechtsen wrote for The Australian Financial Review, The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, Quadrant, Canada’s National Post, the Vancouver Sun, The Wall Street Journal and the Wall Street Journal Asia before becoming a reguar columnist with The Australian.
Albrechtsen was a member of the Foreign Affairs Council from 2003-07 and on the board of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) 2005-10. She had previously derided the ABC as a “Soviet-style workers collective”. In 2014, Albrechtsen was appointed to an independent nomination panel that advises the federal communications minister on shortlisting of candidates to be appointed to the ABC board.
In 2008, Albrechtsen contributed a chapter to Peter van Onselen’s book The Liberals and Power and a conducted lengthy interviews in 2014 with former prime minister John Howard, aired on Seven Network’s Sunday Night. The following year, she presented a five-part series on Sky News Australia called Howard Defined.
Albrechtsen was director and chair of the audit, finance and risk committee of the National Museum of Australia 2014-17 and an ambassador for the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation from 2020.
Albretchtsen became chair of the Institute of Public Affairs. in line with her libertarian views based around the dignity of the individual, freedom from government control and individual responsibility. She wrote about the fiscal responsibility by government and issues relating to political correctness, identity politics and modern “grievance feminism”.
