The Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation is proud to welcome Frank McGuire, who has been appointed as Adjunct Professor.

Alfred Deakin Professor Fethi Mansouri, Director of ADI, said:

“We are delighted to welcome Professor McGuire, who has an outstanding record in creating big picture ideas and delivering results globally and locally,”

As a Member of Parliament, investigative journalist and pro bono community leader, Frank confronted catastrophes of our times from the consequences of climate change, global pandemic and inequality, to the abuse of power in a cover up that killed.

Growing up in Broadmeadows when it remained impoverished to the point of lacking even a public library, Frank realised talent is not defined by gender or demographics, but too often opportunity is.

He created opportunities and delivered results to improve the social determinants of life, and economic and cultural development to avoid Einstein’s definition of insanity.

Frank began his community leadership in 1999, as Broadmeadows was evolving into virtually a United Nations in one neighbourhood, with families from more than 150 countries calling Australia home. He quickly realised breaking the cycle of disadvantage requires constructive solutions, collaboration and long term commitment.

Frank founded the Global Learning Village model, coordinating governments, business and civil society to build social infrastructure.

Creative initiatives addressed place-based disadvantage. Combining lifelong learning, skills and jobs to provide meaning; better health, and technology empowered leadership to connect the disconnected. Silicon Valley leaders were recruited to bridge the digital divide. Microsoft, Intel and Cisco Systems partnered in an ideasLAB, second to London.

The ALP recruited Frank as an outsider to succeed former Victorian Premier, John Brumby in Parliament in 2011.

A digital Multiversity bridged the opportunity gap for tertiary education. Deakin, LaTrobe, Victoria University and Kangan Institute established on-line hubs across the City of Hume, which championed the cause of lifelong learning.

As Victoria’s first Parliamentary Secretary for Medical Research, Frank launched the campaign for Australia to partner America in President Barack Obama’s Cancer Moonshot. Joe Biden internationalised this White House quest when he came to Melbourne in 2016, after the pursuit of Premier, Daniel Andrews. The US Vice President declared: “You are making cancer research a team sport.”

Frank subsequently called for a New Deal under President Biden’s plan to accelerate treatments and breakthroughs against some of the world’s biggest killers, adding diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease to the fight against cancers. Frank identified billions of dollars for research partnerships in the European Union and the United Kingdom and advocated establishing AUKUS Health for health security, to deliver an immediate brain gain to save more lives, then expand globally.

As Australia’s representative on the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, he informed the Pacific Region’s submission to the 26th United Nations Climate Change conference where then Prime Minister, Scott Morrison pledged half a billion dollars more to help the Pacific and South East Asia address the climate crisis.

Globalisation and the demise of Australia’s passenger car manufacturing industry devastated Broadmeadows. Frank reimagined his heartland from a rust belt to a green belt and brain belt. He attracted the Business Council of Australia and inspired $1 billion in private sector investments into the derelict Ford site, predicting 5,000 cleaner, greener jobs, at no cost to taxpayers.

As chair of the Broadmeadows Revitalisation Board 4.0, he defined a prototype to overcome deindustrialisation through advanced, niche manufacturing. Epicentre is one of Australia’s leading companies, CSL, producing the gift of science, life-saving blood products and vaccines against COVID-19. A new facility nearby will soon begin manufacturing vaccines against influenza.

Frank McGuire’s Government responsibilities included Parliamentary Secretary for Medical Research in the time of pandemic; Small Business and Innovation; and Crime Prevention, where he defined a whole-of-government strategy to address causes instead of symptoms, and campaigned to raise the age of criminal responsibility.

He obtained defining admissions in a cover up that killed, detailed forensically in the landmark report, “Betrayal of Trust,” as deputy chair of the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and Other Non-Government Organisations.

Frank’s legacy also features an internationally acclaimed model helping people deny fate, and new industries for independent supply chains securing national sovereignty, so Australia can avoid back-sliding to the derisive days of the so-called Lucky Country.

He received the highest primary vote in Victoria in his last state election in 2018.

Frank is Director, Business Development and Growth for the PEXA Group, brainchild of the Council of Australian Governments for e-conveyancing, whose world-first innovation kept property transactions operating despite pandemic lockdowns. Australia’s second biggest economic sector is now valued at $10 trillion.

Frank began his career in journalism. He is the recipient of Walkley Awards for flagship programs on the Nine Network and the ABC’s Four Corners, a Human Rights Media Award for the 7.30 Report, and co-founded the independent television and radio production company, McGuire Media.

Frank was a founding member of the advisory board for the Alfred Deakin Institute.