Hal Gibson Pateshall Colebatch

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Hal Gibson Pateshall Colebatch
Born	1945
Occupation	Author, poet, lecturer, journalist, editor, and lawyer
Nationality	Australian
Genres	Science Fiction

Hal Gibson Pateshall Colebatch, also known as Hal G. P. Colebatch and Hal Colebatch (born 1945) is an Australian author, poet, lecturer, journalist, editor, and lawyer.

[edit] Personal History

He is the son of the late Australian politician Sir Hal Colebatch and Lady Marion Colebatch, a former Australian Army nursing sister who was the daughter of long-time Fremantle Mayor and Member of Parliament Sir Frank Gibson. He is the author of Sir Hal Colebatch's biography, Steadfast Knight (foreword by Professor Geoffrey Blainey), published by the Fremantle Arts Centre Press.

He received a BA Honours and MA in History/Politics and a PhD in Political Science from the University of Western Australia as well as degrees in jurisprudence and law.

He was awarded an Australian Centenary Medal in 2003 for writing, law, poetry and political commentary, the only award for this combination of activities. He has also received an award from the Vietnamese community in Perth for work for Vietnamese refugees and was chairman of the Victoria League for Commonwealth Friendship in Western Australia 2003-2006.

Colebatch also stood in the 1977 and 1993 state elections for the seat of Perth as the Liberal Party candidate, and although he was not elected to the Legislative Assembly on either occasion, on the second attempt he came within 0.12% of winning the seat from the Australian Labor Party, who had held it since 1968.

[edit] Writing

As well as Steadfast Knight, his work includes seven volumes of poetry (starting with Spectators on the Shore in 1975), a series of science-fiction stories published in the US in the series The Man-Kzin Wars, created by Larry Niven, in which he has created several original characters including Dimity Carmody, Nils Rykerman and Vaemar-Riit and books of political, social, legal and economic commentary. He was described in Penguin's "A New Literary History of Australia" published in 1988, as having has "a quiet but steady career" in Australian poetry at that time. He writes regularly for a number of publications including Quadrant and his 1999 book Blair's Britain was chosen in The Spectator (London) as a Book of the Year.^{[citation needed]} He also writes for The American Spectator Online, op-ed articles for The Australian and occasional pieces for other publications including the The Australian Financial Review, IPA Review The Salisbury Review and The New Criterion. He also writes regular book-reviews for The West Australian and The Record in Perth. His Return of the Heroes is a study of heroic fantasy including The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Harry Potter, and he has contributed several articles to the forthcoming J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopaedia; Scholarship and Critical Assessment. He has also edited many books including "Lucky Ross", written by John Ross, an Australian Naval Officer who was transferred out of HMAS Sydney 19 days before it was sunk with all hands in November, 1941.

Many of his poems concern Perth and its suburbs, the Swan River and Rottnest Island, as well as travels in Britain, Asia, the Middle East and elsewhere. His poetry, which has won various prizes, is in both free-verse and highly structured forms including sonnets and sestinas.

He was described by Peter Alexander, Professor of English at the University of New South Wales, in his biography of Les Murray, as being among Australia's best writers.^{[citation needed]}

His seventh book of poetry, The Light River, with a foreword by Les Murray was published by Connor Court publishers in 2007. In the foreword Murray stated that Colebatch's work had been unjustly suppressed by the Australian literary establishment because of his refusal to join poetic cliques. This book contains, among other works, the long narrative poem "The San Demetrio," telling of the salvaging of a burning petrol-tanker at sea in World War II, and a poem "It" on the return of terrorism. He is also co-author of a book on traffic law in Western Australia published in 2007.

His most recent published prose book is Caverns of Magic (Cybereditions, 2006), a survey of caves in myth, legend and story, and of the development of speleology. As a reporter on The West Australian, Colebatch was involved in the discovery of several kilometers of extensions to Easter Cave in the south-west of Western Australia. The book has a foreword by naturalist and conservationist Harry Butler. (Many scenes in Man-Kzin Wars X: The Wunder War are set in caves and caverns, reflecting his knowledge of the subject.)

He is not to be confused with Dr Hal K. Colebatch who was born in 1944, has taught political science at several universities, and is also the author of a number of books.

[edit] Titles written by Colebatch (partial list)

• Claude de Bernales : the magnificent miner : a biography Carlisle, W.A. : Hesperian Press, 1996. ISBN 0-85905-200-1
• Steadfast knight : a life of Sir Hal Colebatch with a foreword by Geoffrey Blainey. Fremantle, W.A. : Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 2004. ISBN 1-920731-39-3 - biography of his father.
• Return of the Heroes : The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Social Conflict : Cybereditions Corporation, 2003. ISBN 978-1877275579
• The Light River Connor Court, 2007. ISBN 0-9802936-4-2