The journo-turned author … and everything in between

Sandi Logan is a Canadian-born Australian who has spent more than 40 years as a journalist, diplomat, ministerial adviser, spokesman and senior public servant on three continents. He is now an author.

His early career in journalism from 1974-83 included a cadetship at the Sydney Sun; then to the bush as editor of a weekly newspaper, the Broken Hill Regional Advertiser; to Melbourne with Daily Commercial News and Shipping List; overseas to the Toronto Sun; returning as sub-editor to Sydney to TV Times; to ABC Four Corners as a researcher (where he produced a story Peter Ross presented on the Drug Grannies); and then as a producer of ABC City Extra, first with Caroline Jones, and then Margaret Throsby.

Sandi switched careers and joined the Australian foreign service in 1984, undertaking postings to PNG, Bonn and Washington DC. During this period he also served as media adviser to two ministers (Labor’s Senator Gareth Evans as Foreign Minister in 1993, and the Liberals’ Judi Moylan as Family Services Minister in 1996), and was media director for high-profile guests of the Australian government including President Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela, Hu Yao Bang, Jacques Cousteau and the Pope. He returned to Canberra in 2002 where as a member of the senior executive in the Australian public service filled roles as a spokesman for various departments and agencies (including the AFP and Immigration) until 2014 when he left to consult in communications strategy.

He is in his 60^th year as an active ice hockey player skating and competing weekly with the Canberra Senators Oldtimers. You can take the boy out of Toronto, but you cannot take the ice hockey out of the boy.