Joo-Cheong Tham is an Associate Professor at the Law Faculty and has taught at the law schools of Victoria University and La Trobe University. His key research areas are the regulation of non-standard work and political finance law. He has also undertaken considerable research into counter-terrorism laws. He has published over 25 book chapters and refereed articles. His research has also been published in print and online media with Joo-Cheong having written more than 30 opinion pieces. Joo-Cheong regularly speaks at public forums and has presented lectures at the Commonwealth and Victorian Parliaments. He has also given evidence to parliamentary inquiries into terrorism laws and political finance law, and has written several reports for the New South Wales Electoral Commission. He is currently working on two separate areas. The first concerns the challenges posed by temporary migrant work in Australia. He is working with Dr Iain Campbell, Centre for Applied Social Research, RMIT University in a project examining the precariousness of such work. He is also coordinating an interdisciplinary team which is undertaking a project on temporary migrant work and social justice based on a case-study of temporary migrant work in the Victorian nursing sector. In the area of political finance, he is currently leading an Australian Research Council project, Dollars and Democracy: The Dynamics of Australian Political Finance and its Regulation (2010-2013) together with Associate Professor Graeme Orr, University of Queensland and Professor Brian Costar, Swinburne University. Joo-Cheong's book, Money and Politics: The Democracy We Can't Afford was published by UNSW Press in 2010. In 2011, two books co-edited by Joo-Cheong were published: The Funding of Political Parties: Where Now? (Routledge, 2011) (co-edited with Keith Ewing and Jacob Rowbottom) and Electoral Democracy: Australian Prospects (Melbourne University Press, 2011) (co-edited with Brian Costar and Graeme Orr).
In 2012, Joo-Cheong became the inaugural Director of the Electoral Regulation Research Network. The Network - an initiative sponsored by the New South Wales Electoral Commission, Victorian Electoral Commission and the Melbourne Law School - aims to to foster exchange and discussion amongst academics, electoral commissions and other interested groups on research relating to electoral regulation. Its key activities include the holding of regular seminars and workshops, and the publication of biannual newsletters and research working papers. Together with Emily Long, Joo-Cheong is the section editor for the reports section of the Australian Journal of Labour Law. He also shares editorship of the 'Work and Employment' column of the Australian Journal of Administrative Law with Associate Professor Graeme Orr, University of Queensland. Joo-Cheong graduated with a LLB (Hons) from the University of Melbourne in 1998 and completed an LLM in 2003 with the same university. He was granted a doctorate of laws by the University of Melbourne on the basis of his thesis that examined the legal precariousness of casual employment. In 2007-2008, he was a British Academy Visiting Fellow at the Law School, King's College, University of London. He was also the Rydon Fellow for Australian Politics and History at the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, King's College, University of London in 2008.
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