Jean-Michel David was born in Paris, France, and came to Australia at a very young age. His family originally arrived in Perth, then proceeded to Melbourne, and then moved and established a small business in tropical Cairns where he undertook most of his schooling in both State and Catholic schools. In the late 1970s, he left home and worked for a while in London and Paris, returning to Australia in 1980. After a driving trip around our astounding country, he resumed tertiary studies and has worked and resided here ever since.

Professionally, Jean-Michel has been involved in management as well as in adult and secondary education for the past thirty years – predominantly in Steiner education. He has a range of interests spanning politics, meditation and mindfulness, spirituality and religion, yoga, philosophy and mathematics, reading in general, bushwalking, and socialising and discussions.

Personal determinations and freedom of choice in relation to health, education and freedom to travel remain important priorities. These reflect his view of the important principles of civil liberties.

Influences include the writings of Oxford scholar Iain McGilchrist, The Master and his Emissary, highlights some of the important considerations at play in the social domain. Economically, his main influences are the works of the Austrian-school philosophers and economists Ludwig von Mises and Nobel prize winner Friedrich Hayek. Philosophically, his main influence has been from the scholar-semiotician John Deely.

Politically, what has more recently been called civil and green libertarianism are about the closest general terms that describe his views. The importance of personal freedom, in contradistinction to the intrusion by various agencies, is of high merit.