Shireen Morris

Shireen Morris is the Director of Research and Innovation at Macquarie Law School, where she is also an Associate Professor.

Shireen researches public law, constitutional law and constitutional reform, previously specialising in the concept of a First Nations constitutional voice. Her research includes work on free speech and the implied freedom political communication, Australian monetary sovereignty and the role of central banks in constitutional democracies, policies for full employment, challenges of inequality and political polarisation, social media, disinformation and democratic decline, and Australian republicanism. More recently, Shireen has written about gambling reform in NSW.

Shireen was honoured to deliver the 2022 John Button Oration, making the case for economic reform in pursuit of true full employment, which was broadcast on ABC's Big Ideas radio program.

Prior to coming to Macquarie Law School, Shireen was a McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow at Melbourne Law School, and before that she spent 7 years working at Cape York Institute as the senior adviser on Indigenous constitutional recognition. Shireen completed her PhD at Monash University, with a thesis on Indigenous constitutional recognition through a First Nations constitutional voice - now published as a book, A First Nations Voice in the Australian Constitution, with Hart Publishing. She completed a Juris Doctor (Master of Laws) at Monash and a Bachelor of Arts (English Major) at the University of Melbourne. 

Other books include Broken Heart: a true history of the Voice referendum (2024, La Trobe University Press), which was longlisted for the Australian Political Book of the Year Award, 2025; Radical Heart: Three Stories Make Us One (MUP, 2018), A Rightful Place: A Roadmap to Recognition (Black Inc, 2017) and The Fogotten People: Liberal and Conservative Approaches to Recognising Indigenous Peoples (MUP, 2016). Shireen has also published in journals like the Federal Law Review, Australian Law Review, Melbourne University Law Review, Sydney Law Review, UNSW Law Journal, Monash University Law Review, University of Queensland Law Journal, University of Adelaide Law Review and the Public Law Review. Publications in international journals include the UK's Public Law, the US Journal of Law and Political Economy, as well as the Australia/NZ Journal of Law and History.

Shireen has twice been a shortlisted finalist in the Australian Legal Research Awards (ECR category). In 2025 she won the Arts Faculty's Research Excellence Award and in 2023 she won the Faculty's Research Engagement Award. She regularly contributes opinion pieces to The Australian, the Australian Financial Review, The Guardian, The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, Courier Mail, the Herald Sun, and ABC Religion and Ethics, and has commentated on TV and radio.

Shireen is available to supervise Honours, MRes and PhD students in the areas of constitutional law, constitutional reform, Indigenous rights, free speech, monetary sovereignty and the role of central banks, gambling reform, issues related to full employment, democratic decline and issues related to contemporary law reform and public policy. She has recently supervised projects on Indigenous youth justice in the NT, constitutional law and the implied freedom of political communication, gambling reform, and truth in political advertising and misinformation on social media.