Tony founded Essential in 1997.The business is now the Essential Research and Communications Group. Included in the group are Essential Media, UMR Australia and Arc Public - a specialist in Government communications. The group has offices in Melbourne & Sydney.Essential is one of Australia's leaders in designing and executing winning communications strategies for clients working in public affairs.Tony provides high-level strategic communications and political counsel to leaders and CEO's operating in the public affairs environmentTony specialises in designing communications strategies based on research and creating advertising campaigns for TV and radio.Tony wrote the communications strategy and the TV and radio ads for the ‘Your Rights at Work’ campaign for the ACTU that abolished the Work Choices laws and created the Fair Work laws.Tony wrote and executed the communications strategy for the Defence Industry & the SA Government that saw SA winning $98B of contracts for the submarine and frigate projects.He wrote the strategy and ran the' Fight for the Reef' campaign that stopped the industrialisation of the Reef.He wrote the communications strategy and the TV and radio ads for the Australian Education Union the delivered 8,000 extra teachers and a plan to re-build Victoria's public schools.He wrote the communications strategy and the TV ads for the SA Government's 'Fight for the Murray' campaign that gave SA an additional 450gl of water pa and protected 16 major environmental assets in SA and kept the Murray mouth open.He developed the communications campaign for housing groups that delivered $6B for social housing funded through the 2nd Stimulus package.He was the strategist overseeing research and copywriting ads for The Greens senate campaigns of 2010 and 2019 – the only half senate elections where The Greens both increased their share of the vote and elected a Senator in each stateTony has worked for government, industry, NGO's and member-based organisations delivering on their goals.Tony is trained as a journalist - he produced Australia’s first national environment program and won six national radio awards