Community Alliance Party

Alvin Hopper is a well-regarded retired lawyer, who held senior positions in the Commonwealth Attorney-General's Department, providing legal services to South Pacific countries (Fiji and Tuvalu) while there. He has also served as an honorary vice-president of the Australian Government Lawyers' Association, and more recently, he worked for the ACT Government in the Parliamentary Counsel's office. Since retiring, Dr Hopper has gained a PhD in constitutional law concerning the ACT and other Territories.

Born in England, Dr Hopper took a law degree at the University of Wales (UK), followed by a brief period of study at the University of Melbourne (1967-69). He returned to Australia in 1975, moving to Canberra in 1986. For the last ten years he has lived in Dickson. A father of grown-up twins, Dr Hopper active in groups such as the Ibero-Latin American Society and the Welsh Society, with whom he is studying the Welsh language. He has travelled quite widely, for instance in Mexico and Central America, India and Sri Lanka. He is interested in other societies and cultures.

Dr Hopper is concerned at the difficulties faced by carers and the elderly, and at the proposal for thousands of new homes in Molonglo without adequate consultation or planning for the environment and increased demands on vital services. He joined the Community Alliance primarily because he feels that community views and needs have been disregarded by the major parties and especially by the present ACT Government. One of his main aims is to help the Community Alliance provide a valuable and necessary safeguard against government abuses. These can flow from the Government having a monopoly of the Legislative Assembly, and not allowing proper community participation in issues that vitally affect it.