John Black was a political researcher and demographer for the South Australian Premier Don Dunstan and the Opposition Leader Bill Haydn 1974-1982. He worked for the Australian Workers' Union 1982-1984 and was an Australian Senator for Queensland 1984-1990. He has since worked as a demographic profiler, and is an opinion writer for the Courier-Mail, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age and the Australian, and statistics columnist for the Australian Financial Review.