H. E. Allaster Cox is the Australian High Commissioner to Singapore since April 2023.

Prior to this, he was the First Assistant Secretary Strategy & Development in the Office of Southeast Asia, following his posting to Jakarta as Deputy Head of Mission.

Allaster has had a long career in Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) working mainly on Southeast Asia, including in Canberra as Division Head for Southeast Asia, and overseas as Ambassador to Vietnam and Brunei Darussalam.

He has previously worked at the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet covering Asia,
Americas and Trade and headed the US Branch in DFAT. He was the Head of Policy Planning at DFAT and has had earlier postings in Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Brunei.

Educated at Sydney University in Economics, Government and Law, he is married with two adult
children.

Wallbank, based in Singapore, oversees breaking news across much of Asia and around the world.

He has led Bloomberg's breaking news coverage in Asia hours across some of biggest market-moving moments of the last several years, including the US-China trade war, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Covid-19 pandemic, three Trump-Kim summits and five G-20s. He's a frequent analyst on Bloomberg TV commenting on geopolitical risk and global politics.

Before moving to Asia in 2019, Wallbank ran Bloomberg's Washington breaking news desk, where he managed headline coverage of the Obama and Trump administrations, US elections, and international geopolitical risk. Previously, as a reporter for Bloomberg and MinnPost, Wallbank covered Congress, the White House, and campaign politics.

Wallbank is a graduate of Michigan State University and holds an MBA from the University of Illinois.