Elise's work has been broadcast by Al Jazeera, Agence France Presse, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Deutsche Welle, Public Radio International, Kantor Berita Radio's Asia Calling program, Fairfax Digital, and published inThe Diplomat, New Matilda andThe Sydney Morning Herald.
She spent 5 years freelancing in China, and has also reported from Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Japan and Hong Kong.
Elise was a finalist in the 2012 Walkley Best Freelance Journalist of the Year award. She was
co-winner of the 2008/9 Asia-Pacific Forum of Environmental Journalist's environmental
journalism award.
© 2026 Elise Potaka
Beijing Static
The sounds of Beijing beguile a radio producer and her two blind guides in this radio feature. Without being able to speak or read Mandarin a foreigner in Beijing is bound to be confused: the city is vast, the traffic is chaotic, the crowds relentless. For the two blind locals it is about using the familiar sounds to navigate your way through the chaos of the city and a life lived on the margins of societ
Kids on the Block
Explores growing up in the inner Sydney suburb of Redfern. Since the 1940’s Redfern has been a heartland for the Indigenous community, and the grid of streets known as the Block was one of the first urban pieces of land to be handed back to Indigenous people. But it’s the more recent history – high profile drug raids and the death of a local teenager which sparked the Redfern riot in 2004 – that has remained in the public mind.
Rule of Law in China
But what’s not often talked about is its legal system, and how it’s coping with the country’s huge transformation over the last 30 years. Since the end of the Mao era, China has basically had to build a legal system from the ground up. But there are challenges ahead. Earlier in 2011, a crackdown on dissent saw many activists, including well-known artist Ai Weiwei, arbitrarily detained.
These events put a spotlight on the pressures which the legal system, and the country’s legal practitioners, face.
From Tibet to Tamarama
Danma Niu, a young Tibetan woman from a remote, nomadic area in China, had always dreamed of studying overseas. A chance encounter with an Australian, Andrea Myles, turns this dream into a reality and propels Danma on an epic journey from her yak-herding home to the bronzed-bodied beaches of Sydney.
Danma has defied the conventions of her community to get this far. But can she learn to “speak Australian” and navigate a society that is culturally and politically so different from her own.
