: About Me

After many years in private practice, government and semi-government service and industry in Australia, as an engineer with some additional study in accountancy, I took time out and worked as a photographer in Melbourne Australia where I won several awards and participated in a number of exhibitions of my work. At the end I returned to engineering where I worked in Kosovo from 1999 to 2001 with ADRA International as Shelter Coordinator managing USAid and EU reconstruction projects. From 2002 to 2005 I was engaged in Afghanistan, initially engaged on a US State Department (INL) funded program to restore alternative livelihood sources in the opium production areas of Nangahar. Following this I assumed a role in Kandahar with UNDP in southern Afghanistan managing a large-scale cash-for-work program funded by the Government of Japan and the EU to meet the immediate needs of the communities economic recovery eventually as Advisor to the Minister for Urban Development and managing the program in all its locations across Afghanistan. Towards the end of this tour of Afghanistan I was engaged with UNDP as Senior Advisor to the Minister for Rural Rehabilitation and Development on the multi donor funded National Area Based Development Program. In 2005 I was engaged with UNDP on a multi donor Flash Appeal to once more initiate a large-scale cash-for-work recovery and reconstruction program.
For the moment I live in Thailand where I am engaged in a some small enterprises trading art works of Thai painters, assisting in the planning and development of a small restaurant and some incidental engineering work. Much of my time is spent writing both op-ed pieces and fiction. I have completed two novels and have perhaps another twenty in progress.
In 2005 I was awarded the inaugural Pride of Australia - Peace Award.
I write from a humanitarian and liberal perspective.

Politics, News & Issues > Pulitzer Center Can the US military be effective in nonmilitary efforts to revive a war-battered community?

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In all aspects of life, various segments of our communities have a common perception of their function and purpose. The military is regarded for what it is, a battalion of soldiers whose primary purpose is war, the idea that they might change that perception is difficult conceptually and ideologically, one that I believe is flawed. I have often wondered at the logicality of the "hearts and minds" efforts of military contingents in some of the places I have been engaged such as Kosovo, Afghanistan and Aceh. It is not just simple a matter of their extensive capacity to do the work but their ...

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