About

In the 1970s and 1980s, punctuated by a short time as a postman and an almost equally short time as an aspiring singer in a band, I studied philosophy, first in Australia, then in the US and Germany. In the mid-1980s I briefly taught at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. I subsequently spent nearly twenty years working for the Australian government’s overseas aid agency (then AusAID, now part of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade), with a particular focus on the relationship between government and non-government aid programs and on microfinance, the provision of sustainable financial services to poor people. Through this work I was privileged to meet many fine people dedicated to improving the lives of others. From 2009 to 2013 I worked on a project, based at the ANU and funded by the Australian Research Council, which designed a new poverty measurement for use primarily in developing countries.

Since leaving the workforce I have published two historical novels, German Lessons and Praying for Sunlight, Waiting for Rain. I also contributed a short piece to Continent Aflame: Responses to an Australian Catastrophe, a book on the bush fires of 2019-20.

I retain a strong interest in philosophical and psychological issues, in particular in the nature of belief and its relation to reason, emotion, commitment and action. I’m exercised by questions such as: What is a belief? To what extent can we choose what we believe? Why do people believe the things they do? In what circumstances is faith a virtue? Is sincerity always a virtue? In this context questions of political ideology and of religion are of particular interest to me.