Researcher biography

Honorary Professor, Centre for the Government of Queensland, School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics.

Professional Activities:

Executive Director, T.J.Ryan Foundation (2013 onwards)

Project Director, "Queensland Speaks" Oral History web-site, (2009 onwards)

Board Member, Youth + Marlene Moore Flexi-learning Centre Network, Edmund Rice Education Australia (2013 onwards).

National Fellow of the Institute of Public Administration Australia (since 1990).

Former editor of The Public Interest (Brisbane).

Former co-editor of the Australian Journal of Public Administration.

Former Review Editor for Politics (now AJPS).

Member/chair of several Quality Assessment Panels of the Queensland Office of Higher Education and formerly member of similar bodies operating in several states during the CAE era.

Member of several Federal Government committees of enquiry into education, including management education (Ralph Committee), aboriginal education (Yunipingu Committee) and university management (Linke Committee).

Former panel member of the Commonwealth Government Review Tribunal on Non-state Schooling.

Former consultant to international aid organizations, providing advice on public sector reform - Uganda, Kazakstan and Nepal.

Background:

1962-1965 : Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford; fieldwork for thesis on the development of trade unions in Uganda completed while Rockefeller Teaching Fellow at the University of East Africa, Kampala.

1965-1977 : Lecturing at University of Sydney, the Queen's University of Belfast, and the Canberra College of Advanced Education (Principal Lecturer in Politics in the School of Administrative Studies).

1977-1987: J.D.Story Professor of Public Administration, University of Queensland. President of the Academic Board, 1986-1987.

1987-1990: Principal of the Canberra CAE, Foundation Vice-Chancellor of the University of Canberra.

1990-1994 : Director General of Education, State Government of Queensland.

1994 : Visiting Professor, Graduate School of Management, Griffith University.

1994 - 2000: Dean of Arts, Queensland University of Technology.

2000 - 2002: Professor of Public Management, Faculty of Business, QUT.

2003 - 2011: Professor Emeritus and Teaching Fellow, School of Political Science and International Studies.

Research Interests:

  • The practice of public policy in Queensland.
  • Political history of Queensland.