I’m a philosopher and Research Fellow at the School of Regulation and Global Governance, at the Australian National University (ANU). I conduct research in the areas of Indigenous rights, resource governance, wellbeing, and public policy.

 

My current project is undertaken with ANU’s Vice President (First Nations) and a group of academics from across the university, along with our partners, the Ngarluma Yindjibarndi Foundation in the Pilbara region in Western Australia, and is funded by the Centre for Future Materials, which is based at Imperial College London. I’m examining how agreements between extractive industries and Indigenous communities support or undermine Indigenous economic self-determination, and what shape such agreements need to take if they’re to promote Indigenous peoples’ rights and interests. The project aims to provide the Ngarluma Yindjibarndi Foundation with useful resources for dealing with businesses and governments.

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I also conduct research on measuring and promoting wellbeing, especially the government systems of measuring national wellbeing often called “wellbeing frameworks.” Wellbeing frameworks have the potential to improve our policymaking processes by moving our national standards of economic and social progress away from consumption and growth and towards people's quality of life. However, they face significant challenges: they are in danger of being politically illegitimate, neglecting the wellbeing of future generations, and excluding the views on wellbeing of important parts of the population, especially Indigenous peoples. My research has found ways for wellbeing frameworks to accord with what populations themselves value for their wellbeing, to function well in societies with a range of views of wellbeing, especially those of Indigenous peoples, and to work well to promote the wellbeing of future generations.

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Before beginning my PhD, I did two Master's degrees in philosophy specializing in ethics and metaethics, and published on moral bioenhancement, Mill's metaethics, utilitarianism, and metaethics and love. I’ve now begun publishing my doctoral research, and my paper “An Account of Wellbeing for Wellbeing Frameworks” is forthcoming in the journal Ergo. I also have an article on Australia's wellbeing framework forthcoming in the Australian Journal of Social Issues, written with Kate Sollis (Geography, Planning, and Spatial Sciences, University of Tasmania) and Paul Campbell (Psychology, ANU).

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Before starting university study, I founded and managed Te Whiti-o-Rongomai House, which provided supported accommodation for homeless people in Auckland, New Zealand, and for four years lived a subsistence lifestyle in a hut in the bush in Whirinaki, Hokianga, in the hills behind a small village that's home to Te Hikutu, a sub-tribe of the Māori tribe Ngā Puhi. While in Hokianga I gained certificates in Māori studies and in horticulture at the small local branch of a technical institute.

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For Māori, where you and your people are from is more important than what you do for a living. On my mother's side, my family is from the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand, and before that from England and Ireland. On my father's side, my family is of the Māori tribe Ngāi Tahu and the sub-tribe Kāti Kuri, of Kaikōura on the East Coast of the South Island, and from England and Ireland. The photos on this website are of Kaikōura. It's a very good place to walk in the mountains or go to sea to see whales, dolphins, albatrosses, seals, and penguins. 

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I am very lucky to be married to a wonderful woman called Hannah Simpson, from Wellington, New Zealand. I like to go to wild places when I can, and have done quite a lot of alpine trekking. I very much like seeing and meeting wild animals. The best animals are penguins.