After graduating from Queen’s, I returned to Ottawa and eventually began work on my MA thesis in political science for Carleton University, comparing Indigenous land rights in Canada and Australia. As part of my research, I travelled to Canberra, Australia, in 1978 where, without having ever planned to do so, I applied for and was accepted into the law school of the Australian National University. After graduating from the ANU Law School in 1981, I spent a couple of years in private legal practice, followed by several years as a corporate in-house lawyer before joining the Australian Public Service in 1990, the year I also got married in Adelaide. Some of the highlights of my career were helping draft and implement legislation to set up Australia’s sports drug agency and the National Environment Protection Agency, a national regime for the recognition of Indigenous native title, as well as spending three years in Darwin in the Northern Territory as manager of the Aboriginal Land Rights legislation section. My final position before retiring was as General Counsel and Senior Legal Officer in the Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations (ORIC). Just thought some might be interested in which direction my degree from Queen’s ended up taking me — some major and unexpected changes in direction that I would have never thought of at the time of my graduation.
