I first visited Australia in November 2012, when I stopped over in Sydney for a few days on my way to a conference in New Zealand. I realised very quickly that Australia was somewhere I’d like to live. Less than two years later, I landed my ideal job at Griffith University.
In recent years, I’ve included my adopted country in comparative projects, such as the YOUMEM one on youth wings. But I’ve also done single-country studies of Australian political parties and voters (see publications below).
Some of this work has been funded by an ARC Discovery Indigenous Grant which I won with my colleague Michelle Evans from the University of Melbourne. Together, we’ve interviewed around 80 per cent of all Indigenous candidates fielded by the major Australian parties since 2010, in addition to many party officials and grassroots members. Along with Josh Holloway from Flinders, we’ve also surveyed Australian citizens about their attitudes towards prospective Indigenous candidates.
This material forms the backbone of a book Beyond the Numbers: Indigenous Participation and Representation in Australia’s Major Parties, which Michelle and I are currently working on. It will be published by Melbourne University Press in 2027.
Selected publications
The inverted hierarchy: How public bias can favor potential Indigenous candidates (Perspectives on Politics, 2025)
Young voters, abstainers, and unregistered: Generation Z turnout in a compulsory system (Political Studies, 2025) *featured in The Australian (2 February 2025)
The party on remote ground: Disengaging and disappearing? (Parliamentary Affairs, 2024)
Australian parties, not voters, drive under-representation of women (Parliamentary Affairs, 2023)
More partisans than parachutes, more successful than not: Indigenous candidates of the major Australian parties (Australian Journal of Political Science, 2022) *winner of the 2023 Mayer Prize for best article in the AJPS