I was born in Wellington, New Zealand in 1972 but when I was four my parents moved to Sydney and then to Brisbane, Australia.
After attending school and University in Brisbane I moved to Melbourne where I worked for Senator Sid Spindler. In 1994 I left the office of Senator Spindler to become the Executive Director of Liberty - the Council for Civil Liberties, where I led numerous human rights and civil liberty campaigns.
During this time I was also the President of the Victorian AIDS Council and Gay Men's Health Centre and served on the executive of the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations. I was also involved in broader public health work as the non-government member of Australia's National Public Health Partnership.
In 1998 I was preselected to stand for election to the Victorian Parliament in the seat of Prahran for the Australian Labor Party. I was the first openly gay man in Australia to have been preselected by a major party for a winnable seat. However, I failed to win the seat at the 1999 election!.After that I moved to Haiti, a country in which I had a long standing interest, where I worked as an adviser to the National Coalition for Haitian Rights, Haiti's leading human rights Non-Government Organisation.
I moved to the UK with my partner in August 2001 where I took up the post of Deputy Chief Executive of the National AIDS Trust. In 2003 I left the Trust to set up Kathina, a consulting company which provided policy, management and communications services to public interest organisations.
Through Kathina I worked for an amazing range of organisations, including Amnesty International, UNAIDS, Saferworld, the International Action Network on Small Arms and the International HIV/AIDS Alliance. I moved from doing consulting work for the Alliance to working there full time from mid 2004 until November 2006.
In preparing for the 2006 World AIDS Conference in Toronto it occured to me that it was my sixth World AIDS Conference. The fact that they are are every two years meant that I'd been doing HIV related work for a long time. I concluded that I could probably do with a change and went to work for Book Aid International where I was the Head of Policy and Programmes. Working at Book Aid introduced me to the world of education in general and literacy in particular. in which I continue to play an active part.
I left Book Aid to help the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, one of the UK's main teaching unions, develop their international work. I'm now responsible for implememing 'Our global future' the union's international policy and strategy which I wrote.
ATL is proudly affiliated to both the TUC and Education International, both of whom I work closely with on a range of international projects and issues.
ATL's also an active member of Global Campaign for Education which works to ensure that the U plays an effective part in achieving Education for All. I chair the Campaign's policy group and have authored or co-authored the Campaign's most recent policy reports or position statements. I represent the GCE on the UK National Commission for UNESCO's education committee.
From 2007 until September 2009 I was the Chair of Trustees of Interact Worldwide which works to reduce poverty by championing universal access to reproductive health . In that capacity I led the merger of Interact with Plan International. In a very challenging fundraising environment the merger will secure Interact's financial future and offer it lots of scope to grow its work and influence as part of a much larger international development organisation.
I remain passionately interested in sexual and reproductive rights in general and the rights of sexual minorities in develoing countries in particular. Having seen first hand the amazing work that gay, lesbian , bisexual and transgender people do in defence of their right, often at great personal risk, in the global South, I'm working to establish Free and Equal. It's purpose is to seed, strengthen and link LGBT human rights organisations.
I'm also currently a trustee of Read: the Reading Agency, whose mission is to inspire more people to read more. I share The Reading Agency's belief that reading can transform lives. Reading's had a transformative effect on me and I've seen how it's changed the lives of countless people around the world with whom I've worked and so I'm delighted to be supporting such a great organisation.
Gravely disappointed by the British Labour Party's war mongering, disregard for civil liberties and human rights and failure to do more for the environment I joined the Green Party. I've come to the realisation that the extent of change required to save the plant just can't be delivered by the old parties and that the step change in our thinking and decision making needs a more radical approach.
Working with Southwark's only Green Councillor and London Assembly Member Jenny Jones we secured a commitment from Southwark to become a living wage employer, which will mean that everyone who works for Southwark or one of its contractors will be paid the London Living Wage which is nearly 2 pounds more than the minimum wage, which will consequently help lift thousands of families our of a working poverty trap.
I've also worked with Jenny on campaigns for universal free school meals, a borough wide food strategy and support for the creation of green jobs.
I'm interested in the arts and culture and how they can be used in representing and promoting social change in particular. In 2006 I developed and led a very exciting multi-country, participatory photography project called 'Unheard Voices, Hidden Lives', which you can learn more about by clicking here.
I'm also very interested in writing.
I wrote my first letter to the editor of our local paper when I was eleven. It was about pollution in our local creek and it was written on a typewriter that my parents had bought me at the local toy shop. I've only recently realised the impact that having that letter published had on me. It gave me a taste of communicating with a wide audience about important issues and it's something that I've done ever since.
Whilst living in Melbourne I wrote regularly for The Age, Victoria's daily broadsheet, largely about human rights, civil liberties and HIV/AIDS. In fact almost all of my writing has been directly linked to issues on which I've been campaigning.
At the height of my involvement with the campaign to defend the ABC, Australia's public broadcaster, from political interference and budget cuts, I co-edited, together with Morag Fraser, 'Save Our ABC: the case for maintaining Australia's National Brodcaster.' I had direct experience of working with the ABC and a strong appreciation of its importance to Australians because from 1994 to 1998 I was a member of its statutory advisory body.
I have also been a long standing advocate of choice in end of life matters and in 1998 I edited 'The Final Choice: considerations on choosing to die'. The book provides an overview of some of the considerations people might make in choosing to die, choosing to ask someone to help or choosing to provide assistance to someone who wants to die.
To mix things up a little I've also recently become a parent. It's definitely the hardest thing I've ever done but infinitely the most rewarding.
I enjoy reading, traveling, yoga, riding my bike, swimming - especially in the sea - going to the theatre, cinema and art galleries and socialising with friends. All of which have taken a big blow since becoming a parent!
I also try to find time to meditate and every time I do, I vow to do it more often. I came to meditation through the kind advice of a good friend who, in response to my sense of how badly things were going in the world, suggested I look into Buddhism. She was absolutely right, Buddhism offers a new way of seeing and relating to the world, along with a set of practical tools for achieving both personal and social change. I practice Buddhism within the context of the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order and on Parinirvana Day in 2008 I became a Mitra. People become a Mitra when they are happy to consider themselves Buddhists, want to live in accordance with the five ethical precepts and believe that the FWBO is the appropriate spirtual comunity for them.
I live in London with my partner, Huey Nhan, with whom I enjoy spending time more than absolutely anything else. I ask myself every day what I did to deserve the companionship and love of such an amazing, generous and mature spirit. And every day I conclude that it was just luck.