My Background
I have over thirty years of professional experience advising governments around the world. I held senior positions in the Australian Public Service and led international expert advisory teams on some of the most difficult and challenging post conflict developmental missions in countries such as Solomon Islands and Bosnia. From 2013 to 2016 I was a senior official in the Australian Department of Immigration and Border protection managing Australia’s global Refugee and Humanitarian program including Australia’s response to the humanitarian crisis in Syria. From 2008 to 2013, I was the First Assistant Secretary, Migration and Visa Policy Division in the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. My responsibilities during this time included policy and program design as well as management of all permanent and temporary migration visa programs. I was instrumental in developing the departmental capability to forecast and manage net overseas migration (NOM), a key contributor to population growth in Australia. I also led the development and the implementation of a number of Australia’s global online visa systems such as SkillSelect and E-Visitor. I lead the transformation of the Australia’s international education visa system and the Australia’s foreign workers visa system introducing a number of integrity measures such as market salary requirement for foreign workers and genuine entrant provisions and streamlined processing for accredited providers of international education. In 2008 I designed and led the implementation of the Pacific Seasonal Labour Scheme. Before joining the Department of Immigration and Citizenship in 2007, I worked as a senior economic advisor in Treasury and in a number of other Australian government agencies including Prime Minister & Cabinet and Social Security. In 2000 and 2001 I was part of the Joint Prime Ministerial Taskforce on Bilateral Relationship between Australia and NZ which resulted in the new bilateral relationship framework between two countries. My educational background includes Masters of Economics and Graduate Diploma in Public Policy degrees from Belgrade University and the Australian National University. I have published articles on economic and public policy issues in various professional journals in Australia and Europe.