Essays

Explore thought-provoking essays and deep dives into critical issues in our Essays section. Here, you’ll find a collection of my latest work, including a featured piece for Zócalo Public Square.

Published in August 2023, my essay ‘I’m Indigenous Australian, and I Work for a Mining Company’ was part of a broader theme examining the intersection of Indigenous identity and modern industry.

This essay is part of a project supported by the Mellon Foundation titled ‘How Should Societies Remember Their Sins?’ In this piece, I discuss the complexities of working within an industry that has historically marginalised my community and reflect on how we can address these societal sins.

Zócalo Public Square, a project of the Centre for Social Cohesion at Arizona State University, brings together ideas journalism with both head and heart. Dive in and join the conversation on topics that matter.

A pit mine
Being in mining was never part of my plan. As a young boy, I dreamed of becoming a priest with a pilot’s license, living and working in remote Australian communities. I got an advertising degree, joined the foreign service, and spent five years working for the government, including three years as a junior diplomat in Samoa. But I never really fit in. I resigned from the foreign service in January 1999, when I was 27, and returned to my hometown, the remote and dusty mining town of Mount Isa in outback Australia.