Last week I hosted a reception, with the Chinese Consul General, for British and Chinese businesses. The aim was to allow our business communities to get to know each other better in an informal setting, to see if there were opportunities for them to work together in Australia. The initiative was sparked by the Third [...]

A whale stretching its body above the surface and spouting. I’m still new enough to Australia to find this a pretty miraculous sight - especially when you can see it from land. I was on the cliffs by the Macquarie lighthouse in Sydney at the weekend. Cold, but blue skies and sunshine. I quickly pointed [...]

80 days left till kickoff! I’m Hamish and I have been tasked with organising UKTI’s major events for the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand.
The World Cup is set to take the country by storm. 80,000 visitors are predicted to visit with 20,000 of these being from the UK, a very long way to come [...]

With these encouraging words from one of my children, I spent the rest of the car journey in silence, so that my youngest could listen to an Alex Rider adventure on the CD player on Saturday. Not my initial idea of quality time. We were driving to Cronulla with Saturday errands. So I ended up [...]

Specifically, they think I should be the British Consul General in Los Angeles. This is not for any scientific or mercenary reason, or because they don’t like Australia. But it came up when they realised that my colleague in LA had held a party in the last few weeks which the “American Idol” finalists had [...]

Euro fashion is responding to the changing global economy. I was struck by a story in the FT last week, about the Spanish clothing chain Inditex -  the largest clothing manufacturer in the world, that owns various fashion stores, including Zara. The article explained that Inditex will now be producing clothes for the southern hemisphere [...]

One of the best things about this job is that the weeks are very varied.
I heard the Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer Wayne Swan explaining the Australian federal budget to the NSW Business Chamber in the days after the parliamentary announcement. A key theme was around ensuring Australians had the skills to be able to [...]

It was a pleasure to host a “500 Days to Go to London 2012” event at our house yesterday evening. We combined it with the welcome event for the new British High Commissioner to Australia, HE Paul Madden.
It was an honour to meet athletes like swimmer Geoff Huegill and hear about his training plans; and [...]

Carbon neutral shipping.  Triple-masted hulls transporting goods across the oceans. It may sound surprising, but it is just what British company “B9 Shipping” are working towards.
One of the privileges of my job is meeting British companies with innovative ideas and the passionate people helping drive their success.  This week, I greatly enjoyed meeting a Director [...]

I was lucky enough to be invited to a private screening of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows last week, at the IMAX in Sydney. The film looks fantastic, was well received by the audience and is currently smashing all comers in the Australian box office rankings.
In many ways it is a celebration of UK [...]