He was then assigned as a Second Lieutenant/Platoon Commander to the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, serving in Malaysia and Singapore as part of a Commonwealth Brigade under the Five-Power Defence Arrangements.
He returned to the Department in Canberra in 1970, and subsequently served as an Australian diplomat in Mexico, Burma and Singapore.
[3] While resident in the Solomons, he and other diplomats received death threats from an Australian expatriate-dubbed 'Mr Smith' in the media.
[5] At the end of his posting in the Solomons, he was seconded by the Australian Government from 1988 - 1996 to London, as Director of International Relations (later re- named Political Affairs) of the Commonwealth Secretariat.
He was then appointed by the UN Secretary-General as UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia from 2002 to 2006, and was the Director of the UN Mine Action Service based in New York from 2006 to 2008.