Author: Peter
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The Right Drink for the Right Time
What is your favourite drink? It depends on the mood and the moment. If I had to name one drink that works anytime, it’s water—fresh, satisfying, sugar free, and hard to beat. Out to dinner I usually go for beer, always something local or something I haven’t tried before. If we’re drinking wine, I’m happy…
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The People Who Make Others Bigger
Who are your favourite people to be around? My favourite people to be around are the ones who make other people bigger. They make relationship feel safe—no performance required, no fear that what you say will travel. They’re encouraging without being over the top, and you don’t come away feeling managed or judged. They also…
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The Pair That Goes Everywhere
Tell us about your favourite pair of shoes, and where they’ve taken you. I’m a bloke, so I don’t have a massive collection of shoes. I’ve got a pair of work shoes I wear most days, some walking shoes for the dog and pottering around the house, hiking boots for bush regeneration and the odd…
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The Gift I Didn’t Expect
Share one of the best gifts you’ve ever received. My grandfather died when I was seventeen. It was an industrial accident, and it came out of the blue. One minute he was there, the next minute he wasn’t. He died the day before I stared university, so the next few weeks were hard. Grieving on…
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Four Jars on the Kitchen Bench
Write about your approach to budgeting Imagine four jars on a kitchen bench. Needs: These are the weekly essentials. Groceries, clothing, fuel, health insurance — all the regular ins and outs that make life tick. We put these on a credit card for convenience, but we pay it off fortnightly so we’re not carrying debt.…
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Patriotic, Not Nationalistic
Are you patriotic? What does being patriotic mean to you? I’m patriotic, but I’m not nationalistic. Nationalism, as I understand it, is loyalty sharpened into superiority. It needs an “us” that feels threatened, and it often looks for a “them” to blame. Patriotism is different. Patriotism is love of home—paired with responsibility. It isn’t blind.…
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P Plates, No Plates
Have you ever unintentionally broken the law? At seventeen I spent a summer working in a used car yard. I’d only just got my licence, so I was on my P plates—back when they were wired onto the number plate, long before magnetic ones made life easy. The boss told me I could take whatever…
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Tall, Dark, and Silent
If there were a biography about you, what would the title be? The first thing that comes to mind is something someone said about me years ago: “Tall, dark and silent.” It was meant playfully, not cruelly, but it probably caught something true about how I occupy a room. I’m naturally reserved. I don’t speak…
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The Shape of a Conventional Life
What were your parents doing at your age? At my age, my father had been retired for about eight years. He’d spent decades as a civilian in the Australian Navy—dockyard work, public service, a steady and conventional path. But he didn’t retire because he ran out of things to do. He retired because he ran…
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Defaults Change Lives
If you had the power to change one law, what would it be and why? Changing one law? I’d change the default on organ donation. Not by forcing anyone’s hand. Simply by making organ donation opt-out rather than opt-in. Because defaults shape what happens next. They don’t remove freedom, but they do remove obstacles. And…
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Dream Home
Write about your dream home. I have never really dreamed about a home. Maybe that’s because I value other things. Maybe it’s because I’ve been out of the market for most of my life. More likely it’s because a home, for me, isn’t meant to carry the weight of aspiration. A home embodies values. It…
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The Day Radio Beat Homework
You get some great, amazingly fantastic news. What’s the first thing you do? I tell the right person first. Not by email. Not by text. No social media announcements. If it’s truly great news, it deserves a voice. It deserves someone on the other end who can hear it properly — and share the moment…
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Hunting for Gems
Are there any activities or hobbies you’ve outgrownor lost interest in over time? I used to spend hours in the city, moving from one second-hand record store to another, scanning the shelves for comedy albums. Not music this time—comedy. Victor Borge. Peter Sellers. Shelley Berman. Bob Newhart. They were old even then, and that was…
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#Blessed – Matthew 5:7-12
Do you want to live a blessed life—not the sunset-caption kind,not the #blessed kind,but the steady goodnessof God’s kindnessfinding you in the ordinary? I didn’t have language for it.I knew God—Scripture, church, study—but enjoying God felt like a foreign country.And then Jesus sits on a hillsideand says Blessed—not as a reward you earn,but as a…
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Sour, Please
What’s your favourite candy? I’ve always liked things that are sour. In high school a friend of mine had a big lemon tree in his backyard. When it was in fruit, we’d climb up and perch in the branches and eat lemons straight off the tree. It sounds ridiculous, but I loved it. Ever since…
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On Being “On”
Do you need a break? From what? I live with tension. Some days I’m tired and I long for a break. There are always things happening for people: students facing mental health challenges, students in financial crisis, the organisational imperative of keeping things running smoothly, strategic decisions that can’t be put off. It can be…
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Abundance
The most important invention in your lifetime is… When I compare life now with my younger years, the difference is extraordinary. As a student, research was slow, local, and uncertain. You spent hours in the library working through abstracts, hoping you were even looking in the right place, and then hoping again that your library…
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The Hinge
Describe your most ideal day from beginning to end I’m a person with simple tastes. I don’t need much to have a good day. My ideal day is made of a handful of small scenes that, put together, feel like enough. I’m up at 4:30 or 5:00am. The house is quiet. I feed the animals…
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What Each Decade Taught Me
How do significant life events or the passage of timeinfluence your perspective on life? When I was 17, I thought focus was a virtue. Cut out distractions, study hard, give yourself to the things you valued. I did that. I achieved. But I also felt empty. In my twenties I worked at a major bank.…
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The Paperwork That Didn’t Matter
Something on your “to-do list” that never gets done Every day I tell myself I’m going to clean up the piles of paper on my desk. Most mornings start with the same small act of optimism: I write out a to-do list and work through what I can. Then the next day arrives and that…
The Afterword 