Matthew Hogan
1 June 2016: After arriving four decades ago at the University of Canberra from his native New Zealand, Professor of public administration John Halligan is heading into retirement, but it appears he will be as busy as ever.
Professor Halligan, a fellow at the University's Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis is hard at work on his next book, with research trips to Wellington, London and Ottawa on the agenda.
"The book is a comparative study of public sector reform in Australia, UK, New Zealand and Canada," he said. "It's an area I've worked in for a long time as major reform has been occurring for the past 30 years, so I'm trying to pull together some of my published work, but also update it and interpret the position in the mid-2010s."
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Professor of public administration John Halligan recently retired from the University of Canberra. Photo: Kim Pham.
Professor Halligan's academic career started at his birthplace, Dunedin, New Zealand, where he attended the University of Otago and completed his bachelor and master degrees.
It was while he was working on his PhD in New Zealand's capital city of Wellington that he got the call to come and work in Australia's capital.
"I got dobbed in for a job at what was then the Canberra College of Advanced Education [now the University of Canberra]," he recalled. "So I have a longer association here at the University than almost anyone else on the academic staff."
Landing in Canberra in 1975, Dr Halligan arrived just in time to see the dismissal of then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam.
"It was a terribly exciting time," he recalled. "I was here for two-and-a-half years working on an Australian Research Council project led by Roger Wettenhall, who is an Emeritus Professor here at UC, and John Power, who is now an Emeritus Professor at the University of Melbourne."
Their collaboration resulted in the publishing of Local Government Systems of Australia in 1981, which became an often-cited study of the history of local governance in Australia.
Dr Halligan moved to Melbourne where he spent much of the 1980s working as a research fellow at the University of Melbourne.
He returned to the University of Canberra in the year of Australia's Bicentenary, 1988, where he has lectured in the Faculty of Business, Government and Law (and its predecessors) until his recent retirement.
With more than 20 books authored, co-authored or edited, 140 articles and chapters published and more than 30 PhD students supervised, Professor Halligan has found at least one new hobby to squeeze in between working on his book.
"I'm starting to do things that I didn't have time for before," he said. "I joined the UC Chorale, and I have been invited to [the Mediterranean island of] Sardinia, but I think they are expecting me to work if I go there."
Professor Halligan will keep himself busy as he will continue his ongoing research projects, supervising doctoral students and engagement with the Faculty, the Institute and the University.
