He holds a Bachelor of Arts with First Class Honours in Political Science and a Masters in Policy Studies with distinction from the University of NSW, and a PhD in Political Science from the University of WA. He writes a weekly column for The Weekend Australian, a weekly column in the Wednesday section of The Australian and a column syndicated by the Sunday News Ltd newspapers. He also hosts a weekly television program The Contrarians on Sky News each Friday, having previously presented cover stories on Australian politics for Channel Nine's Sunday Program. He has published in a wide variety of high ranking academic journals and is the author/editor of three books, including John Winston Howard: The Biography, rated by The Wall Street Journal Asia as the best biography of 2007.