Our speaker was Jonathan Palmer of Palmer St Hall (just coincidence that he is not from a galaxy far, far away). Jonathan is the Deputy Australian Statistician in the Bureau of Statistics. His group provides corporate and statistical services, including statistical data collection and dissemination, Information and Communications Technology (ICT), Finance, Risk and Planning. The last election is the stuff of nightmares that I cannot recall if he was part of.
Jonathan is an IT professional by training but his career has included 6 years with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington as their first Chief Information Officer (CIO); he has served an Adjunct Professor with the School of Information Sciences and Engineering at the University of Canberra. He serves as the Australian representative on the Governing Council of the Statistical Institute for Asia Pacific Statistical Steering Committee.
Being a relatively young man Jonathan maintains a warm engaging personality and great sense of humour despite his 'geeky' work. At very short notice he was directed by the Government to conduct the upcoming survey on changes to the law regarding same sex marriage. He had the club totally engaged in his talk as he described himself as the terrified child star Macauley Culkin in the 1990 film 'Home Alone'. Who me? You want what, when? He showed us the actual form that will be mailed out to 16 million addressees and smilingly informed us that we were the first of the public to see it. Lucky Hall Rotary!
It was Jonathan's first face-to-face public talk on the organisation leading up to the survey so he said he really welcomed the forest of hands with great questions. At least he kept smiling and luckily we did not ask any questions that he could not explain in layman’s terms. He is still waiting for the óh no' question to stop him in his tracks.
He mentioned to a few members that he had proudly shown the Rural Fringe that included the article on our Changeover to a number of his friends and he is considering joining such a friendly club that achieves excellent outcomes. May the force remain with us!
- Yvonne
