Paul Murphy: 'The city has changed, for sure, from 1999 to now'

He insists on picking up an empty coffee cup instead of waiting for the staff loves a dosa and has a Bollywood connection He is also an economist trade agreement expert and now the Australian Consul General in Mumbai midday caught up with Paul Murphy who is back to Maximum City for the fourth time on a new more exciting missionEdited excerpts from the interviewCan we start at the beginninghelliphow did your association with Mumbai kick offI must have been around 23 when I first arrived here as a backpacker in 1999 I had travelled through Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan and reached Mumbai by train It was a beautiful experience roaming the city and travelling by bus to get aroundIt was slightly more eventful than that we hearLaughs Yes I was put up at the Salvation Army Hostel in South Mumbai itrsquos where foreign nationals stayed on short stints And so it was hunting ground for film production crews whorsquod regularly turn up to look for extras in scenes involving foreigners One such team whisked me away for a scene I donrsquot remember much except that the set was an antique shop Someone was supposed to barge in and start smashing things and I was to act alarmed The only other thing I remember is that it was then that I realised that I could never be an actorAnd you returned with a more specific mission in mindYes I studied Economics at the Canberra University and joined the Treasury Service Economics and anthropology had been my twin interests which is why I wanted to study people as much as I wanted to make a career in economics I came back to India in 2012 when the CECA Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement was being negotiated This was a time when there was only an Australian High Commission in Delhi I worked out of Hyderabad at the time It was also a time when trade relations between the two countries were revolving around the diamond and gold tradeI returned in 2022 this time for the ECTA Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement What had changed by this time was that strong trade relations between the two countries were more essential than optional The Indian diaspora in Australia had grown from two hundred thousand to one million The elected officials in Australia were keen on letting the diaspora know that they were interested in strong trade relations between India and AustraliaIs the GIFT City Gujarat International Finance TecCity an outcome of thisGIFT City is only the tip of the iceberg as far as IndiaAustralia relations go Yes there are a large number of students arriving from India to study in Australia and many more wish to But relations in the education space got a real boost last year after the mutual recognition of educational qualifications between the two countries Because of this Australian universities are working on hybrid education programmes Which means that an Indian student isnrsquot required to spend the whole duration of the course in Australia This cuts down on the cost and is opening doors for more Indian studentsYou also worked in Papua New Guinea What was that experience likeNew Guinea is lovely It is also the place where I held my first consular post I set up the Australian Consulate in Lae while working with the Consulate in Papua New Guinea My stint in Lae was particularly memorable because I built the Consulate from scratchmdashsettling in living in hotels getting to know the culture recruiting local talent Then the pandemic hit and the economy ground to a standstill Lae is a bustling port and so was hit badly And many of the citizens didnrsquot have a centralised government ID to help with setting up bank accounts So we started a new scheme and issued ID cards took stock of how many family members each applicant was supporting and managed to create opportunities that let them earn a living wageHow has the last one week in Mumbai beenThe city has changed for sure from 1999 to now I drove down the Bandra Worli Sea Link and had dinner at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Center Irsquom looking forward to seeing more of the city I love Indian food In Australia we have a chain called Dosa Hut that serves authentic south Indian fare And Sydney has a sprawling arcade of Indianrun stores that take up an entire floor in a shopping centreAnd you plan to spend some time digging up which filmteleserial cast you in 1999God no I donrsquot want to be reminded of it I think Irsquove revealed too much on that front already