Paul Hamer is a historian with extensive experience in the public sector. He has longstanding connections with Victoria University of Wellington’s Institute of Policy Studies and Te Kawa a Māui (the School of Māori Studies) and has a doctorate from Monash University in Melbourne. From 1993 to 2004, he worked for the Waitangi Tribunal, for most of that period leading the team that assisted Tribunal inquiry panels in the writing of their reports. From 2004 to 2007, he was employed at Te Puni Kōkiri, mainly as a policy manager in the area of Treaty settlements. During 2006, he was based at Griffith University in Queensland as a visiting fellow, researching a report for Te Puni Kōkiri about Māori in Australia, which was launched by the Minister of Māori Affairs in Sydney in 2007. In 2008, Paul returned to working for the Tribunal, taking a lead role in assisting the writing of Tribunal reports on two major inquiries, the Wai 262 Flora and Fauna and Māori Intellectual Property Inquiry and the Te Paparahi o te Raki (Northland) Inquiry. He also authored several historical research reports commissioned by the Tribunal as evidence. From 2017 to 2021, Paul was employed as principal adviser in the Rautaki Māori (Māori Strategy and Partnerships) Team at the Department of Corrections. Dr Paul Hamer was appointed to the Tribunal in 2020.