Chinnery saw the position as labour supervisor as a holding one. In May 1921, soon after Australian civil administration had begun in the League of Nations Mandated Territory of New Guinea,^[65] Chinnery applied to the Australian government for an anthropological appointment in the territory. He informed the commonwealth government secretary that he had discussed the question of anthropology in connection with the administration of colonies with Prime Minister Billy Hughes who said he would advise Chinnery as soon as there was a suitable opening.

In his application to the Official Secretary of the Commonwealth of Australia, he described himself as a ‘student [who] specialized on the ethnology of Oceania’ and had ‘spent three months on research in parts of the mandated territory’. Since November 1920 he had been ‘studying problems of native labor [sic] for the New Guinea Copper Mines and applying the results to their organization’. To demonstrate his enthusiasm and commitment to anthropology he informed the commonwealth officer that he planned to spend ‘a short time in the mountains to investigate the social organisation of one of the negrito tribes’ of Papua.^[66] He was eager to present himself as both the practical man and most importantly as an anthropologist, a scientist who could oversee the dramatic changes which were impacting on the indigenous population and offset the undesirable effects. His time outside the structure of government service enabled him to put into practice some of the ideas he developed while in England. Rivers played an important role in this, as it is apparent Chinnery took two strictures from him into his supervising of indigenous labour: first, to ‘uphold the indigenous culture of the subject race’; and second, ‘whatever the degree of interference with indigenous customs … knowledge of the culture to be modified is absolutely necessary if changes are to be made without serious injury to the moral and material culture of the people’.^[67]

He no longer saw himself as merely a resident magistrate or patrol officer: he wanted to put into effect his anthropological training, which he thought could be realised by an appointment as a government anthropologist, either in Papua or the newly acquired mandated territory of New Guinea. Chinnery was both a product of colonialism and a critic of colonialism, while sensitive to the more humane ideals of the colonial enterprise. He was deeply influenced by the idealism of J.H.P. Murray’s colonial philosophy which permeated his thinking and practice, as well as Haddon who served as his mentor and advisor.

Chinnery had to wait until April 1924 before he was appointed Government Anthropologist. By then he was well versed in all matters to do with an anthropology premised on assisting colonial administrations to help advance and uplift indigenous populations.