Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Tuesday 09 June
6:15 PM - 7:15 PM
As the dust settles on this year’s federal budget, the Fifth Estate turns its eye to matters economic with Ross Gittins, economics editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, and public policy experts Miriam Lyons and Ian McAuley.
While the Federal Government expects to spend more in 2015 than at the height of the global financial crisis, it appears that well-funded health and higher education are inching further out of reach – not to mention an economy that addresses climate change or the growing divide between rich and poor.
Must the ‘path back to surplus’ entail a leaner, meaner government? Doesn’t public sector involvement make sound economics? What is the role of government in Australia today?
Join Sally Warhaft and guests as they illuminate the complexities and contradictions of the modern economy – and its effects on our daily lives.
Featuring
Sally Warhaft
Sally Warhaft is a Melbourne broadcaster, anthropologist and writer. She is the host of The Fifth Estate, the Wheeler Centre’s live series focusing on journalism, politics, media, and international relations, and The Leap Year ...
Miriam Lyons
Miriam Lyons is a Renewable Energy Campaigner with GetUp! She is also an Australian policy analyst, writer and commentator, and the co-author, with Ian McAuley, of Governomics, published by Melbourne University Press in May 2015.
Miriam is a member of the Centre for Australian Progress board, and a Fellow and former CEO of the Centre for Policy Development, which she co-founded with John Menadue AO and others in 2007. She is a frequent guest on various TV and radio programs, including the ABC shows Q&A and The Drum, has contributed to several publications and co-edited the CPD books Pushing Our Luck and More Than Luck. Earlier roles include policy editing for New Matilda, researching freedom of speech in East Timor, and organising ideas festivals.
Ian McAuley
For most of his life Ian McAuley has lived and breathed public policy. He has been an engineer in a manufacturing firm (in the days when we had a home-grown manufacturing sector), a trade commissioner, a policy analyst and a manager in the federal Department of Industry, and more recently a lecturer in Public Sector Financial Management at the University of Canberra.
He has worked on consultancies for Australian and foreign governments and for international agencies (the UN and the OECD). He is a regular contributor on public policy issues to The Conversation and New Matilda, and with Miriam Lyons, co-authored the book Governomics: Can we afford small government? (2015).
Ross Gittins
Ross Gittins is the economics editor of Sydney Morning Herald and an economic columnist for the Age. He is a winner of the Citibank Pan Asia award for excellence in financial journalism and has been a Nuffield Press fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge, and a journalist-in-residence at the Department of Economics at the University of Melbourne.
Ross is frequently called upon to comment on the economic issues of the day and has written and contributed to many books and periodicals. His books include Gittins' Gospel, Gittinomics and The Happy Economist.