Fred Argy, a former high level policy adviser to several Federal governments, has written extensively on the interaction between social and economic issues. He is the author of two papers for the Centre for Policy Development, 'Australia's Fiscal Straightjacket: Eight myths about tax and public debt which are holding us back' and 'Howard's reforms and Australian values'

Dr James Arvanitakis is a lecturer in the Humanities at the University of Western Sydney and is a member of the University's Centre for Cultural Research. James has worked as a human rights activist throughout the Pacific, Indonesia and Europe. He is currently working with the Whitlam Institute  looking at issues confronting Australia's democracy. A regular media commentator on ABC and 2JJJ, James' latest book, Contemporary Society: A sociological analysis of everyday life, is due to be launched in February 2009.

Mark Bahnisch is a Sociologist lecturing in the Politics, Economy and Society Programme in the Creative Industries Faculty at QUT. Mark has postgraduate qualifications in sociology, industrial relations and political economy. He has published on political and social theory, Australian and international politics, the sociology of deviance, industrial relations, organisational sociology and sociology of religion. He has eleven years’ experience in tertiary teaching, as well as teaching management, sociology and political science. He has also worked in community organisations and the public sector, and has consulted to the Australian and Queensland Governments as well as private and public organisations. As well as some 33 academic papers, Mark has contributed opinion pieces to a range of international and domestic publications and online fora, including The Australian Financial Review and an essay in The Griffith Review.

Professor Denise Bradley AO is chair of the Federal government's review of higher education. She has been the Vice Chancellor and President of the University of South Australia since 1997. She has been extensively involved in national education policy groups for more than two decades and currently is President and Chair of IDP Education Australia Limited, a Member of the Board of Directors of IDP Education Pty Ltd, Executive Member of the International Association of University Presidents (IAUP), Member of the Board of the Australian Vice Chancellor’s Committee and Member of the Board of Directors of the Australian-American Fulbright Commission. She is President elect of the Australian College of Educators and will assume the Presidency in 2008 for two years. Professor Bradley is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and has been a Fellow of the Australian College of Educators since 1982. In 1995 she was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in recognition of her contribution to education and education policy and was awarded a Centenary Medal in 2003. In 2005 Denise was named an Asia Pacific Woman of Distinction in Education by the Asia Pacific Women’s Business Council Inc and the South Australian of the Year, for her significant contributions to the State. In 2006 Professor Bradley was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Business Administration from Korea’s Pukyong National University and in March 2007 was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from UniSA and the title of Emeritus Professor.

Mark Connelly is an associate at the Sydney office of U.S. law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, advising Australian companies on large debt and equity offerings being made into the United States. Prior to moving to Sydney in 2005, Mark worked for the John Kerry U.S. presidential campaign in 2004, organizing lawyers across the United States for fund raising and ballot protection. Mark was also a co-founder and former co-chair of the Burden Center Associates, a junior committee of young professionals at the Carter Burden Center for the Aging, a non-profit organization which assists the elderly in New York. Mark attended Georgetown University in Washington D.C. and New York University School of Law in New York City, and was admitted to the New York Bar in 2003. He is also registered as a foreign lawyer with the Law Society of New South Wales.

Lyndsay Connors was a member of the former Commonwealth Schools Commission; and Deputy Chair of the Board of the ABC. She has held senior education posts in NSW; headed reviews in Victoria and the ACT; and now chairs the NSW Public Education Council. She served for four years as the Deputy Chair of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation during the 1990s, and during this period she was also Deputy Chair of the Board of the Open Learning Technology Corporation and a member of the Australian Children’s Television Foundation. She was a full-time member of the Commonwealth Schools Commission during the 1980s, and went on to chair the Schools Council of the National Board of Employment, Education and Training. She has recently been awarded the title of Adjunct Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Sydney. She is currently preparing a paper for the Centre for Policy Development on teacher shortages.

Eva Cox was until recently Program Director, Social Inquiry at the University of Technology Sydney, and is now practicing being an unattached change agent while reviving her consultancy, Distaff Associates. She is the national Chair of the Women's Electoral Lobby - an organisation in which she was a founding member in 1972. A strong feminist and advocate for women's issues, she delivered the 1995 ABC Boyer Lectures on A Truly Civil Society which she is still trying to achive (available through ABC Books). She has researched and published on many policy and other social issues recently including: child care, sole parents and welfare payments, superannuation, social capital, community well being, asylum seekers, corporate social responsibility, research and evalution. A frequent media commentator, she sees herself as a problem solver rather than a specialist. Her current research interests include devising a more civil society, teaching community research skillls, policy formulation, indigenous child-care and domestic violence, the Welfare to Work program, and a wide range of gender issues, including parental leave.

Dr Kate Crawford is an Associate Professor and Research Fellow at the Journalism and Media Research Centre at the University of New South Wales. She is the author of Adult Themes: Rewriting the Rules of Adulthood (Macmillan), which critiques generational categories and presents the wider patterns of change in political engagement, property ownership, family formation and cultural consumption in Australia. Adult Themes won the individual category of the Manning Clark National Cultural Award. Kate is currently conducting an ARC-funded three-year study with Professor Gerard Goggin into uses of mobile media across Australia. She is a member of the Management Committee of the Cultural Research Network and sits on the boards of Media International Australia and the contemporary dance company Chunky Move. Her writing has appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Good Weekend, Rolling Stone and The Financial Review.

Dr Mark Davis received both his BA (Hons) and PhD from the Department of English with Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne. He has worked for 15 years in the Australian magazine and book publishing industries as a graphic designer, twice winning major awards for book design. He is also a writer of popular non-fiction and has written for many major newspapers and magazines. His book Gangland: Cultural Elites and the New Generationalism was short-listed in the 1998 NSW Premiers Literary Awards. Since 2004 he has taught in the Publishing and Communications Program in the Department of English with Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne.

Jennifer Doggett is a health policy analyst and consultant who has worked in a number of different areas of the health system, including the federal health department and the community sector, and as a political advisor on health policy. She currently works with health provider, industry and consumer groups on a range of health issues. She has a Masters in Public Health and a Graduate Diploma in Health Economics. Jennifer is the author of author of 'A New Approach to Primary Care for Australia', published by the Centre for Policy Development in June 2007.

Ian Dunlop was formerly a senior oil, gas and coal industry executive. He chaired the Australian Coal Association in 1987-88, chaired the AGO Experts Group on Emissions Trading in 1999-2000 and was CEO of the Australian Institute of Company Directors from 1997-2001.

Dr Lindy Edwards is the author of How to Argue with an Economist: Re-Opening Political Debate in Australia. She is a Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University. Lindy has previously been an economic adviser in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, worked as a Press Gallery Journalist and been Economic Adviser to then leader of the Australian Democrats, Natasha Stott Despoja.

Professor Meredith Edwards AM is Emeritus Professor, National Institute for Governance, University of Canberra. Professor Edwards is an economist with a PhD from the Australian National University. Through her career, Professor Edwards has been a lecturer, researcher, policy analyst and administrator. Professor Edwards worked in the Commonwealth Public Service from 1983 until 1997 in many departments advising on some major social policy, education and labour market issues. She became Deputy Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet in 1993 and held that position until 1997. Professor Edwards served as Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Canberra from August 1997, when she also became Professor, until August 2002. She set up the National Institute for Governance in 1999 and was appointed its Director in that year, stepping down from this position in December 2004. In 2005 she became Emeritus Professor at the University of Canberra. In 2001 she published a book Social Policy, Public Policy: From Problem to Practice based on case studies she was involved in during her career in the Commonwealth Public Service. Her current major research interests are: a major ARC project on issues relating to the governance of public sector boards; university governance and community engagement issues.

Ben Eltham is a writer, musician and creative producer from Brisbane, Australia. He studied neuroscience to postgraduate level before becoming interested in contemporary culture while editing University of Queensland student newspaper Semper Floreat. After working as Assistant Manager of Newcastle's contemporary arts festival, This Is Not Art, he founded new culture festival Straight Out of Brisbane in 2002. He writes regularly about Australian politics, culture and the arts for broadsheets (The Courier-Mail), online magazines (New Matilda) and specialist arts publications (Time Off, Rave Magazine, Arts Hub, Vibewire). His first play, The Pacific Solution, was performed at the Brisbane Festival in 2006. Ben is a former Queensland Young Writer of the Year, and his hip-hop act Briztronix has released two albums, toured nationally and been played by Triple J. Ben's research and writing interests include contemporary Australian politics, culture, music and letters; cultural economics and arts and cultural policy; and defence policy. He is currently researching an ImagiNation paper on Australian cultural policy for the Centre with Susan Kukucka, a Senior Research Assistant in Griffith University's School of Arts, Media and Culture.

Dr Donna Green is a lecturer and researcher at the Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales. In this position she leads a programme that uses indigenous and non-indigenous knowledge to understand climate impacts on remote communities in northern Australia. Her research focuses on human-environment interactions, specifically on social and economic vulnerability, adaptation and risk. Donna’s current work builds on ten years’ experience working in the areas of energy, environment and sustainable development in the Asia-Pacific region. This work involved translating scientific findings into policy, project management and local capacity building. She has consulted for a range of international intergovernmental organisations - most recently advising UNDP in Central Asia; and collaborated on global change projects with Carnegie Mellon University, U.S. and the United Nations University, Japan. Donna was a contributing author in the UN World Energy Assessment and for the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report WGII (Australia and New Zealand chapter).

Ray Ison holds chairs at Monash University, where he is Professor of Social Learning Systems (located in the Monash Sustainability Institute) and the Open University (UK), where he has been Professor of Systems since 1994. He has an established international reputation in Systems scholarship and has made significant contributions through his research, teaching and consultancy in the areas of systems practice and social learning, systemic environmental decision making, ‘knowledge transfer’, design of learning/inquiring systems and agricultural systems. Ray’s work has found practical application in diverse fields including water management, organisational change, staff induction, Higher Education reform and rural development and recently, climate change. Ray is currently working on a book entitled ‘How to act in a climate change world: systems practice, systemic inquiry and action research’. His other most recent work investigates how social learning could be employed as an alternative governance mechanism for managing complex, or ‘wicked’ situations, particularly water catchments and other multiple stakeholder settings. You can read more at Ray’s blog: http://rayison.blogspot.com/

Dr Steve Keen is Associate Professor of Economics & Finance at the University of Western Sydney. Steve is the author of the best-selling book Debunking Economics, where he laid out new ground as a critic of conventional economics by being highly mathematical in his own research. His main research interest is in developing mathematical models of Hyman Minsky’s Financial Instability Hypothesis. A collection of work can be found at www.debunking-economics.com. He is the author of two reports for the Centre for Policy Development: ‘Debt Freedom Day 2007’ and 'Deeper in Debt: Australia's addiction to borrowed money'.

Ian McAuley lectures in Public Sector Finance at the University of Canberra. His research interests are in public policy, with a specialisation in health policy. His academic qualifications are in engineering and business management from Adelaide University and in public administration from Harvard University. Besides his academic work, he has assisted consumer and welfare organizations in financial and economic policy matters. He has been a strong advocate for integration of the components of health care into a coherent consumer-focussed system. He has been a critic of successive governments' piece-meal approaches to health policy, particularly the government's subsidies for private health insurance because they bring neither the benefits of market competition nor the benefits of strong government control. Ian is co-author of a number of papers for the Centre for Policy Development, including 'Reclaiming our Common Wealth: policies for a fair and sustainable future' and 'A Health Policy for Australia: reclaiming universal care'

Dr David McKnight is Associate Professor at the Journalism and Media Research Centre at the University of New South Wales. He is the author of Beyond Right and Left: New Politics and the Culture War, a book which analyses the rise of the Right, the collapse of the Left and the culture war around feminism, multiculturalism and the politics of values.

He is a historian of the Cold War, having written an authoritative history of ASIO, Australia’s Spies and Their Secrets (1994) which won the Non Fiction prize at the NSW Literary Awards. He also researches media and political influence and worked as journalist on the Sydney Morning Herald, ABC TV’s Four Corners and on the weekly Tribune. His political and social commentary appears in major newspapers. A collection of David’s writings can be found at www.beyondrightandleft.com.au.

Tony Moore is a cultural historian, commentator and former ABC TV Documentary maker with a special interest in media reform, Australian popular culture, artistic bohemia and Labor politics. He was employed at the ABC for nine years working in documentaries, Four Corners, Foreign Correspondent and 7.30 Report and prior to that was a member of the ABC's National Advisory Council. Tony writes frequently on Australian history, cultural institutions and politics in the broadsheet press and academic journals and is an activist for its reform through bodies like New Matilda and the Fabians. His first book, The Barry McKenzie Movies, was published in 2005 by Currency Press, and an essay on 'Marcus Clarke Urban Iconoclast' was selected for Best Essays 2005. Tony is Commissioning Editor of Pluto Press Australia. His last documentary Bohemian Rhapsody: Rebels of Australian Culture is the subject of a PhD he is completing at the University of Sydney. His next publication will be 'The Art of Risk in an Age of Anxiety', in Kate Oakley & Lisa Anderson, eds., Making Meaning, Making Money. Directions for the arts and cultural industries in the Creative Age, Cambridge Scholars Press to be published in 2007.

Professor John Quiggin is a Federation Fellow in Economics and Political Science at the University of Queensland. He is prominent both as a research economist and as a commentator on Australian economic policy. He is the author of 'The Risk Society: Social Democracy in an uncertain world' for the Centre for Policy Development. He blogs at: http://www.johnquiggin.com/

Adam Rorris is an education economist and policy analyst working extensively in Australia and overseas. He has worked for the World Bank, Unicef, UNESCO, AusAID and other international agencies to help develop robust funding systems for national school systems throughout Asia and the Pacific. During 2002-2007 he worked as the Manager/Principal Analyst of the Schools Resourcing Taskforce for the Ministerial Council of Australian Education Ministers. He has worked with all state and Commonwealth departments of education as well as representatives of the non-government school sector. He provides commentary on Australian education issues through the Sydney Morning Herald.

Dr James Slezak is a management consultant at McKinsey & Co, where he advises public, private and social sector clients on strategy. His policy-related projects include co-authoring the report An Australian Cost Curve for Greenhouse Gas Reduction, and working with the ONE Campaign in Washington to develop a 3-year strategy for increasing developed-world assistance to developing nations. He majored in mathematics at the University of Sydney, and holds a PhD in physics from Cornell University, where he researched high temperature superconductivity. While studying for his PhD, he consulted for the United Nations on science policy and organisational change, and during the 2004 US presidential elections, directed online strategy for a national media campaign opposing Bush Administration foreign policy doctrine, with backing from financier George Soros and former NATO Supreme Commander Wesley Clark. In the past, he has hosted weekly radio shows on various community radio stations in Sydney and New York City, including 2SER, FBi and East Village Radio, and was a state finalist in the Triple J Raw Comedy awards.

Dr Ben Spies-Butcher lectures in economic and political sociology at Macquarie University. He has a PhD in Economics from the University of Sydney. His research focuses on the economics and politics of social policy, and on political participation. He previously worked as Senior Researcher at the Edmund Rice Centre for Justice and Community Education on issues of human rights. Ben is active in a number of non-government organizations and social movements, particularly around Indigenous rights and housing.

Marcus Westbury is a writer, broadcaster, festival director and media maker responsible for some of Australia's most innovative, unconventional and successful cultural events. He is well known for writing and presenting the three part series Not Quite Art for ABC1 and creating the howshouldivote.com.au website for GetUp that produced personalised how-to-vote cards for the 150,000 Australians in the lead-up to the 2007 Federal Election. A born and bred Novocastrian, Marcus is the founder of Newcastle's infamous This Is Not Art festival. His other hats include stints as the Artistic Director of Melbourne's Next Wave Festival and Co-director of the Cultural Program at Melbourne's 2006 Commonwealth Games. Marcus has contributed to a wide variety of publications including the Griffith Review, Crikey, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, several anthologies, journals and countless websites. He is well noted in Australia's arts community as a member of several committees including for The Australia Council, Arts Victoria, NSW Ministry for the Arts, The Australian Film Commission and was a participant in the 2020 Summit's cultural stream.