Dr Ben Spies-Butcher is a contributing author to CPD’s recent publication More Than Luck: Ideas Australia needs now. Ben’s chapter jointly written with Adam Stebbing, Getting value for public money: housing, pensions and child care argues that our leaders need to adopt more direct funding more direct funding models to maximise the services delivered for each government dollar spent. Ben is a lecturer in Sociology and a Member of the Centre for Research on Social Inclusion at Macquarie University. He has a PhD in Economics from the University of Sydney. His research focuses on the economics and politics of social and environmental 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. Ben co-wrote the paper ‘Reforming Australia’s hidden welfare state’ for the CPD.

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