Fellows

“Being a CPD research fellow has helped me connect with a dynamic and forward-looking group of people, focused on developing innovative and sustainable solutions to the big policy issues facing our community.”

– Jennifer Doggett, CPD fellow, Health Policy Analyst and author of A New Approach to Primary Care for Australia and Out of Pocket

Fiona Armstrong

Fiona Armstrong is a public policy analyst and advocate for comprehensive health reform and evidence-based climate policy. She is a co-author of the 2009 Centre for Policy Development Policy Paper Putting Health in Local Hands: Shifting Governance and Funding to Regional Health Organisations. She has a background in health policy as a health professional and as a journalist. Fiona is a contributing author to CPD’s book More Than Luck: Ideas Australia needs now. Fiona’s chapter Shifting from fear to hope calls for a new national narrative to allow us to feel confident in our solutions to combat climate change. She has been published on a wide range of issues including health, environment, energy, politics, finance, Indigenous affairs, mental health, aged care, education, workforce, law, and industrial relations. She has a Masters in Politics and Public Policy and has recently been researching climate policy options for Australia. She works with organisations on a range of health and climate policy issues.

Dr James Arvanitakis

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 was recently seconded to the Whitlam Institute to author a research report discussing young people and democracy. The report is due to be released in May 2009. A regular media commentator on ABC and 2JJJ, James’ latest book, Contemporary Society: A sociological analysis of everyday life, was launched in February 2009. He writes a blog applying academic theory to real world situations at Musings of a (sometimes) academic.

Mark Bahnisch

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.

Chris Bonnor

Eva Cox AO

Eva Cox AO is a Professorial Fellow at Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning at the University of Technology Sydney where, as the former Program Director of Social Inquiry, she taught research and policy advocacy.  She is reviving her consultancy, Distaff Associates, and is convenor of the Women’s Equity Think Tank. Eva’s current research interests broadly respond to the task of creating new social policy frameworks designed to help bring about a more civil society.  An impassioned feminist, she delivered the 1995 ABC Boyer Lectures on A Truly Civil Society, a goal she is tirelessly working towards. She advocates using both Indigenous and feminist lenses to explore how we can define what makes a good society, based on collective rights and shared responsibilities.

Contributing author to CPD’s book More Than Luck: Ideas Australia needs now, Eva’s chapter Strengthening our social fabric argued that we need to rethink tax and income policy practices to make our society more civil.  She has researched and published on a variety of policy and social issues, including: childcare, sole parents and welfare payments, superannuation, social capital, community well-being, asylum seekers, corporate social responsibility, research and evaluation. A frequent media commentator, she sees herself as a problem solver rather than a specialist. Eva’s current project The Dinner Party is seeking input about the kind of society we would like to live in.  Take a look at her website here

Dr Mark Davis

Dr Mark Davis is the author of The Land Of Plenty: Australia in the 2000s and Gangland: Cultural Elites and the New Generationalism. He is well-known as a cultural and political commentator, and is Director of the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Melbourne.  Mark is a co-editor with Miriam Lyons of CPD’s book More Than Luck: Ideas Australia needs now.

Jennifer Doggett

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.  Jennifer is the author of A New Approach to Primary Care for Australia, published by the Centre for Policy Development in June 2007 and Out of Pocket: Rethinking Health Copayments published by CPD in 2009. More recently Fiona authored the 2010 paper Beyond the Blunt Instrument: the Efficiency Dividend and its alternatives. Fiona is also a contributing author to CPD’s recent publication More Than Luck: Ideas Australia needs now. Jennifer’s chapter Getting health policy into shape argues for a sharper focus on addressing the issues which matter most to consumers: out-of-pocket expenses, co-payments, and unequal access to health-care providers. She has a Masters in Public Health and a Graduate Diploma in Health Economics.

Ian Dunlop

Ian Dunlop’s background is as 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. He is Chairman of Safe Climate Australia, Deputy Convenor of the Australian Association for the Study of Peak Oil and a Member of the Club of Rome. Ian is a contributing author to CPD’s book  More Than Luck: Ideas Australia needs now. Ian’s chapter Facing our limits identifies that we are making a great strategic error in protecting our carbon-intensive industries in the misguided expectation that global markets will continue to demand coal in large volumes over the long term.

Dr Lindy Edwards

Dr Lindy Edwards is the author of How to Argue with an Economist: Re-Opening Political Debate in Australia and The Passion of Politics. 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.

Ben Eltham

Ben Eltham is a researcher, writer, journalist and creative producer. He trained to postgraduate level in neuroscience and philosophy at the University of Queensland before spending the next decade devoted to his love for culture and the arts. Ben has worked as a producer at a number of arts festivals including This Is Not Art, Straight Out of Brisbane (where he was the founding director), Melbourne Fringe, Brisbane Festival and Adelaide Fringe. From 2001-2006 he was the Courier-Mail’s arts and theatre critic, from 2007-2010 he was NewMatilda.com’s National Affairs Correspondent and he continues to write regularly about Australian politics, culture and the arts for publications including the ABC’s The Drum/Unleashed, Crikey.com.au, Meanjin Quarterly, Overland, Inside Story, Artlink and Australian Book Review. He is currently completing his PhD at the University of Western Sydney’s Centre for Cultural Research. Ben is a contributing author to CPD’s recent publication More Than Luck: Ideas Australia needs now. His chapter jointly written with Marcus Westbury, Cultural policy in Australia argues that Australia’s fragmented cultural policy needs to move beyond its ‘funding paradigm’.

Kate Gauthier

Kate Gauthier is on the academic staff of the Migration Law Program within the Legal Workshop at the Australian National University. Until recently, she was the National Director of refugee policy lobby group A Just Australia.  She is the chair of the community group ChilOut – Children Out of Immigration Detention and sits on the NSW Legal Aid Review Committee. Formerly, Kate worked as the immigration and refugee policy adviser to Senator Andrew Bartlett and as the community liaison officer for Senator Aden Ridgeway.  She was a co-founder of the Refugee Assistance Project, a board member of Pol Min (Political Ministry Network) and has regularly visited remote detention centres for 10 years. Kate has sat on a variety of government and Ministerial advisory panels on asylum seeker issues.

Dr Donna Green

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).

Caroline Hoisington

Caroline Hoisington is an agricultural and natural resources economist, and an advocate for sustainable development, democratic policy reform, and environmental management. She is the author of Rough trade: How Australia’s trade policies contribute to illegal logging in the Pacific Region, co-editor of the book Food Policy published by Johns Hopkins University Press for the World Bank. She is an honorary fellow at the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security (ANCORS), and a visiting fellow at Sydney Institute of Marine Sciences (SIMS). Caroline has worked as a senior natural resources economist and policy analyst  in various development agencies across the US, Europe, Asia and Africa including the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, bilateral aid agencies like USAID, UN Agencies, the EU, NGOs and consulting firms. She writes on a range of policy areas including trade policy, environmental management, carbon trading and food policy.  Her current interests centre particularly around forests and oceans.

Ray Ison

Ray Ison holds chairs at Monash University, where he is Professor, Systems for Sustainability (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’s most recent book ‘Systems Practice: How to Act in a Climate Change World’ has just been published. 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. Ray is a contributing author to CPD’s book More Than Luck: Ideas Australia needs now. Ray’s chapter Governance that works brings systems thinking to public service reform. You can read more at Ray’s blog 

Dr Steve Keen

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. 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

Ian McAuley is an adjunct lecturer in Public Sector Finance at the University of Canberra. His research interests are in public policy, with a specialisation in fiscal and economic 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 organisations in fiscal and economic policy matters. He is a regular contributor to New Matilda and Dissent. Ian is author or 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; A Health Policy for Australia: Reclaiming Universal Care; What are we Complaining About? An Analysis of Cost of Living Pressures; and Private Health Insurance: High in Cost and Low in Equity.

Dr David McKnight

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. His most recent book, Rupert Murdoch: An Investigation of Political Power is due for release this year.

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 his website Beyond Right and Left

John Menadue AO

John Menadue was Private Secretary to Gough Whitlam from 1960 to 1967. He then served seven years as General Manager of News Limited, Sydney. He headed the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet from 1974 to 1976, working for Prime Ministers Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser. After four years as Ambassador to Japan, he returned to Australia in 1980 to head the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs. He was CEO of Qantas between 1986 and 1989, and continues to advise several national companies. He has chaired major Health reviews in NSW and SA. He was the founding chair of the Centre for Policy Development. He co-authored the CPD report on the asylum-seeker and refugee debate,  A New Approach with Kate Gauthier and Arja Keski-Nummi. Read his articles for the CPD here

Tony Moore

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 lectures in Communications and Media Studies at Monash University’s National Centre for Australian Studies. He is Commissioning Editor of the Australian Encounters book series for Cambridge University Press. 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 the former Commissioning Editor of Pluto Press Australia. His last documentary Bohemian Rhapsody: Rebels of Australian Culture is the subject of his recent PhD at the University of Sydney. He is writing a book about political rebels transported to Australia in the convict period entitled Death or Liberty: Rebel Exiles in Australia, to be published in 2010.

Prof. John Quiggin

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. John is a contributing author to CPD’s recent publication More Than Luck: Ideas Australia needs now; his chapter Surviving the next crisis examines the vulnerabilities in our financial system. You can check out his blog here

Adam Rorris

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.

Tani Shaw

Tani Shaw is currently undertaking a PhD with the Institute for Sustainable Futures, at the University of Technology, Sydney and is a Sustainable Economy Research Fellow with the Centre for Policy Development. Prior to this Tani completed a Masters of Environmental Management with the Institute of Environmental Studies at the University of New South Wales, Sydney and a Bachelor of Business from Southern Cross University. Tani’s fellowship with the Centre for Policy Development is generously sponsored by Slater and Gordon.  Tani is a contributing author to CPD’s recent publication More Than Luck: Ideas Australia needs now. Tani’s chapter What does ‘progress’ mean to you looks at alternative ways to measure Australia’s progress.

Dr James Slezak

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, James consulted for the United Nations on science policy and organisational change. During the 2004 US presidential elections he also directed online strategy for a national media campaign critical of Bush Administration foreign policy, with backing from financier George Soros and former NATO Supreme Commander Wesley Clark. In the past, James 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. He is currently working on a paper titled ‘The Carbon Disconnect’ for CPD.

Dr Ben Spies-Butcher

Dr Ben Spies-Butcher 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 CPD. Ben 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.

Adam Stebbing

Adam Stebbing is a social researcher broadly interested in the interactions of public policy and social inequality. He is currently undertaking a PhD in the Sociology department at Macquarie University. His doctoral research looks at how social tax expenditures alter our understanding of the Australian welfare state, in terms of its political development and distributional outcomes. He has previously undertaken research exploring how homeless people experience citizenship in Australia. Adam is a contributing author in CPD’s recent publication More Than Luck: Ideas Australia needs now. Adam’s chapter jointly written with Dr Ben Spies-Butcher, 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.

Marcus Westbury

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 How Should I Vote? 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 Novacastrian, 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. Marcus is contributing author to CPD’s recent publication More Than Luck: Ideas Australia. His chapter jointly written with Ben Eltham, Cultural policy in Australia argues that Australia’s fragmented cultural policy needs to move beyond its ‘funding paradigm’.

Dr James Whelan

James Whelan is the former Research Director of the CPD Public Service research program. Lead author of CPD reports Big Society and Australia, and The State of the Australian Public Service, James’s career includes leading social science research programs with several universities and institutions to examine deliberative and collaborative governance, environmental politics and social movements. He was theme leader for the Coastal Cooperative Research Centre’s Citizen Science research program, has published widely and presented at national and international conferences. James has worked with several social and environmental justice NGOs including Greenpeace and Amnesty International. He is founder-director of The Change Agency, a not-for-profit education and action research initiative that supports progressive social movements in the Asia-Pacific region.

Professor John Wiseman

John Wiseman is a Professorial Fellow with the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne. Previous positions include: Director, McCaughey Centre, Melbourne School of Population Health, University of Melbourne; Professor of Public Policy, Victoria University; and Assistant Director, Policy Development and Research, Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet. John has published a wide range of books and articles on public policy, globalisation and the social impacts of climate change. His current policy and research work focuses on the actions needed to create a swift transition to a just and sustainable post carbon future. Current Board memberships include: Thermometer Foundation for Social Research on Climate Change; Victorian Eco-Innovation Lab; Australian National Development Index; Centre for Cultural Partnerships, Victorian College of the Arts.  John is also a Moderator with the Cranlana Program.