After dinner speech to Social Policy Conference dinner

Australian Social Policy Conference dinner Sydney, Thursday, July 12, 2007 Peter Saunders - the Peter Saunders I call the original and best Peter Saunders - tried to inveigle me into giving this talk by promising me a free feed, but something in the back of my mind warned me that meals are never free. So then he tried the line that I could use the occasion to plug my latest book - and he had me. Actually, I’m going to plug my...

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ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS

July 24, 2007 The environment and economic activity Mankind's economic activity - the production and consumption of goods and services - adversely affects the natural environment in many ways. It causes pollution, the using up of natural resources and the endangering of species. Linked with mankind's economic activity as a cause of environmental damage is the growth in the human population. More people mean more disturbance...

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TALK TO HOPE STREET BUSINESS LUNCHEON

Sydney, Friday, May 26, 2007 Brendan has asked me to say a few words sharing my background and experiences and what I’m really passionate about these days, and I’m happy to do so. To understand me you have to know that I come from an extended family of Salvationists and that both my father and my mother were Salvation Army officers - ministers - making me a member of a strange group known to the Sallies as OKs - officers’ kids....

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WELLBEING, MONEY, PSYCHOLOGY AND ECONOMICS

Conference on Quality of Life, Deakin University November 30, 2006 I want to talk to you about the increased interaction between the disciplines of psychology and economics, and focus particularly on the relationship been income and subjective wellbeing, as befits a conference on quality of life. But first I need to explain that I’m not an economist myself. Rather, I’m a journalist who writes about economics. Psychology and...

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THERE’S NO BUDGETARY ISSUE BIGGER THAN HEALTH CARE

Talk to Federal Health Department’s Biennial Health Conference Sydney, Tuesday, November 14, 2006 So far we’ve heard from speakers giving expert and finely tuned comments on technical aspects of acute care funding, but I think the most useful contribution I can make given my own expertise is to help you see acute care funding in a broader budgetary and political context. I’ll also range wider than just hospital funding, partly...

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AN OUTSIDER’S CRITIQUE OF THE PERFORMANCE OF TREASURIES

Talk to Australasian Treasury Officers’ Conference, Hobart November 3, 2006 I’m pleased to be here to talk to you and offer an outsider’s view of the performance of Treasuries - when I say Treasury, please take that to include finance departments where they’re separate from treasury and to refer to the ‘purse-string departments’ at both federal and state level. It’s not my practice in speaking to any group to tell them how wonderful...

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FUNDING SCHOOL EDUCATION

Talk to Cornerstones Conference, Sydney September 23, 2006 By rights, what I should be giving you now is a learned and crystal clear exposition of federal-state funding of school education, about how crazy, unfair and irrational the Howard Government’s formula for funding non-government schools is and about how, when you look at it properly, what Howard and his cronies claim to be economic rationalism is actually quite irrational,...

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