FEBRUARY 29, 2012: PERTH, WA. Economist Saul Eslake. (Photo by Theo Fakos / Newspix)
Saul will revisit one of the propositions he spoke to the society about in his last lecture in 2005 (link). A secure and safe society is a necessary pillar for progress. Given the government investment in measures to produce, maintain and support security it is time to ask if the costs to our economy and to our social fabric are worth the outcomes.
Saul Eslake worked as an economist in the Australian financial markets for more than 25 years, including as Chief Economist at McIntosh Securities (a stockbroking firm) in the late 1980s, Chief Economist (International) at National Mutual Funds Management in the early 1990s, as Chief Economist at the Australia & New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) from 1995 to 2009, and as Chief Economist (Australia & New Zealand) for Bank of America Merrill Lynch from 2011 until June 2015. In between these last two positions he was Director of the Productivity Growth program at the then newly-established Grattan Institute, a ‘think tank’.
In July 2015 Saul started up his own economics consultancy business, operating out of Hobart, and in April 2016 took up a part-time position as a Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Tasmania.
Saul is a non-executive director of Hydro Tasmania, an energy business owned by the Tasmanian State Government; and of Housing Choices Australia Ltd, a not-for-profit provider of affordable rental housing. He is also Chairman of Ten Days on the Island, Tasmania’s bi-ennial state-wide multi-arts festival.
Saul has a first class honours degree in Economics from the University of Tasmania, and a Graduate Diploma in Applied Finance and Investment from the Securities Institute of Australia. In December 2012 he was awarded an Honorary LLD degree by the University of Tasmania. He has also completed the Senior Executive Program at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business in New York.
