Business Skills - Conferences & Public Speaking - Public finance & fiscal policy

Percy Allan is a public policy economist and visiting professor at UTS. In 1996 Percy was awarded an Order of Australia for his contribution to public sector reform while he was Secretary (Head) of the NSW Treasury. These included adopted modern accounting and budgetary processes, the corporatisation of state trading enterprises, and the conceiving of IPART. From 1999 to 2007 he chaired the NSW Premier’s Council on the Cost and Quality of Government that reviewed 25 state government departments. Between 2018 and 2022 Percy chaired and coordinated the Evidence-Based Policy Research Project that benchmarked the quality of 100 federal and state government bills which helped persuade the NSW Upper House to adopt a Statement of Public Interest for all Bills.

Professor Alan Duncan is Director of the Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC) and a John Curtin Distinguished Professor at Curtin University. Prior to taking on the role of BCEC Director, Alan was Director of the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling (NATSEM) and before that, Head of the University of Nottingham School of Economics. Alan’s research is motivated by a passion to influence public debates on economic and social issues through rigorous, evidence-based research. He ranks among the top 5% of economists worldwide, having published widely in both academic and policy outlets of the highest international reputation on topics covering labour and workforce issues, gender equity, economic evaluation, public policy, childcare, housing, migration, poverty and wellbeing. Alan completed a DPhil in Economics at the University of York. He has served on senior advisory panels and boards for government and public sector organisations in Australia, the United Kingdom, Europe and the US, and has given evidence at numerous Federal Senate Committee inquiries, advising on areas including tax policy, pensions, labour markets and household welfare. He has served as instructor to World Bank country experts on policy evaluation, and was recently invited by the International Monetary Fund to serve as a Mission Expert to the People’s Republic of China Technical Assistance mission on tax reform and employment incentives. Alan was awarded the prestigious Frisch Medal of the Econometric Society in 2000 for the best paper to be published in the world-leading journal, Econometrica. He was appointed John Curtin Distinguished Professor at Curtin University in 2020 in recognition of his research scholarship and sustained contribution to Curtin and the wider community.

David Gilchrist is a chartered accountant and holds a PhD in economic history from the University of Notre Dame Australia. He is currently professor of accounting and convenor of the Not-for-profits UWA Research Group at the University of Western Australia where he is also chief investigator and convenor of the Australian Non-profit Accounting Standards Project. David is a member of the Australian Accounting Standards Board Academic Advisory Panel. Previously, he held the role of Assistant Auditor General in Western Australia and, prior to that, he taught accounting and finance at the London School of Economics and Portsmouth University in the UK as well as at Curtin University, Notre Dame Australia and Edith Cowan University in Australia. He was Foundation Director of the Curtin Not-for-profit Initiative for five years, is currently a Visiting Professor and Research Chief Investigator in NFP Studies at the NFPO Research Centre, Hebei GEO University, Peoples’ Republic of China and a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Accounting, Airlangga University, Indonesia. David has undertaken significant research related to sustainability and the NDIS. Amongst other things, he was author of several reports presenting the results of a longitudinal study focusing on NDIS sustainability for disability service providers and published many articles related to this area including the NDIS White Paper “Six Years and Counting: The Australian Disability System and the NDIS” and various green papers on that subject. David was appointed a Fellow of the Western Australian Parliament in 2021.

Andrew Partington is a Research Fellow at the Macquarie University Centre for the Health Economy (MUCHE). In addition to this, he is also a Research Fellow with the Flinders University College of Medicine and Public Health; and is an Honorary Research Fellow with the Centre of Resilience and Implementation Science at the Australian Institute of Health Innovation.