Saul Eslake

I have been a professional economist for 45 years, commencing in the Australian Treasury (Finance Ministry) in 1979 after graduating with a First Class Honours degree in Economics from the University of Tasmania. Since then I've been Chief Economist at McIntosh Securities Ltd (an institutional stockbroking firm), Chief Economist International at the funds management arm of National Mutual Life (at the time, Australia's second biggest life insurance company), Chief Economist at ANZ Banking Group (one of Australia's 'big four' commercial banks, and one with a wide 'footprint' in Asia and the Pacific), and Chief Economist Australia & New Zealand for Bank of America Merrill Lynch (a Wall Street Investment Bank). I've also worked as Chief Executive Officer of the Victorian Commission of Audit (which conducted an inquiry into the public finances of Australia's second largest state in 1992-93), and Director of the Productivity Growth Program at the Grattan Institute, a Melbourne-based non-aligned public policy 'think tank' (2009-2011). 

Since 2015 I've been operating my own niche economics consultancy, Corinna Economic Advisory, out of Hobart, Tasmania (the state where I grew up). 

In addition to these employment roles I've also at different times been a member of previous Australian Governments' Trade Policy Advisory and Foreign Affairs Councils, Tourism Forecasting Council, Australian Statistics Advisory Council and National Housing Supply Council. I'm currently a member of the Australian Parliamentary Budget Office's Expert Advisory Panel, and the Australian Taxation Office's 'Tax Gap' Expert Advisory Panel. I've also previously been a non-executive director of the North-Eastern Health Care Network in Melbourne (1994-98), the Gas and Fuel Corporation of Victoria (1993-96) and Hydro Tasmania, an electricity generation business owned by the Tasmanian State Government (2008-2018). 

I've been a long-term advocate for reform in the areas of taxation and housing policy; greater transparency in financial reporting by governments; free trade and investment across international borders; 'horizontal equity' in fiscal arrangements between Australia's federal government and its state and territory governments; and, especially in Tasmania, improvements in the education system.