CBA Forum 2020
ESA NSW Branch
Virtual Cost Benefit Analysis Forum
This event was held online via Zoom on Wednesday 2 December
Attendees of the CBA Forum can view recordings of this event by logging in and navigating to this page.
Danielle Wood, Grattan Institute
Welcome Address and Open
Danielle Wood is the CEO of the Grattan Institute. She believes in the power of public policy to make Australia a better place. Danielle has published extensively on economic reform priorities, budget policy, tax reform, generational inequality and reforming political institutions. She is a sought-after media commentator and speaker on policy issues.
Michael Gadiel, NSW Treasury
Outcomes Budgeting, Evidence Bank and Ex post CBA
Michael Gadiel is currently the Executive Director of Economic Strategy in NSW Treasury. He leads five teams including the Centre for Evidence and Evaluation, Productivity Reform, Regulatory Improvement, Microeconomic Policy and Aboriginal Economic Wellbeing. He has worked in, and led, a range of teams across treasury, including justice, fiscal strategy, credit ratings, wages policy, budget strategy, modelling and economic forecasting. He led the teams delivering the 2016 and 2011 NSW Intergenerational Reports.
John Daley, Grattan Institute
CBA: The good, the bad, and the ugly
John Daley is one of Australia’s leading public policy thinkers. He was the inaugural Chief Executive of the Grattan Institute for its first 11 years, and led it to become the leading domestic policy think tank in Australia. He continues to work there on institutional reform as a Senior Fellow.
Peter Abelson, Applied Economics
CBA - Looking back, looking forward: the view from the long experience
Peter Abelson has a PH.D in Economics from London University. Peter started life as a professional economist working in London, Lusaka, Bangkok and Kingston Jamaica. Peter taught economics at Macquarie University from 1974 to 2005, holding a Chair in Economics from 2001 to 2006, and taught public finance at Sydney University from 2007 to 2012. Peter's text, "Public Economics: Principles and Practice" (McGraw-Hill) is the main Australian public economics text. Peter has published over 50 refereed articles on public economics and related areas.
Leo Dobes, ANU
CBA - Looking back, looking forward: the view from the long experience
Leo Dobes completed his DPhil at Oxford University before joining the Department of Foreign Affairs. His 30-year Public Service career included intelligence analysis in the Office of National Assessments and policy roles in Defence, Treasury, and Transport and Regional Services.
Anna Chau, Anna Chau Enterprises, formerly Infrastructure Australia
Anna Chau is one of the leading infrastructure economists and senior infrastructure executives in Australia, covering both economic and social infrastructure. As the former Acting CEO and Executive Director (Project Advisory) of Infrastructure Australia, Anna led the evaluation of over 50 business cases for major projects around the country over four years.
Sarah Close, PwC
Chair Panel Discussion: CBA and the discount rate debate - theory and practical implications
Sarah Close is a Partner in PwC's Integrated Infrastructure team and is an infrastructure economics specialist. She has spent 17 years specialising in feasibility studies and economic analysis of major social and economic infrastructure across Australia. This has involved undertaking economic analysis across a range of sectors including transport, precincts, tourism infrastructure, social and affordable housing, energy and environment, schools, hospitals, regulatory and digital change. Through her work Sarah is passionate about improving people’s lives, enhancing productivity and shaping land use to create cities and regions of the future. Sarah is also a strong supporter of diversity and inclusion, as the lead of PwC's employee-led network relating to gender equality.
Geoff Rumble, Infrastructure NSW
Panel Discussion: Fit for Purpose - what makes good CBA?
Geoff Rumble is an Executive Director at Infrastructure NSW leading assurance across projects in the Education, Stronger Communities and Planning, Industry and Environment clusters. Prior to joining Infrastructure NSW he was an Executive Director at NSW Treasury with policy and budget responsibilities for transport, planning, industry and the environment.
Robert Smith, TfNSW
Panel Discussion: Fit for Purpose - what makes good CBA? (Chair)
Robert Smith is council member/ former vice president of the ESA NSW branch and currently a Director of Economic Evaluation and Assurance with Transport for NSW. With a background in banking and finance, management consulting, energy and currently transport, Robert is a proponent of "used and useful" applied economics including pragmatic and robust cost benefit analysis for informed decision making.
Gigi Foster, UNSW
CBA and Covid Response
Gigi Foster is a Professor with the School of Economics at the University of New South Wales, having joined UNSW in 2009 after six years at the University of South Australia. Formally educated at Yale University (BA in Ethics, Politics, and Economics) and the University of Maryland (PhD in Economics), she works in diverse fields including education, social influence, corruption, lab experiments, time use, behavioural economics, and Australian policy.
Ben Cebuliak, TfNSW
Challenges of marrying CBA and Place making
Ben Cebuliak is the Manager Movement and Place at Transport for NSW where he leads the development of a whole of NSW Government framework for planning, assessing and operating roads and streets across NSW. Ben has more than a decade of experience in urban planning and policy development. He has worked as an urban planner within the public, private and research sectors at the federal, state and local levels in both Australia and Canada.
Kris Funston, Deloitte
Regulation
Kris Funston is a microeconomist with a PhD in access pricing and economic network regulation who also has expertise in competition economics, the cost of capital, regulatory finance, and market and regulatory design for the utility sector.
Brita Pekarsky, SA Health
Health
Brita Pekarsky is an applied economist with more than 30 years experience in Health. She is Principal Adviser in Health Economics and Analytics at SA Health, and currently working mainly with the SA Ambulance Service.
Daniel Masters, NSW Department of Premier & Cabinet
Topic: TBA
Daniel Masters is an applied economist with almost two decades of experience in the public and private sectors.
John Rose, UTS
Topic: TBA
Dr. John Rose is Professor and founding Director of the Business Intelligence & Data Analytics (BIDA) Research Centre in the UTS Business School.
Ophelia Cowell, NSW Treasury
Panel Discussion: Growing the evidence base
Ophelia Cowell directs the Centre for Evidence and Evaluation at NSW Treasury which provides economic analysis and advice to the NSW Government to put evidence based policy into practice. By working with agencies to improve the evidence base, the Centre helps inform Government decisions so that public funds can be directed to the initiatives and social policies that deliver the greatest outcomes and public value.
Neil Perry, Western Sydney University
Panel Discussion: Growing the evidence base
Neil Perry is a Senior Research Lecturer in Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability. He specialises in progressive economics approaches to environmental economics and policy and in ecological economics, an interdisciplinary field of research emphasising the interdependence of economic and ecological values.
Kirsten Jensen, The New Zealand Treasury
Panel Discussion: Growing the evidence base
Kirsten Jensen is a principal advisor economist at the New Zealand Treasury, where she focuses on public finance and leads CBAx. CBAx is Treasury’s cost-benefit analysis tool, which is publicly available. Kirsten is responsible for the design and implementation of CBAx.