Neoliberalism & its effects

Dr Richard Denniss is the Chief Economist and former Executive Director of The Australia Institute, a Canberra based think tank. A prominent Australian author, essayist and policy commentator he was described by the Sydney Morning Herald’s Mark Kenny as “a constant thorn in the side of politicians on both sides due to his habit of skewering dodgy economic justifications for policy". Prior to his current role he held numerous academic positions and was Chief of Staff to then Democrats’s Leader Natasha Stott Despoja and Strategy Adviser to former Greens leader Bob Brown. Despite his public profile the Australian Financial Review placed him on their list of the ten most covertly powerful people in the country. Go figure.

Antony Loewenstein is a Jerusalem-based Australian journalist who has written for The New York Times, The Guardian, the BBC, The Washington Post, The Nation, Huffington Post, Haaretz, and many others. His latest book is Pills, Powder and Smoke: inside the bloody war on drugs. He's the author of Disaster Capitalism: making a killing out of catastrophe; the writer/co-producer of the associated documentary, Disaster Capitalism; and the co-director of an Al-Jazeera English film on the opioid drug tramadol. His other books include My Israel Question, The Blogging Revolution, and Profits of Doom, and he is the co-editor of the books Left Turn and After Zionism, and is a contributor to For God’s Sake.