SAUL ESLAKE

Economist

SAUL ESLAKE

‘Welcome to my website …
I’m an independent economist, speaker, company director
and Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Tasmania’

Security


For a long time I have been deeply troubled by many of the things that governments have done since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Many of those actions have eroded the civil liberties that previous generations fought tenaciously to acquire, or to defend; while others have simply wasted enormous amounts of time and money for very little improvement in people’s safety, and have instead helped to create a climate of fear. While I know these views are not widely shared, I nonetheless hold them strongly, as some of these pieces make clear.

The Quest for ‘Security’ – is it Rational?

Security | 1st November 2018

Address to the Society of University Lawyers Annual Conference, Hobart, 1st November 2018 (note: this is a revised an updated version of a speech originally given in November 2017)


The quest for ‘security’ – is it rational, has it actually made us safer, and at what cost?

Security | 14th November 2017

Address to the Royal Society of Tasmania, Government House, Hobart, 14th November 2017


Why can’t Australia & New Zealand have a down-under ‘Schengen Agreement’?

Security | 15th April 2013

Article published in ‘Management Today’, the magazine of the Australian Institute of Management, April 2013


Security theatre in the UK

Publications, Security | 13th February 2013

A letter to the editor published in the Financial Times of 13th February 2013 (written while flying between London and Edinburgh)


The best way to push bad policy is to wrap it in a ‘security’ blanket

Security | 9th November 2011

Article published in the Melbourne Age, and in the online edition of the Sydney Morning Herald, 9th November 2011


The folly of trying to eliminate all risk through regulation and legislation

Security | 27th April 2011

Article published in the Melbourne Age, and in the online edition of the Sydney Morning Herald, 27th April 2011


Time to question the point, and cost, of airport security rituals

Security | 16th February 2011

Article published in the Melbourne Age, and in the online edition of the Sydney Morning Herald, 16th February 2011


Whatever happened to the productivity revolution?

Productivity, Security | 10th January 2007

Op-ed article published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 10th January 2007


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The worst public policy decision of the 21st Century
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“You are one of the best at what you do in the world”
Gail Fosler, Chief Economist, The Conference Board, New York, December 2002

“I have never known an economist to have such a knowledge of world economic facts and to be able to bring to bear so much information in answering a question without notice”
Charles Goode, Chairman, ANZ Bank, July 2009

“Saul Eslake is … a highly regarded independent economist with the highest degree of integrity"
John Durie, Columnist, The Australian, July 2009

“… one of the few people in this world who can have so many oranges up in the air at the same time but still manage to catch them"
Andrew Clark, journalist, Australian Financial Review, November 2008

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