ACJER Experts
ACJER Australia Group of Experts
Prof Gary Banks AO
Gary Banks commenced as Chief Executive and Dean of the Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG) in 2013, having been Chairman of the Productivity Commission since its inception in 1998. He personally headed a large number of major public inquiries by the Commission and chaired the Prime Minister’s Regulation Taskforce in 2006. Gary has worked for international organisations and in economic consultancy and currently chairs the Regulatory Policy Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). He is also an independent director at Macquarie Bank and a member of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council. He is a Professorial Fellow at Melbourne University and Adjunct Professor at The Australian National University. He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences Australia and a National Fellow of the Institute of Public Administration Australia, for whom he delivered the 2013 Garran Oration. His contributions to public policy have been recognised in the Economic Society’s inaugural Distinguished Public Policy Fellow Award (2014) and the Order of Australia (2007).
Mr Allan Gyngell AO
Allan Gyngell is an Adjunct Professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy at The Australian National University and a Visiting Fellow at the National Security College. From 2009 to 2013 he was Director-General of the Office of National Assessments (ONA), the Australian national intelligence assessment agency. Before his appointment to ONA, he was the founding Executive Director of the Lowy Institute for International Policy (2003-2009). He worked as a senior officer in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Office of National Assessments and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. He was Senior Adviser (International) to Prime Minister Paul Keating. He has written extensively on Australian foreign policy, Asian regional relations and the development of global and regional institutions. He is co-author with Professor Michael Wesley of Making Australian Foreign Policy. He was appointed as an Officer in the Order of Australia in 2009 and is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs. He is Chair of the Advisory Council of the China Matters think tank and a member of the Australian Pacific Economic Cooperation Committee (PECC).
Dr Philip Lowe
Philip Lowe is the Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, a position he has held since February 2012. He is also Deputy Chair of the Reserve Bank Board, and Chair of the Reserve Bank’s Risk Management Committee. Prior to his current role, he held the positions of Assistant Governor (Economic) and Assistant Governor (Financial System). He also spent two years with the Bank for International Settlements working on financial stability issues. Philip Lowe holds a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.Comm (Honours) in Economics/Econometrics from the University of New South Wales. He has authored numerous papers, including on the linkages between monetary policy and financial stability.
Dr Heather Smith
Heather Smith is working on the ACJER project as an Adjunct National Government Fellow at the East Asian Bureau of Economic Research within the Crawford School of Public Policy of The Australian National University (ANU). Previously, Dr Smith was appointed Deputy Secretary, G20 Sherpa in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet in September 2013. Prior to this time, Dr Smith had responsibility in the Department for economic, industry, infrastructure, environment and strategic policy matters in her role as Deputy Secretary, Economic and Strategy when she joined the Department in May 2013. In August 2010, Dr Smith was appointed Deputy Secretary in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade with responsibility for the Americas and Africa, North Asia, international security issues, G20 and the international economy, and information technology issues. In February 2005, Dr Smith was appointed Deputy Director-General, Office of National Assessments with responsibility, at various times, for North Asia, South Asia, the Pacific, transnational issues, international economic issues, corporate issues, and Executive and Foreign Intelligence Coordination. Between 2003-2005, Dr Smith held positions at the Australian Treasury as General Manager, G20 and APEC Secretariat and General Manager, International Economy Division. From 2000-2003, she was Assistant Director-General, International Economy Branch, Office of National Assessment. Before joining the public service Dr Smith was an academic working on North Asia at the ANU, holding various position from 1994-2000. She also worked at the Reserve Bank of Australia from 1988-1990. Dr Smith holds a Bachelor of Economics (First Class Honours) from the University of Queensland and a Masters and PhD in Economics from the ANU.
Dr Ian Watt AO
Ian Watt has been involved in most of the major decisions made by Australian Governments in the last two decades. From 2011 to 2014, he was involved in all of them as Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. During that period, Dr Watt worked with three Prime Ministers in less than three months, and provided advice, support and facilitation for two changes of Prime Minister and one change of political party in Government. Dr Watt was previously Secretary of the Department of Defence (2009-2011), Secretary of the Department of Finance and Deregulation (2002-2009), Secretary of the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts (2001-2002), Deputy Secretary, Executive Coordinator and Division Head of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (1994-2001) and Minister (Economic) in the Embassy of Australia in Washington DC (1991-1994). Dr Watt has held previous appointments as the Australian Special Envoy on Governance Issues for the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (2015), Chair of the Working Party of Senior Budget Officials and Chair of Senior Budget Officials at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2004-2010) and Joint Convenor of the Taskforce on Australia and New Zealand Economic Relations (1998-1999). Dr Watt has been awarded the Officer of the Order of Australia (2008), the La Trobe University Distinguished Alumni Award (2009) and is a Fellow of the Institute of Public Administration Australia, Australian Institute of Management and CPA Australia. Dr Watt holds a Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Economics from La Trobe University, a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) from the University of Melbourne and is a graduate of the Advanced Management Programme at Harvard Business School. Dr Watt is currently a Director of Smartgroup Corporation, Director of O’Connell Street Associates Pty Ltd and Member of the Board of the Grattan Institute at the University of Melbourne.
ACJER China Group of Experts
Prof Zhang Yunling
Zhang Yunling is a Member of the Academic Presidium, Director of International Studies and former Director of the Institute of Asia Pacific Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; Member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference; Vice-President of the China Committee of the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council; and President of the China Association of Asia-Pacific Studies.
Prof Fan Gang
Fan Gang is Director of the National Economic Research Institute; Secretary-General of the China Reform Foundation; Vice-President of the China Society of Economic Reform; President of the China Development Institute; Member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the People’s Bank of China; and Professor of Economics at the HSBC Business School at Peking University and at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Dr Chen Wenling
Chen Wenling is Chief Economist and Deputy Director of the Administrative Office at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges and former Head of the Department of General Research of the State Council Research Office.
Prof Huang Yiping
Huang Yiping is Vice-President of the National School of Development and Director of the Institute of Internet Finance at Peking University; Adjunct Professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy at The Australian National University; and a Member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the People’s Bank of China.
Mr Liu Zuozhang
Liu Zuozhang was formerly Minister-Counsellor at the Chinese Embassy in Australia and was formerly a Bureau-Level Inspector at the Foreign Investment Management Bureau of China’s Ministry of Commerce.
Dr Zhu Baoliang
Zhu Baoliang is Director of the Economic Forecasting Department of the State Information Center.
Dr He Fan
He Fan is Deputy Director at the Institute of World Economics and Politics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; Chief Economic Scholar at the Caixin Insight Group; and a Member of the Exchange Rate Expert Group of the PBOC.