This seminar series, which was conducted by NCOSS and the Institute for Sustainable Futures, ran from March-August 2005. The series was aimed at people working in advocacy roles in NSW non-government organisations who are involved in policy debates where economics is used but who don't have a background in economics themselves.

The series aimed to:

• De-mystify economic theory;
• Up-skill NGO policy workers on the ideas, language and impacts of economics on social policy;
• Establish a network of NGO policy workers to develop stronger economic arguments/evidence base for equity across a range of human service policy areas.

Economists from the University of Sydney, NSW Department of Community Services, Sydney Morning Herald, Monash University, Productivity Commission, and NSW Department of Aboriginal Affairs provided information on economic theory and practice in a range of areas. Key topics included:

• The language of economics
• Government budget and human services spending
• Economics, social policy and the media
• Unemployment, the labour market and workplace reform
• The effects of an ageing population
• Economic development and Indigenous communities

• Program
• Speaker Biographies

Speaker's papers:

• Getting the basics right: developing a better understanding of economics and economists [194kb pdf]
  Assoc. Professor Flora Gill - Dept. of Economics, Sydney University
• Treasury and Government Processes [100kb pdf]
  Dr Gül Izmir, Deputy Director General, Research, Funding and Business Analysis, Department of Community Services
• Indigenous community economic development: can economics cope with culture? [38kb pdf]
  Jody Broun, Director General, NSW Department of Aboriginal Affairs

• Wendy Hall, NCOSS Policy Support Officer
  phone: 9211 2599, ext 118
  email: wendy@ncoss.org.au