Saul Eslake

Saul Eslake is a highly respected economist with over four decades of experience shaping economic discourse in Australia and beyond. His career began at the Australian Treasury, where he honed his skills in fiscal and monetary policy. Saul later transitioned to the Advisory Council for Inter-Government Relations, where he specialised in federal-state financial relations and housing policy, before advising the Minority Leader in the Victorian Parliament.

In the financial sector, Saul has held pivotal roles for 25 years, notably as Chief Economist at McIntosh Securities during the late 1980s and as Chief Economist (International) at National Mutual Funds Management in the early 1990s. From 1995 to 2009, he also served as Chief Economist at the Australia & New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ), one of Australia’s largest commercial banks.

During a brief hiatus from the financial markets from 2009, Saul worked part-time as Director of the Productivity Growth Program at the Grattan Institute, a ‘think tank’ affiliated with Melbourne University, and as a freelance writer, speaker and consultant. In 2011, he returned to prominence as Chief Economist of Bank of America Merrill Lynch Australia until 2015, and later operated Corinna Economic Advisory, based in Hobart, Tasmania, where he provided tailored economic analysis and consultancy services. The firm later merged with London-based Llewellyn Consulting in 2021 to form Independent Economics, expanding its global footprint.

Saul is also a non-executive director of Hydro Tasmania, the largest renewable energy producer in Australia; and a member of the National Housing Supply Council, which produces long-run estimates of the demand for and supply of housing, and the Australian Statistics Advisory Council, the external advisory body to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Saul’s expertise spans a broad spectrum of economic issues, encompassing economic growth, inflation, international trade, climate change, public finance, taxation, and regulatory policies. He has conducted extensive research on various industries including housing, tourism, agriculture, and energy, contributing significantly to policy formulation through his advisory roles on governmental councils and committees.

Currently, Saul serves as a Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Tasmania and represents Australia at the International Conference of Commercial Bank Economists (ICCBE), where he chaired the Steering Committee from 2018 to 2021. He also advises the Australian Parliamentary Budget Office and is a member of the Australian Taxation Office’s ‘Tax Gap’ expert panel. Also making occasional contributions to the Melbourne Age, Sydney Morning Herald, and Launceston Examiner newspapers.

In 2024, Saul undertook an Independent Review of Tasmania’s public sector finances, a project initiated by the Premier of Tasmania and members of the Tasmanian Parliament. Saul holds a first-class honours degree in Economics from the University of Tasmania as well as a Graduate Diploma in Applied Finance and Investment from the Securities Institute of Australia. He has completed executive programs at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business and the Australian Institute of Company Directors, and holds an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Tasmania.