Speaking on the panel will be Professor John Buchanan, Chair of the Discipline of Business Analytics at the University of Sydney Business School and author of ‘Inclusive Growth in Australia: Social policy as economic investment’ (2013).

Also speaking will be Alex North, National Coordinator for the Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union, a union committed to fighting for the rights unemployed workers and pensioners in Australia.

The final panelist will be confirmed closer to the date.

The recent COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the ongoing need for radical economic reform in Australia, particularly concerning social welfare and unemployment. Even before the pandemic, engrained structural weaknesses failed our society’s most vulnerable. Successive governments have failed to provide adequate unemployment support leading to further alienation and entrenching poverty.

COVID-19 saw a long-awaited increase to Newstart payments under the Jobseeker scheme. It has become increasingly apparent that things cannot go back to how they were, and as such, we must #KeepTheRate and fight for better social welfare to support all Australians.