The Laurie Carmichael Lecture is an annual keynote lecture hosted by the Carmichael Centre, an initiative of the Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work, and RMIT University’s Business and Human Rights Centre (BHRIGHT).

The 2024 Laurie Carmichael Lecture will feature Professor Allan Fels AO, former Chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and Chair of the recent ACTU-commissioned Inquiry into Price Gouging and Unfair Business Practices, in conversation with ACTU Secretary Sally McManus. Professor Fels will be speaking on the topic: “Power, Profits and Price-Gouging”.

“The biggest concern of Australians is the cost of living. This has two components: the incomes that people receive and the prices they pay. Yet very little attention is paid to how business pricing affects the cost of living.”

In this lecture Professor Fels demonstrates that business pricing has contributed to inflation and has kept prices higher than they should be. He recommends a stronger prices policy, and a more effective competition policy including divestiture: the power to break up big business where it acts anticompetitive.

The Laurie Carmichael Lecture

The Laurie Carmichael Lecture is an annual keynote lecture hosted by the Carmichael Centre, an initiative of the Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work, in partnership with RMIT University’s Business and Human Rights Centre (BHRIGHT). It is supported by the ACTU, the AMWU, the AEU, the Department of Education and Training Victoria, and the Australia Institute.

The lecture is named in honour of Laurie Carmichael, the legendary manufacturing trade union leader who passed away in 2018 at the age of 93. Previous Laurie Carmichael Lectures have featured Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stieglitz and international trade union leader Sharan Burrow.

Professor Allan Fels AO

Professor Allan Fels, AO is Professor of Law, and Economics and Business at the University of Melbourne and Monash University.  He was foundation Dean of ANZSOG from 2003 until 2012.

Professor Fels was the inaugural Chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). He was also Chair of the two predecessor bodies of the ACCC, the Trade Practices Commission (from 1991 to 1995) and the Prices Surveillance Authority (from 1989 to 1992). His first public role was in 1974 as ACTU nominated member of the Whitlam Government’s Prices Justification Tribunal. He is the Chair of Visy Australasia Governance Board, one of Australia’s biggest businesses.

Professor Fels is or has recently been a Chair or member of numerous inquiries to the Australian, Victorian and other Governments. He was Chair of the Victorian Government’s Taxi Industry Review in 2011-2012, Chair of the Commonwealth Government Migrant Workers Taskforce and has recently run an inquiry into tolling for the New South Wales Government. He was Chair of the National Mental Health Commission from 2012-2018 and a Commissioner of the Royal Commission into Mental Health and Wellbeing for the Victorian Government from 2019-2021.

Professor Fels was awarded the Order of Australia in 2001.

Sally McManus

Sally McManus was elected in 2017 as the 10th Secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), the peak organisation for Australian unions. She was the first woman to hold this position since the creation of the ACTU in 1927. Prior to her election to the role of ACTU Secretary she was the leader of her union the NSW ASU, representing community, public sector, and private sector workers. She commenced work with the ASU as an ACTU Trainee Organiser in 1994.

Sally has also worked as a Pizza Hut delivery driver, shop assistant and cleaner and studied Philosophy at University.

Tickets are free but registration is essential.