Dr Richard Denniss is a leading Australian economist and public policy expert whose work explores the intersection of economics, democracy, power and the public interest. As co-Chief Executive Officer of The Australia Institute, Australia’s leading independent public policy think tank, he is at the forefront of national debates on economic reform, democracy, energy and climate policy, taxation, industry policy and the role of government.

Over more than three decades, Richard has worked across academia, federal politics and public policy, building a reputation as one of Australia’s most influential public thinkers. His career has spanned university teaching and research, senior advisory roles in federal politics, and leadership in one of Australia’s most influential public policy organisations.

Richard is the author of numerous influential books and essays, including More Fool Me: How the Gas Industry Tricked Australia, Big: The Role of the State in the Modern Economy, Dead Centre: How Political Pragmatism Is Killing Us, Econobabble, Curing Affluenza, and the bestselling Affluenza. He is also the author of the acclaimed Quarterly Essay Dead Right: How Neoliberalism Ate Itself and What Comes Next.

Richard is renowned for his ability to make complex ideas simple and to connect economics, politics and public policy in ways that are engaging, insightful and accessible. His work focuses on how power is exercised in modern democracies, how ideas shape political decision-making, and how governments can build a more prosperous, equitable and sustainable future. He is a highly sought-after speaker on economics, democracy, public policy and Australia’s future.

Prof Sarah Waters is a professor at the University of Leeds (UK) and is a qualitative suicide researcher focused on work-related suicides. She is the lead researcher of a four-year Wellcome Trust research project that examines suicides in the UK, France and Canada from an international social justice perspective. The project frames suicide not only as a mental health issue,  but also as a question of collective social justice that concerns the conditions, laws and policies that shape all our working lives.

Her monograph Suicide Voices. Labour Trauma in France (Liverpool University Press 2020) examined suicide deaths across three large French corporations during the 2000s, drawing on suicide notes and other testimonial material as a means to help us understand the complex motivations that push someone to take their own life in work or because of work.

She participates in campaigns that lobby for a recognition, investigation and prevention of work-related suicide and is part of the Hazards Campaign in the UK. She recently helped lead a Call for Action by international researchers at IASP (International Association of Suicide Prevention) calling for governments and regulators worldwide to tackle work-related suicides. In the UK, she led an Open Letter that was published in the British Medical Journal that called on the UK regulator, the Health and Safety Executive, to recognise suicide as a potentially work-related death in order to make workplaces safer and prevent suicide deaths.

She has received several awards for her research and is a recipient of the N8 Research Partnership, Women in the Spotlight prize (2024), awarded to researchers who are ”pushing the boundaries of innovation in their sectors”

Her work has been covered widely by the media in the UK and internationally.

Prof Erminia Colucci is Professor of Visual Psychology and Cultural & Global Mental Health in the Department of Psychology at Middlesex University London (UK) and Adjunct Professor at Gadjah Mada University (Indonesia). Erminia has a background in Cultural Psychiatry (PhD), Visual Anthropology (MPhil), Education (PGCert), Data Analysis (PGDip) and Cultural and Community Psychology (BSc and Hons). Her main area of research are human rights and mental health, suicide and suicide prevention, domestic violence against women and children, spirituality and faith-based/traditional healing, and first-hand stories of people with lived-experience of ‘mental illness’ and suicidal behaviour, with a focus on low-middle-income countries, ethnic minorities and refugee populations.

Erminia is passionate about using arts-based and visual methodologies, particularly participatory visual methods and ethnographic film-documentary, in her research, teaching and advocacy activities. Her applied research has influenced policy and practice in several countries, including Indonesia, Australia and the Philippines. Having experienced mental illness and suicidal behaviour in her own family, she is a strong advocate of the involvement of people with lived experience in research and interventions and she develops and provides peer-researchers trainings. She has been a methodology and suicide prevention consultant for organizations such as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the Italian Psychologist Board and Save the Children International.

Erminia is the founder of Movie-ment and Aperture (the first Asia-Pacific Ethnographic Documentary Festival), and Co-chair of the World Association of Cultural Psychiatry SIG on Arts, Mental Health and Human Rights. She is also the founder and co-lead of the Middlesex University Visual and Creative Methods Research Group.

A/Prof Frank Iorfino is an Associate Professor and NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow at the Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney, whose work sits at the intersection of youth mental health and digital technology. His research focuses on early intervention and on how digital health can transform the way we assess and manage emerging anxiety, mood and psychotic disorders. His work has advanced our understanding of illness trajectories, particularly illness progression, suicidality and functioning among young people accessing mental health services.

Frank has played a leading role in moving digital mental health from research into routine care. For more than a decade,

he has worked closely with clinicians, health services, government, and industry partners to build tools and systems that are safe, evidence-based and useful in practice. He has had a key role in youth mental health model of care reforms and in new digital health initiatives like the ‘Medicare Mental Health Check In’ and ‘Minding Your Mind’. He has more than 100 peer-reviewed publications, and his work has been supported by the NHMRC, the Medical Research Future Fund, the Wellcome Trust and philanthropy. His goal is to make mental health care more personalised, responsive and available to every young person who needs it.

Miriam Corowa is the Senior Cultural Advisor for ABC News. She is a broadcaster, reporter, presenter and producer who has worked in the media since 2000. Pairing an avid interest in Indigenous affairs with general news production, she has worked at both the Special Broadcasting Service and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation across programmes such as World News Australia, Message Stick and the ABC’s News Channel. Among the many highlights of her career so far are her roles co-hosting the ABC’s ‘The Apology’ live broadcast on the 13th of February, 2008, hosting the ABC’s Gallipoli Dawn Service broadcasts from 2009-2011, and also taking time away from the ABC to join the presenting team on the first season of ‘Coast: Australia’, which aired on Foxtel’s History Channel and BBC2 in 2013-2014. Miriam co-hosted the Weekend Breakfast programme, on the ABC News Channel, from its’ inception in February 2012 until January 2018, and ABC News Regional when it launched in 2020. She commenced in the role of Senior Cultural Advisor, ABC News in February 2024, providing editorial and cultural guidance to reporting teams and shares in the development of strategies and engagement for the network. Miriam has led the creation and delivery of training on Best Practice Reporting in Indigenous Affairs from April 2026 and supported projects within the News Quality team to provide various training for staff.

Miriam is a Bundjalung woman, calling the far north coast of New South Wales home.