Text of the Sir Douglas Copland Memorial Lecture to the Economic Society of Australia (Victoria) by Mr Andrew Hauser, Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Melbourne, 24 June 2026.
Introduction
It is an honour to be asked to deliver this, the second Sir Douglas Copland Memorial Lecture. I must confess, however, that my topic owes more to the work of Bill Phillips than it does to Copland. Before you throw me out, let me try and convince you there are enough parallels to let me stay!
First, both Copland and Phillips came from rural backgrounds in New Zealand to become adopted sons of Australia. Copland was born in Otaio in the South Island but nearly his whole adult life was spent here, dominating economic affairs for a large part of the 20th century. He was the driving force behind the foundation of the Economic Society of Australia and New Zealand, serving as its first president in the 1920s, and he chaired the expert committee behind the Premiers' Plan in the 1930s, led the Commonwealth Prices Commission during the Second World War, and served as the inaugural professor of economics at the University of Tasmania, the founding Dean of commerce at the University of Melbourne, and the first Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University (ANU). In 1933, on the recommendation of Keynes, he gave the first Alfred Marshall Memorial Lectures at Cambridge, then the most prestigious lecture series in global economics.
Phillips was born in Te Rehunga on the North Island and was a more sporadic visitor to Australia. His first trip, in the 1930s, sounds a lively affair, in which – violin in hand – he worked odd jobs across Australia, including as a crocodile hunter, a gold-mine electrician and a cinema operator! And towards the end of his career, he returned to Australia to take up a chair at the ANU. It would be perfect symmetry if Copland and Phillips had met. Sadly, however, your President Alex Millmow – a font of wisdom on Australian economic history – tells me this never happened: they were different generations and moved in different circles.