NEXT50 Series: Reform or Decline with Alex Sanchez

NEXT50 Lunch with Alex Sanchez Tuesday 4 August 2026, 12.30–2.00 pm | The Centre for Independent Studies

Join Alex Sanchez in conversation with CIS Executive Director Michael Stutchbury for a frank lunchtime discussion about aspiration, reform and the road ahead. Drawing on his own story, from a migrant family that prized hard work, saving and getting ahead, through to the corridors of Labor politics, Alex will explore how a more pro-growth, pro-aspiration agenda might be rebuilt from today’s circumstances.

Once an economics adviser to Anthony Albanese, Alex Sanchez has become one of the most compelling voices warning that Australia is squandering the hard-won gains of the Hawke–Keating reform era. In his recent CIS paper, Banana Republic Redux, he argues that weak national incomes growth, stagnant productivity and the fraying of the traditional two-party system are pushing the country backwards.

Expect a wide-ranging conversation taking in tax, the size of government, universal entitlement versus means testing, and how the suburbs, where aspiration and pragmatism combine to generate prosperity, hold the key to Australia’s next chapter.

This is a NEXT50 lunch event, held at CIS, Level 1, 131 Macquarie Street, Sydney. Lunch is included.