Deborah Peterson

Dr Deborah Peterson is an economist with over 25 years of leadership of policy and strategy development and implementation, regulatory reviews, economic analysis and public inquiries across a wide range of sectors and issues. She has held senior positions in Australian State and Federal Government agencies, providing advice to Ministers and Cabinet Committees. Deborah was formerly an Assistant Commissioner with the Australian Productivity Commission and an Assistant Secretary at the Bureau of Industry Economics. She was later appointed as a Deputy Secretary leading the Policy and Strategy Group in the former Victorian Department of Primary Industries (DPI) and headed DPI's Regulation and Compliance Group, responsible for several State regulatory agencies. She was recently a Visiting Fellow of the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University.

She is a Victorian Fellow of the Institute of Public Administration Australia, a Distinguished Fellow of the Australasian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, and a Graduate of the Australian Institute for Company Directors. She was a former editor of the Australasian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics and has numerous publications in peer reviewed journals. Deborah has a PhD and a MSc in applied economics from Cornell (USA) and a Bachelor of Business Studies (Hons) from Massey University (New Zealand).