The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the new federal minister for population and cities, Alan Tudge, would seek advice from a broad range of academics, including CEPAR Chief Investigator Professor Peter McDonald, in the development of the nation's population policy.
Peter McDonald is Professor of Demography and head of the Demography Unit within the Centre for Health Policy at The University of Melbourne and a CEPAR Chief Investigator since the Centre’s inception. He was President of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population for the years, 2010-2013. In 2015, he received the Irene B. Taueber Award from the Population Association of America which recognises unusually original or important contribution to the scientific study of population.
He is frequently consulted on the issue of population futures (causes, consequences and policies) by governments around the world, especially in Australia, Europe and East Asia. In 2008, he was appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia. He is an inaugural ANU Public Policy Fellow and in 2014 was a member of the Independent Review into Integrity in the Subclass 457 Programme.
He has worked previously at the Australian National University, the Australian Institute of Family Studies, the World Fertility Survey and the University of Indonesia.