Driving economic policymaking that works for all generations

With a background in global development and a history of working with communities to unravel systemic injustice around the world, Jane Body turned her attention to Australia after completing an MBA and recognising the significant challenges her peers were facing back home. She recently co-founded Australia’s Intergenerational Fairness Coalition, advocated for cuts to student debt and is deeply interested in how we can use the tax system to shape the society we want.

Read on for our interview with Jane!

Describe your career trajectory and how you got to your current position.
My background is in international development. In hindsight that’s really because I’ve always had an interest in equity and justice, and prior to university that seemed to me to be where the most glaring imbalance was. I worked for a fantastic organisation (Mama Hope) advocating for community-led development and shifting power structures within the system, where I learned from incredible grassroots leaders across East Africa. After a number of years living abroad, I also began looking back at Australia and seeing patterns that worried me. I’d just completed an MBA and felt like economic systems change was crucial to a vibrant, healthy and secure future but I didn’t know how to get there. Through some volunteering, I stumbled across Think Forward and felt so confident that they were talking about the right issues. My leadership experience in NFP’s made it a perfect fit. It’s been a huge and wonderful journey since then. From never having visited Parliament House to being invited to participate in policy making processes, to chatting tax and economics with AFR journo’s and pinching myself every time I get to sit at a table (or zoom call) with people who’s work I’ve read about for years, I am so grateful to be doing this work.

Can you tell us a bit more about what the organisation is all about?
Think Forward is fighting for an economy that works for all generations. Millennials and Gen Z are the first generations predicted to be worse off economically than the generations who have come before us. Our take is that this situation has occurred because of a lack of long-term thinking and poor policy making by successive governments. The good news is that we can change both of those things. We advocate, educate and conduct research on issues of intergenerational fairness and we believe we can turn the situation around with tax and economic reform. 

We chat to younger Australians about their thoughts, share that with policy makers and vice versa. We believe more young people need to be part of the discourse about Australia’s economic future, because it is theirs after all. We’re thinking big about what’s next for our country and we want those conversations to be accessible to the every day person. Tax and economics can be complicated, but at their core, they’re about how we live together, what we value, and the kind of future we want to build. They shouldn’t feel so out of reach.

If you could go back in time, what piece of advice would you give yourself as you first embarked on your career?

Seek the mentors you need, ask those with more experience to guide you when you feel stuck.  Don’t just bring ideas to the table – execute them, because people won’t always vibe with what you’re saying until you show them. I hesitated a lot in my early career because I was waiting for approval rather than just going out there and getting it done. In an underresourced sector, just making stuff happen is like gold.

How do you unwind after work?

I am lucky enough to live close by the ocean, at the moment. There’s something very precious about being able to walk along the beach and look out at the big wide space to clear away all the tabs still open in my brain after a day of work. I also have a 1 year old and being present with her, post work, is the most glorious refresh.

What was the last thing you watched, read or listened to?

I am a HUGE podcast fiend (please send recs). I listen to Big Small Talk by Hannah Ferguson and Sarah-Jane Adams every week and I just finished listening to an episode of Throughline called ‘What Makes Us Free?’ which was all about Neoliberalism and how it has shaped our lives up to this point.