Peter Saunders (CIS)

Professor Peter Saunders is the Social Research Director at the Centre for Independent Studies a free market think tank based in Sydney, Australia.

"Professor Peter Saunders is an Honorary Senior Fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies. He was the Centre's Director of Social Policy from 2002 until 2008, was Professor of Sociology at the University of Sussex in England and was Research Manager at the Australian Institute of Family Studies (2000-02). His work at the CIS has focused mainly on issues of poverty, social inequality and welfare reform. Before joining CIS, Saunders published major works on topics including meritocracy, contemporary capitalism, privatisation and home ownership. He is author of Social Foundations of a Free Society (2001), Poverty in Australia: Beyond the Rhetoric (2002), A Self-Reliant Australia (2003) and Australia's Welfare Habit: And how to kick it (2004) and The Government Giveth and the Government Taketh Away (2007). In 2006, Peter edited Taxploitation. The Case for Income Tax Reform."

Saunders research at the CIS is largely aimed at justifying decreases in Australian government spending on welfare. He has also argued that recipients of welfare in Australia should have to repay the welfare support they receive.