Date and time: Thursday 26 February 4.00pm - 5.30pm AEDT
Topic: NSW Interactive Session: Economic evaluation: Some issues for evaluators
Location: online via zoom, details will be shared just prior to the event
Presenter: Melanie Kelly | Insight Economics
Register online by: 25 February 2026

Event description: 

Governments across Australia and internationally are placing an increasing emphasis on integrating economic evaluation components in their program evaluation requirements and guidelines. In this workshop, Melanie will:

1. outline different types of economic evaluation (e.g. CBA, CEA, cost utility analysis)
2. point to some differences across jurisdictions in their approaches to economic evaluation
3. discuss some current issues around economic evaluation that are relevant to evaluators (e.g. discount rates; measuring and costing longer term outcomes)
4. recommend ways that overall evaluations can be designed and planned to better incorporate economic evaluation components.

The session will be run in workshop mode with plenty of opportunity for interaction, including Q&A.

Presenter details:

Melanie Kelly has 25 years’ experience in public policy and economics consulting. Her career began at a boutique consultancy (the Allen Consulting Group) before launching a start-up firm, Insight Economics, as a Company Director with four co-investors. The venture was successful, and in 2007, the company was acquired by Deloitte Australia. As a founding member of the economics practice within Deloitte, Melanie helped to grow the economics practice to more than 150 staff over more than 10 years of service. At Deloitte, Melanie progressed to serve as the Lead Partner for the Government and Industry Advisory practice and Business Case Centre of Excellence in Victoria within the Deloitte Access Economics practice. She was a member of the Financial Advisory Services’ Gender Diversity working group and was selected to the Under-40 Partner Leadership Group.

Over her career, Melanie has specialised in the life sciences, defence and resources sectors, with deep competencies in industry and innovation policy, economic cost benefit analyses, labour market modelling, computable general equilibrium modelling, and business case development. Her expertise in economic methods, strategy development and business case requirements has enabled her clients to secure more than $3.5 billion in government funding for a range of projects and policies across the health, defence, aerospace, resources, life sciences, education, emergency services, transport, and manufacturing sectors.

This seminar will be recorded and available on the member portal for AES members only.

This free event has been organised by the NSW Regional Network of the AES. Our seminar series provides an opportunity for you to meet with AES members and others in the evaluation community and to share and learn from the experiences of fellow evaluators. Please ensure you have access to your email address to receive the zoom details. Please also check your email address is correct on your registration form before submitting. 

Session start times:

VIC, NSW, ACT, TAS: 4.00pm

QLD: 3.00pm

NT 2.30pm

SA: 3.30pm

WA: 1.00pm

New Zealand: 6.00pm

For other time zones please go to https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html