About the Department of Climate Change
The Department of Climate Change was established on 3 December 2007 as part of the Prime Minister and Cabinet Portfolio.
Structure chart
- Department of Climate Change Structure Chart - April 2008
The Secretary - Dr Martin Parkinson
Dr Parkinson was appointed as Secretary to the newly created Department of Climate Change on 3 December 2007.
Prior to his appointment he worked as the Deputy Secretary of the Climate Change Group in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet with responsibility for leading and coordinating implementation of the emissions trading scheme and coordinating climate change policy. This immediately followed his work as Head of the Secretariat to the Task Group on Emissions Trading.
Dr Parkinson previously spent six years as Executive Director (Deputy Secretary) in the Treasury with responsibility for all domestic and international macroeconomic issues. He was Australia's G-20, IMFC and Development Committee Deputy and Co-chair of the G 20 Deputies process in 2006. He has also worked at the International Monetary Fund where he headed a unit dealing with issues related to the reform of the international financial architecture. Prior to joining the IMF, he headed Treasury's economic conditions branch, with responsibility for analysing economic developments and preparing the official forecasts for the domestic economy and external accounts.
In the early 1990s Dr Parkinson served as Senior Adviser to Treasurer Dawkins; he also worked for Treasurers Kerin and Willis. During his Treasury career he also worked on taxation reform, structural policy, and labour market and industrial relations policy issues. He is a member of the advisory board of the Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis at the Australian National University and has previously served as a member of the Australian Statistics Advisory Council and of the advisory boards of the School of Economics at the University of Adelaide and the Centre for Business Cycle Analysis at the Melbourne Institute. In the mid 1990s he also served as a committee member of the Review of the Australian National Accounts Program.
Dr Parkinson holds a Ph.D from Princeton University, a M.Ec from the Australian National University and a B.Ec (Hons) from the University of Adelaide. He has published articles on macroeconomics, labour markets, international economic governance and economic integration in Asia, in the Journal of Political Economy, the American Economic Review, the European Economic Review, and elsewhere.
