Peter Saunders is well known in Australia as a social policy researcher and commentator on poverty and related social issues, including income distribution, social security, welfare reform and participation, and the welfare state - in Australia and other countries, including, most recently, China. Saunders is the author of several books including Welfare and Inequality; National and International Perspectives on the Australian Welfare State (1994) and The Ends and Means of Welfare: Coping with Economic and Social Change in Australia (Cambridge UP, 2002). His Submission to the Senate Poverty Inquiry was cited extensively in the Committee's Report and he is currently undertaking a major project, funded by the Australian Research Council, on poverty and inequality designed to develop new indicators and policy benchmarks. He has been the Director of the Social Policy Research Centre at the University of New South Wales since 1987.