#57 Michael Traill: Update on Social Impact Taskforce, and planning Capitalism 2.0

Michael Traill is a pioneer of impact investing in Australia. Last year the Federal government setup a taskforce to make recommendations about what they can do to help nurture Social Impact Investing. And in their wisdom, they made Michael the chair.

The taskforce published an interim report at the end of 2019 and final recommendations were due to be released in the middle 0f 2020. But covid-19 put a spanner in the works, and the report’s been delayed.

So, with lots of my listeners eager to hear about progress, I thought now would be a great time to invite Michael onto the show.

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Good Future · Michael Traill: Update on Social Impact Taskforce, and planning Capitalism 2.0

On this episode…

Michael gives us a sneak-peak at the key issues in his report for the Prime Minister. He explains how we can turn social impact investing from a “cottage-industry” into a multi-billion-dollar change-making industry.

He suggests Australia could adopt the UK’s Big Society Capital model of an impact investment wholesaler.

My key takeaway this week…

“I think the type of deals that lend themselves to that type of impact solution are big chunks of the economy. You think about any sector where there’s significant government funding with a social impact imperative. Because that creates scale. But there’s also a requirement for them to be run with business disciplines and accountability to generate ethical revenues.”

“That’s quite a broad sweep, think about affordable housing, aged care, the vet sector, areas around mental health, there’s a big focus on regional and rural development. These are not $1M and 2M opportunities, these are multi-billion-dollar large-scale plays.” Michael says.

Good Future’s Good Books

The Path to Power (Book 1)

By Robert Caro

“One of the gifts of Corona is an opportunity to wade through a lot of stuff. I’ll give you y all-time favourite recommendation, I’m a political and buff and I love biographies.

There’s a guy called Robert Caro who has written beautiful forensically researched four volume series on Lindon Bains Johnson, LBJ. It’s just a remarkable piece of writing and research that he did over thirty years. It reads like a well-written thriller. Caro I think is over 80 now and all Caro aficionados are waiting for the final volume and hoping he’ll get it out soon.”