Maureen Brunt (1928–2019)

AO, BCom Hons (1951), PhD Harvard (1964), DCom (2000)

Maureen Brunt, the first woman to become a Professor of Economics in Australia, shaped both academic and policy landscapes and left a lasting legacy through her groundbreaking research in competition law.

Pioneering in the field of competition law as an academic and policymaker, Maureen Brunt was first in her family to attend university, and the first woman professor of economics in Australia. Brunt was the first University of Melbourne graduate awarded the Elizabeth Cary Agassiz Fellowship to Radcliffe College, USA. In 1967, she was appointed professor in Monash University’s Faculty of Economics and Politics, becoming the first woman professor of economics, and the third woman to hold a professorial chair, in Australia.

After 23 years at Monash University, Brunt was appointed professorial fellow at the Melbourne Business School and the Melbourne Law School. Monash awarded her an honorary Doctor of Laws. In 2006, she was the second woman Distinguished Fellow of the Economic Society of Australia.

Emeritus Professor Maureen Brunt was born in Coburg, and her parents were grocers with ambitions for their children’s careers. Winning a Commonwealth Scholarship, she studied in what was then known as the Commerce Faculty, at the University of Melbourne. It was rare for women to enter university in the 1940s and even more unusual to study economics.

Brunt graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce in 1951, majoring in Economics. Her first-class honours thesis on ‘The economics of retailing’ drew on her knowledge of her parents’ business. Her academic success won her a scholarship to Harvard, where she graduated with a PhD in Industrial Organisation in 1964.

Thanks to her exemplary degrees and her teaching appointments at Harvard, Melbourne, and Adelaide universities, as well as her work ethic, innovative research, and groundbreaking publications, Brunt was appointed Foundation Chair of Economics at Monash University, which was founded only nine years prior.

With this appointment, she became just the third woman to hold a Professorial Chair in Australia, and the first one to do so in Economics. Supporting the integrative approach in Monash’s Faculty of Economics and Politics, she developed courses in Economics and Law and taught subjects in industrial organisation and competition law, regulation, and policy. Brunt also developed an interdisciplinary graduate seminar in trade practices law.

Brunt was influential outside the academic world, spending 23 years making major contributions to policymaking and development of competition law. She was a member, and later the chair of the Victorian Government’s Consumer Affairs Council, and in 1975 was appointed as a Foundation Member of the Trade Practices Council (now known as the Australian Competition Tribunal).

After she proposed that ‘mirror’ laws be enacted across the country to guarantee consumer protection provisions, her advice was implemented by all Australian states and territories.

Brunt was a lay member of the High Court of New Zealand for competition cases from 1990 to 2000, the Panel of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (World Bank Group, 1995–2003) and the Industrial Property Commonwealth Advisory Committee (1988–1992).

Broadening her scholarly impact, Brunt was appointed a Professorial Associate in the Monash University Law School in 1984, where she demonstrated the synthesis between economics and law. In 1990, she left Monash, returning to Melbourne University as Professorial Fellow at the Melbourne Business School and the Melbourne Law School.

In 1992, Brunt was awarded an Officer of the Order of Australia for "services to the Trade Practices Tribunal and to education".

She was awarded a Doctor of Commerce from the University of Melbourne in 2000 and is the only woman to receive this honorary degree.

Elected as a Distinguished Fellow of the Economic Society of Australia (2006), she was only the second woman to be recognised. Noting this honour, Professor Allan Fels, economist, and a former Chairman of the ACCC, found that the field of competition law and policy had grown, and that Australia has been hailed as a leader in these fields. He concluded, "These achievements owe much to Professor Brunt". i

Emeritus Professor Maureen Brunt’s legacy stems from her early research and writing at Melbourne University that proved there was an urgent need for the establishment of a competition law in Australia. Brunt pioneered methods of analysis, frameworks and findings that continue to be relied upon as primary reference by practitioners and academics in law and economics in Australia and New Zealand. A personal tribute from her long-standing academic colleague, Emeritus Professor Joe Isaac, included, "By her teaching, public lectures and publications, Brunt was to influence many generations of students and public policy in economics and competition law in Australia." ii

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