Academy Fellow

Professor Roanld Gates’ research interests were in local government and in fiscal economics, especially taxation. He was made an officer in the Order of Australia in 1978.

He served as an honorary adviser to the Queensland Government on various matters and was the inaugural chairman of its statutory Consumer Affairs Council. He was a President of the Economic Society of Australia and New Zealand; did research for the Committee for Economic Development of Australia; served as a consultant in Papua New Guinea to the Committees of Inquiry on Taxation and on Local Government Finance; and was a commissioner of the federal government’s Commission of Inquiry into Poverty.

He was Vice-Chancellor of the University of New England from 1977 until his retirement in 1985. As Vice-Chancellor, he maintained his membership of the Advertising Standards Council and of the federal treasurer’s economic advisory panel, and his chairmanship of the Social Sciences Committee of the Australian National Commission for UNESCO. In 1979 he began two successive three-year terms as the inaugural chairman of the federal and state governments’ Advisory Council for Inter-government Relations, a role which included overseeing a large programme of research and publication. The UNESCO involvement expanded, with his appointment as chairman of the National Commission.

On retirement, he continued only his chairmanship of the national Local Government Training Council. For several years he served as honorary adviser to the shire of Dumaresq. However, his major activity in retirement was as the author of novels and short stories in the international language, Esperanto, in which he had several novels and three volumes of crime short stories published, variously in Antwerp, Sydney and Vienna. He was President of the Australian Esperanto Association from 1997 to 2000.

• Chairman, Armidale City and Dumaresq Shire Joint Planning Committee
• Rektoro, Internacia Kongresa Universitato [Vice-Chancellor, International (Esperanto) Congress University]
• Emeritus Professor (Economics) at the University of Queensland and the University of New England

• Ronald Cecil Gates (1997) La vidvino kaj la profesoro. Vienna, Austria: Internacia Esperanto-Muzeo.
• Ronald Cecil Gates (1994) Morto de sciencisto. Antwerp, Belgium: Flandra Esperanto-Ligo.
• Ronald Cecil Gates (1994) Refoje krimnoveloj sep. Matraville, NSW: Libroservo de Australia Esperanto-Asocio.
• Ronald Cecil Gates (1993) Kolera afero. Antwerp, Belgium: Flandra Esperanto-Ligo.
• Ronald Cecil Gates (1993) Sep krimnoveloj. Matraville, NSW: Libroservo de Australia Esperanto-Asocio.
• Ronald Cecil Gates (1991) La septaga murdenigmo. Antwerp, Belgium: Flandra Esperanto-Ligo.