The Lowy Institute is a leading international think tank that looks at the world from Australia’s perspective.
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The 2010 Dr John Gee Memorial Lecture, 'Can we eliminate nuclear weapons?', was presented by Joseph Cirincione, who has devoted a long career to the study of nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament. He is currently the President of Ploughshares Fund. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Lowy Lecture Series - Dr Alexey Muraviev and Professor Graeme Gill At the Lowy Lecture on 12 April 2012, Russia experts Dr Alexey Muraviev and Professor Graeme Gill discussed what a Putin presidency will mean for the world and the Asia-Pacific region. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Lowy Lecture Series - Dr Donghyun Park and Emma Veve presentations The Asian Development Bank unveiled its 2012 Asian Development Outlook at the Wednesday Lowy Lecture on 11 April 2012. The Asian Development Outlook is the ADB's annual flagship economic report which provides a comprehensive analysis of macroeconomic issues in developing Asia and Pacific. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
On the anniversary of the Fukushima disaster, the Lowy Institute convened a panel on 7 March 2012 to discuss how Japan's government, society and economy have responded to the tragedy, and whether its effects will continue to shape Japan's internal and external policies into the future. The panellists were Manuel Panagiotopoulos, Professor Jenny Corbett, Greg Earl and Dr Michael Fullilove (moderator). See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
The NTI Nuclear Materials Security Index is a ground-breaking project to publicly benchmark nuclear materials security conditions on a country-by-country basis. The Index, prepared with the Economist Intelligence Unit with guidance from international experts, was created to spark an international discussion about priorities required to strengthen security, and encourage governments to take actions to reduce risks. On 5 March 2012, the Lowy Institute held a special briefing about the NTI Nuclear ...
On 29 March 2012, in the Lowy Lecture Series, Professor Alan Dupont launched his a new Lowy Institute Policy Brief, 'Inflection Point: The Australian Defence Force after Afghanistan', which suggests that as the ADF transitions from involvement in the Afghanistan conflict the risks of failing to adjust and adapt to new security circumstances are especially high. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The issue of refugees and asylum-seekers provokes heated public debate in many countries around the world, including in Australia. On 14 February 2012, in an address in the Lowy Institute's Distinguished Speaker Series, The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, examined emerging developments and trends in forced displacement around the world and the complex, inter-related factors which cause people to flee their homes in search of safety, security and protection. He ga...
Scientists, and experts more generally, have choices about the roles that they play in today's political debates on topics such as global warming, genetically modified foods, and food and drug safety, just to name a few. On Tuesday 7 February 2012, in the Lowy Lecture Series, Professor in Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado, Roger Pielke, discussed how we can understand these choices, their theoretical and empirical bases, what considerations are important to think about when dec...
At the Lowy Lecture on 14 December 2011, Dr Khalid Koser reviewed and assessed the Australian government's efforts to reduce unauthorised boat arrivals over the last year. He provided a roadmap to more effective policy over the next year, drawing on lessons learned from European experiences of reducing flows of asylum seekers and irregular migrants. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
At the Lowy Lecture on 2 November 2011, Dr Albert Palazzo from the Australian Army's Directorate of Research and Analysis contrasted the US and Australia's success in achieving their strategic objectives in going to war with Iraq. He argued that in Iraq the United States failed to achieve its purpose in going to war, but by contrast the war proved a victory for Australia – an outcome determined by the two countries' different strategic objectives. He assessed how Australia, as a minor coalition ...
On 17 and 18 October 2011, the Lowy Institute hosted the inaugural India-China Workshop, an informal dialogue bringing together Australian, Indian, Chinese and Singaporean experts. At the public concluding event, a new Lowy Institute Analysis, 'The Dangers of Denial', on the nuclear dimension of India-China relations, was launched by its authors and discussed by two Workshop participants. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In a lecture on 12 October 2011 in the Lowy Institute's distinguished Speaker Series, the Hon. Michael Kirby AC CMG, Member of the Eminent Persons Group (EPG) of the Commonwealth, described the work and forthcoming report of the EPG on the Future of the Commonwealth. The report of the twelve-member group, chaired by Tun Abdullah Badawi (former Prime Minister of Malaysia) will be considered at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Perth in October 2011. See omnystudio.com/listener for p...
On Tuesday 11 October 2011, as part of the Lowy Institute's Distinguished Speaker Series, Mr Peter Baxter, Director General of AusAID, discussed Australia's aid program and the critical role of development aid in an increasingly interconnected global community. Mr Baxter answered the critics of the Australian aid program, some of whom argue for a scaling back of our aid and development activities. Not so, says the Director General, who made a compelling case for the escalation of Australia's aid...
After postings in Washington and South Asia, Nick Bryant came to Australia determined to avoid all the stereotypes and clichés that still tend to inform the world's view of the 'land down under.' He found an increasingly consequential country – diplomatically, commercially, economically and culturally. Politics was heading in the same direction, as well, until the coup that ousted Kevin Rudd. The national conversation again became narrowly parochial, as Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott reinforced t...
At the Lowy Lecture on Tuesday 4 October 2011, Professor Keith Jeffery reflected on the challenges, rewards and frustrations of writing an authorised history of the most secretive department of the British state. Keith Jeffery is Professor of British History at Queen's University Belfast and a Member of the Royal Irish Academy. He is author or editor of fourteen books, including a prize-winning biography of Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson. His ground-breaking official history, MI6: The History of...
At the conclusion of the Australia-India Roundtable held at the Lowy Institute on 19-20 September 2011, four key participants - Ambassador Shyam Saran and Ambassador Ric Smith AO PSM as well as conveners Rory Medcalf and Navdeep Suri - discussed key ideas emerging from the dialogue. The Roundtable involved leading figures from diplomacy, business, media and think tanks, and is the most substantial such meeting yet held between the two countries. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy informatio...
Australia has experienced a turbulent ten years of enacting new anti-terror laws as a response to the UN Security Council and attacks overseas. These laws are of unprecedented reach, and provide powers and sanctions that were unthinkable prior to September 11. A decade on, George Williams AO, one of Australia's leading constitutional lawyers and public commentators, drew lessons from this experience both for Australia and the ongoing task of protecting the community from terrorism at the Lowy Le...
In the Lowy Lecture Series on 14 September 2011, Lowy Institute Non-resident Fellow Dr Rodger Shanahan examined the Arab Spring from the perspective of the region's Sunni-Shi'a divide, characterised by the competition for influence between Saudi Arabia and Iran. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
At the Lowy Lecture on 25 August 2011, Michael Wesley outlined the components of Asia's stability and the different investments of the region's countries in that stability. He examined the several aspects of change in Asia's strategic order which are profoundly disturbing to the region's stability, and assessed the different options for preserving the region's stability amidst these epochal changes. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
In today's world economy, the line between developed and emerging markets is growing ever more blurred. At the Food for Thought event in Melbourne on 18 August 2011, Mark Thirlwell, Director of the Lowy Institute's International Economy Program, described some of the forces driving this convergence process, and discussed whether this historic shift in global economic geography can be sustained. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
How does China's government view its role in global governance? Would it like to change the basis of the present global order, and if so, how does it plan to go about doing so? These are questions which a prominent Chinese scholar of international relations, Dr Jia Qingguo of Peking University, addressed in the Lowy Lecture Series on 10 August 2011. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In the Food for Thought event in Canberra on 8 August 2011, National Security Fellow Ellie Fogarty launched a report that analyses what Australia’s national interests in Antarctica are, and considers how they might best be protected and advanced in the future. She was joined in a panel discussion by Mr Brett Biddington and Professor Don Rothwell. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The Obama Administration's April 2010 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) combines nuclear force planning and arms control into a single document with a long-term goal of eliminating nuclear weapons. On Wednesday 3 August 2011, our distinguished speaker Dr Hans Kristensen, Director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, reviewed the NPR and what it means for the Asia-Pacific. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Australia’s superannuation system is one of our nation’s great public policy success stories. With more than $1.3 trillion in assets it underpins Australia’s standing as the world’s 4th largest pool of funds under management. While our diverse and well-regulated superannuation system was credited with helping Australia weather the Global Financial Crisis better than other advanced economies, the global nature of investment resulted in members losing a substantial proportion of their retirement s...
The rise of China and India is reshaping the economic, political and security contours of Australia's region. For more than 60 years Australia and its Asian neighbours have thrived in an open and relatively stable regional order underpinned by unchallenged US power. But the era of uncontested American dominance in Asia is coming to an end. In Melbourne on 22 July, Andrew Shearer, Director of Studies at the Lowy Institute, examined the future of the alliance in a more uncertain world. See omnystu...
In the Lowy Lecture series on 13 July 2011, International Organisation for Migration Director General Ambassador William Lacy Swing addressed factors driving contemporary international migration – demographic change, labour market demand and widening disparities between developed and developing countries. He focused on the contribution migration can make to social and economic development at global and national levels. He concluded with an analysis of the policy orientations that are available t...
It is increasingly evident that the global economy is going to be reliant on and at the mercy of the natural environment in the coming decades. What does this mean for Australia? As a nation vulnerable to climate change but also blessed with abundant renewable energy sources, how is it that Australia has fallen so far behind? Drawing on his experience as head of the largest international environmental campaigning organisation, Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo provided a pe...
At the Wednesday Lowy Lunch on 29 June, Lowy Institute Fellow and blog editor Sam Roggeveen attempted to rescue conservatism from some of its most ardent supporters, including the neo-conservative movement and foreign policy realists. Much harm has been done in recent years in the name of conservatism, but a truly conservative approach to foreign policy is critical to negotiating the uncertain future we face in the Asian region. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
At the Wednesday Lunch on 22 June, Professor Alan Dupont spoke about his new Lowy Institute Policy Brief, 'Living with the Dragon: Why Australia needs a China strategy'. Dr Dupont argued that Australia has failed to grasp the full implications of China’s meteoric rise or the risk of conflict in the Western Pacific. He called for a coherent, national approach to China, one that is informed by a clear appreciation of the drivers of Chinese strategic policy particularly in the Western Pacific, whic...
On Wednesday 8 June, as part of our Distinguished Speaker Series, the Lowy Institute was pleased to host a speech by the Hon. Tony Abbott MHR, Leader of the Opposition, on Coalition views on border security. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
