The Lowy Institute is a leading international think tank that looks at the world from Australia’s perspective.
This channel aggregates audio from across all of our event and podcast channels.
Wednesday Lunch at Lowy, 25 May 2006 - Ambassador Ersavci presentation The Turkish Ambassador spoke about the challenges facing Turkey as it attempts to deal with the competing imperatives of a country that sits at Europe’s geographic, cultural and ideological crossroads. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Wednesday Lunch at Lowy, 5 May 2006 - Janet Albrechtsen presentation On 3 May the lawyer and columnist for The Australian newspaper, Janet Albrechtsen, addressed the Wednesday Lunch at the Lowy Institute. Her topic was: 'The illegitimacy of international law: The case against transnationalism'. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
On 18 February 2008 the Lowy Institute launched a new Paper by Dr Michael Fullilove, entitled 'World wide webs: Diasporas and the international system'. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Distinguished Speaker Series - Dr David McCormick presentation On 26 May 2009, the Lowy Institute was pleased to host a speech in our Distinguished Speaker Series by Dr David McCormick, Distinguished Service Professor of Information Technology, Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University, on the current state of the world economy. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Wednesday Lunch at Lowy - Daoud Yaqub presentation On 28 March 2007 at the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy, Daoud Yaqub spoke on the topic: 'A long hot summer ahead for Afghanistan'. He discussed the looming spring offensive by the Taliban, including its implications for the reconstruction and security effort in Afghanistan, and what the international community needs to do to help the Karzai government meet this challenge. Yaqub is co-author with Bill Maley of a new Lowy Institute Policy Brief, 'A Long ...
PNG’s voters go to the polls in June to elect a new national government. It is hoped that these elections will bring to a close a particularly tense and volatile chapter in PNG’s history. Since becoming Prime Minister in August 2011, Peter O’Neill has had a tenuous hold on government. The opposing political forces led by former Prime Minister Michael Somare have used court challenges and other means in their attempt to oust the O’Neill government. The cost to PNG’s reputation has been high. On t...
The eighth annual Lowy Institute Poll reports the results of a nationally representative opinion survey of 1,005 Australian adults conducted in Australia between 26 March and 10 April 2012 using mobile and landline telephones. It also reports the results of a parallel survey conducted in New Zealand. Key issues covered in the 2012 poll include: foreign investment in Australian farms, uranium sales to India, relations with Fiji, the Bali bombings, climate change, the war in Afghanistan, migration...
Michael Wesley, Executive Director Lowy Institute, discusses the key findings from the 2012 Lowy Institue Poll (0:00). Find out what Australians really think about: Short-term visas for migrant (1:20) Foreign ownership of Australian farmland (2:45) Carbon tax (3:35) Climate change (4:01) US military presence in Australia (4:49) Implications of the Poll for the Australian Government (7:18) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Defence is faced with a challenge - to balance force structure and preparedness in a climate that reinforces the need for austerity coupled with a shift in global and strategic weight to our region. In his first major public address after the Chicago NATO Summit, the Chief of the Defence Force, General David Hurley, AC, DSC will address these issues to determine how the ADF must respond to be set for success in the future. General David Hurley was promoted to General and assumed his current appo...
In response to more widespread Somali piracy attacks and soaring crew ransoms, shipping companies are turning to private military security companies to provide both armed guards and armed patrol boats to fight pirates in the Indian Ocean. At this Lowy Lecture, Military Fellow James Brown will discuss research findings from his forthcoming Lowy Institute Analysis "Pirates and Privateers" which considers the rise of private navies in the Indian Ocean in the past 12 months. His research traces the ...
After a drawn-out Republican primary process, the general election is finally on. What do we know about the styles and quirks of the two presidential contenders in 2012, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney? What are their strengths and weaknesses as campaigners? What is at stake, in terms of policy, in November – for Americans, for Australians, and for the world? And is this election campaign ever going to end? The Lowy Institute is pleased to present a conversation on these topics between two keen obs...
Many pundits contend that with the economy such an important issue in the U.S. presidential election, foreign policy does not matter. It actually does, politically as well as for the U.S. role in the world. Jentleson examines the dynamics of the campaign thus far and the likely terms of foreign policy debate as we move towards election day. Bruce Jentleson, Professor of Public Policy and Political Science at Duke University, is a leading scholar of American foreign policy and has served in a num...
Lowy Lecture Series - Benjamin Goldsmith presentation At the Lowy Lecture on 2 May 2012, Benjamin Goldsmith presented findings from a project to develop a quantitative forecasting tool for serious political instability, mass atrocities, and genocide, including software which should be of use to policy-makers thinking ahead on a 1-5 year time horizon. The project, 'Understanding and Forecasting Political Instability, Mass Atrocities, and Genocide: Combining Social Science and Machine Learning App...
For the first time in 20 years, the relationship with China played almost no part in the American Presidential election of 2008. President Obama has forged a low-key, pragmatic relationship with Beijing, but has not seen much success in building a workable "G2" that so many have called for. China kept Obama's visit to Washington in late 2009 deliberately low-key, and has refused to co-operate on the value of its currency, pressuring North Korea and Iran, or acting on global warming. Recently Was...
The last twelve months have witnessed a turning point in post-independence Malaysian politics. In elections last March, the Barisan Nasional coalition and its dominant member, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), suffered serious reversals. The prime ministership of Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi collapsed, initiating a fraught succession process to transfer power to his deputy Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak. The 'Mahathir period' and its 'Badawi twilight' are now passing, but Mahathiri...
On 24 November a new Australian Government was elected under the leadership of Kevin Rudd, MP, a Chinese-speaking former diplomat with deep expertise in foreign policy. At the Wednesday Lowy Lunch on 5 December a panel of analysts commented on prospective international policy under Mr Rudd's government. The panellists included: Dr Malcolm Cook, Program Director, Asia & the Pacific; Dr Michael Fullilove, Program Director, Global Issues; and Rory Medcalf, Program Director International Securit...
The Lowy Institute Blue Ribbon Panel Report, 'Australia’s diplomatic deficit: reinvesting in our instruments of international policy', is the first major public review of Australia’s diplomatic network in over 20 years. Here, members of the Panel speak at the launch of the report on Wednesday 18 March 2009. The Panel: Jillian Broadbent AO, Professor William Maley AM, Brad Orgill, Professor Peter Shergold AC, Ric Smith AO PSM and Allan Gyngell (Chairman). See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy i...
The global threat from nuclear weapons is growing, yet so too is a new international push for nuclear disarmament. On Wednesday 25 February 2009 at a lecture in the Lowy Institute's Distinguished Speakers Series, Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman examined what realistic assessments of the developing state of the international system might mean for current efforts to reduce nuclear dangers. This event was held under the Lowy Institute's partnership with the Nuclear Security Project of the Nuclear T...
The annual Lowy Lecture on Australia in the World is the highlight of our events calendar. The 2008 lecture was delivered by Mr Ian Macfarlane AC in Sydney on Wednesday 3 December 2008. In this lecture Mr Macfarlane seeks to answer the question of what is different about this financial crisis from the seven previous crises of the deregulated era spanning the past thirty years, and the lessons we can draw from it. Ian Macfarlane was Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia from 1996 to 2006. He ...
On 7 November 2008, as part of our Distinguished Speaker Series, the Lowy Institute hosted The Grand Chief, Rt. Hon Sir Michael Somare GCMG CH, Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea. The title of Sir Michael Somare's lecture was 'Pacific Regional Challenges'. He discussed the urgency with which the Pacific and the world must tackle the challenge of climate change, calling for a global paradigm shift to transform the way the world values a healthy and functioning natural environment. See omnystudio....
What lessons does the Iraq conflict hold for Australia's new Defence White Paper? In the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 3 September, one of Australia's most experienced and distinguished military men drew upon his experience of running a 21st century urban counter-insurgency to talk about how the nature of the Iraq war should feed into the Defence White Paper process. Major Gen (Retd) Andrew James Molan, AO DSC explored the need for an effective defence force that can offer government as wide a rang...
The world economy is now characterised by intense international competition for skilled immigrants. At the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 21 May, Professor Peter McDonald considered how Australia can recruit the migrants that it needs and what the potential obstacles may be. Peter McDonald is Professor of Demography and Director of the Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute at the Australian National University. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
The annual Lowy Lecture on Australia in the World is the highlight on our events calendar. The 2006 lecture was delivered by one of Australia’s most respected international strategic thinkers and international security experts, Professor Robert O’Neill AO. In his lecture entitled Prospects and Perspectives for International Security, Professor O’Neill gave perspectives on key international security problems, based on his personal experience as a soldier, a scholar and an adviser to governments. ...
On 31 October, the Lowy Institute hosted an election debate between the Trade Minister, the Hon. Warren Truss, and the Shadow Trade Minister, the Hon. Simon Crean. Both speakers reaffirmed their belief that the WTO Doha Round could still deliver a global deal and presented their parties' different views on bilateral trade deals, including the ongoing negotiations with Japan and the potential for an Australia-South Korea deal in the future. The Trade Minister also used the debate to outline the C...
The Lowy Institute was pleased to present a lecture by the Federal Labor Leader, Kevin Rudd MP, on Thursday 5 July 2007, as part of its Distinguished Speaker Series. The title of Mr Rudd's lecture was 'Fresh ideas for future challenges in foreign policy', downloadable here. In this important lecture, Mr Rudd outlined Labor's approach to Australian foreign policy. He also took questions from the floor. Mr Rudd was elected Federal Labor Leader in 2006. He has extensive foreign, trade and internati...
The Honourable Gordon J. O’Connor, PC, MP, Canada's Minister of National Defence, spoke at the Lowy Institute on 8 September as part of the Institute's Distinguished Speaker Series. Canada and Australia are two nations which enjoy a shared heritage, common interests and a long history of external military commitments. Like Australia, Canada is undergoing a major restructuring and re-equipping of its armed forces, and has major military resources committed beyond its borders. Both nations have co...
Professor Hans-Henrik Holm addressed the Thursday Lunch at Lowy on the topic of the Danish cartoon media controversy, which occurred when the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten published 12 cartoons of the prophet Muhammad on September 30 2005. Hans-Henrik Holm is Professor of International Relations at the Danish School of Journalism and Aarhus University. He has held several senior academic appointments in journalism throughout Europe and the United States, including a professorial appointment at Be...
Despite the economic downturn following the global financial crisis, the United States remains Australia’s most significant commercial partner, taking into account the value and diversity of our two-way investment and trade flows. On Tuesday 18 May at a panel discussion on the prospects and trends in the commercial relationship between Australia and the United States, The Honourable Anthony Byrne MP, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and to the Minister for Trade, gave the keynote ad...
The Wednesday Lowy Lunch this week was on Tuesday and it launched the Asia New Zealand Foundation’s Outlook Paper #13, 'Standing Together, In Single File', by the Lowy Institute’s Program Director East Asia, Dr Malcolm Cook. Malcolm was joined by Dr Brendan Taylor to discuss the paper. Brendan is a lecturer at the School of International, Political and Strategic Studies at ANU. Dr Andrew Butcher, the Asia New Zealand Foundation’s Director Policy and Research, moderated the launch. See omnystudio...
The Mekong River basins are one of the most important and dynamic areas in the world for the battle between economic development’s demands for energy and environmental and social sustainability. As world attention shifts to the pending global climate change negotiations in far-off Copenhagen, the ongoing damming of the Mekong River and plans by the riparian states to build new dams threaten the livelihoods of millions or people in Southeast Asia who rely on the river. Milton Osborne’s latest pub...
