The Lowy Institute is a leading international think tank that looks at the world from Australia’s perspective.
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On Monday 29 October the Lowy Institute hosted the Hon Bill Shorten MP, Leader of the Opposition, for a major foreign policy address. Mr Shorten has served as the Leader of the Opposition since 2013. He was first elected as the Member for Maribyrnong at the 2007 Federal election. He served as a Cabinet Minister in the Rudd and Gillard Governments. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In an age of ubiquitous data, the “scarce factor is the ability to understand that data and extract value from it”. Google’s Chief Economist, Hal R Varian, and Lowy Institute’s International Economy Director Roland Rajah had a discussion on the economics of data, how data can drive innovation and improve our wellbeing, and the debate over its effects on competition and the appropriate role of government. Dr Varian is an emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in three depar...
On the eve of the visit to Australia by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, the Lowy Institute held an event on the issue of the republic and Australia’s place in the world. Constitutional monarchist Julian Leeser MP, Federal Member for Berowra, and Michael Cooney, National Director of the Australian Republic Movement, joined Alex Oliver, Lowy Institute Director of Research, for a panel discussion on whether Australia’s status as a constitutional monarchy affects the way the world see us – and how w...
Professor Robert Cribb of the Australia National University (ANU) delivered a keynote address (30 minutes) on the place of minorities in Indonesia, as part of the 2018 Indonesia Update, presented in cooperation with the ANU. This was followed by a panel discussion (35 minutes) featuring Professor Cribb; Dr Sandra Hamid, the Asia Foundation’s country representative in Indonesia; and Associate Professor Charlotte Setijadi, Singapore Management University. Tim Johnston moderated. See omnystudio.com...
Tom Power of the Australia National University (ANU) Indonesia Project delivered the 2018 political update (approximately 35 minutes), followed by a panel discussion on Indonesia’s upcoming April 2019 elections (approximately 40 minutes) featuring Power, ANU; Sidney Jones, the director of the Institute for Policy Analysis in Jakarta; and Aaron Connelly, the director of the Southeast Asia Project at the Lowy Institute. Ulla Fionna moderated. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
The international order is under strain. Rising powers want to rewrite the rules, Western leaders are turning inwards, and technology is breaking down barriers. What can middle powers do in response? Lowy Institute Executive Director Michael Fullilove moderated a discussion with Ralf Beste, Head of Policy Planning at the German Federal Foreign Office, Volker Perthes, Director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, and Gudrun Wacker, Senior Fellow in the Asia Division at ...
In November, New Caledonia will face an independence referendum. This will bring to an end the Matignon and Noumea Accords, which delivered 30 years of peace after a bloody civil war. France is overseeing preparations. Australia's position continues to be simple support for the full implementation of the 1998 Noumea Accord, including a genuine referendum process. The Accord planned a scheduled handover and sharing of some responsibilities by France, and economic re-balancing between the mainly E...
The Lowy Institute hosted an address by the Hon Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi, Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Samoa. The Pacific is back in international headlines. New partners in the region are contributing to a fast-changing geostrategic landscape, and old partners are ‘stepping up’ in response. But how new are these current dynamics? How do Pacific Islanders view the movements and machinations of large powers in the Pacific and how have they responded to such developments? How a...
Whether in terms of denuclearisation talks with North Korea, an escalating trade war with China, or the promotion of a concept and strategy for a ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific’, the pace of US statecraft in Asia has been frenetic in recent months. Has the United States reclaimed the initiative in great power competition in the region? Are bold but often contradictory US initiatives unpicking or strengthening America’s position in Asia? Will a ‘new era in US economic commitment’ to the region prove...
Australia now has its fifth prime minister in five years. What does this mean for Australia’s place in the world? Does our reputation as the ‘coup capital of the democratic world’ damage Australia’s international standing? How does it affect our ability to run a coherent foreign policy? And what might we expect from the Morrison government? Four Lowy Institute experts discussed the global implications of Australia’s political crisis. Executive Director Dr Michael Fullilove chaired a discussion w...
The future of the Middle East peace process under US President Donald Trump, the use of chemical weapons in Syrian conflict, the implications for the United Nations’ role and its duties – these topics are politically, culturally, and ethically complex and are not easily navigated. The Lowy Institute hosted Mr Nick Kaldas APM, former Director of Internal Oversight Services in the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA), to hear his views on these issues, followed by a question-and-answer sessi...
China’s expansive claims in the South China Sea have emerged as the testing ground for great power competition between the US and China, and as a lightning rod for rival claimants in the region, as well as Australia and Japan, to assert their own maritime rights. Lowy Institute Senior Fellow Richard McGregor moderated a panel with other pre-eminent experts on the South China Sea – Wu Shicun, of the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, Linda Jakobson, of China Matters, and Professor Be...
Foreign aid is an important resource for the Pacific Islands, and for many countries is a major point of engagement with the region. Yet public information at the project level is sparse, often lacks detail, and is difficult to access. This lack of transparency reduces the effectiveness of aid. It makes it difficult to coordinate aid efforts across multiple stakeholders. It makes it challenging for countries in the Pacific to align aid with their own investment priorities. It makes it harder for...
At the end of 2017, China announced it had been a year of “remarkable progress” on human rights. However, activists draw attention to an increasingly repressive environment in China, including restrictions on academic freedom; domestic human rights deteriorations in law, policing, and terrorism; the surveillance apparatus; and repression in Tibet and Xinjiang. Behind closed doors, Australia has raised human rights issues with China in annual high-level dialogues, and continues to work on human r...
How are human rights in North Korea and broader regional security through North Korean denuclearisation connected, and can one be achieved without the other? Kim Jong-un’s successful pursuit of his nuclear agenda has arguably only been possible because of his ruthless wielding of power and control, and the surveillance and oppression of the North Korean people. The US and its allies want North Korea to denuclearise in the interests of regional and global security. Following the recent meeting be...
When French President Emmanuel Macron recently visited Australia, the Australian government welcomed France as a stable partner in the Pacific region. Much of this stability relies upon the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia, which will hold a referendum on self-determination in November this year. The independence movement Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS) has been campaigning for independence from France for more than three decades. Leading Kanak politician and o...
Global wealth and power are shifting eastwards. Three of the world’s four largest economies are in Asia, and the fourth, the United States, is a Pacific power. By 2025, two thirds of the world’s population will live in Asia, and only around a tenth in the West. This transformation is reshaping the global distribution of power, with profound implications for war and peace in the twenty-first century. The Lowy Institute Asia Power Index is an analytical tool for tracking changes in the distributio...
The Lowy Institute hosted a conversation with Executive Director Dr Michael Fullilove and Jessica Tuchman Mathews, former president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, about the international role of the United States in the era of President Trump. Ms Mathews was president of the Carnegie Endowment for 18 years, and has also worked in the executive and legislative branches of government, in the non-profit arena, in the media, and science policymaking. She is a former director of t...
Over the course of nearly 60 years’ engagement with Southeast Asia, Milton Osborne has become one of Australia’s leading authorities on the region. His Southeast Asia: An Introductory History, first published in 1979, is now in its 12th edition and has been translated into five Asian languages. Osborne’s latest work, Pol Pot Solved the Leprosy Problem: Remembering Colonial and Post-Colonial Worlds, 1956–1981, is a memoir of his career as a young diplomat in Phnom Penh, from 1959–61, and later as...
Papua New Guinea is about to step onto the global stage. In November, leaders representing half of the world’s GDP will descend on Port Moresby for the APEC Leaders’ Summit. This will be the largest event the country has ever hosted. In the context of a struggling economy and development challenges, what benefits will APEC have for the people of PNG? What are the major opportunities and difficulties in hosting such an event? How will the links forged by the summit help bolster and diversify the ...
The defeat of Malaysia’s ruling party on 9 May was unlike any election result the region has ever seen. No party in Southeast Asia has held power for so long, only to lose it at the polls. In its place, a broad coalition led by 92-year-old former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad has formed a new government. Can such a diverse coalition remain united as it addresses fundamental questions of the Malaysian social contract, including racial preferences? Mahathir once jailed Anwar Ibrahim, but has now...
The latest Lowy Institute Paper published by Penguin Random House, Remaking the Middle East: How a Troubled Region May Save Itself by Anthony Bubalo, was launched in Sydney on 31 May. The Middle East is experiencing a period of concentrated turmoil unlike anything since the end of the Second World War. Uprisings, coups, and wars have seen governments overthrown, hundreds of thousands killed, and millions displaced. Anthony Bubalo argues that the current tumult is the result of the irrevocable de...
The latest Lowy Institute Paper published by Penguin Random House, Remaking the Middle East: How a Troubled Region May Save Itself by Anthony Bubalo, was launched in Canberra on 29 May. The Middle East is experiencing a period of concentrated turmoil unlike anything since the end of the Second World War. Uprisings, coups, and wars have seen governments overthrown, hundreds of thousands killed, and millions displaced. Anthony Bubalo argues that the current tumult is the result of the irrevocable ...
A highly anticipated meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is still set to take place on 12 June in Singapore. Beyond theatrical spectacle and global media attention, what can the unprecedented US–North Korea summit realistically hope to achieve? The Lowy Institute’s Director of Research, Alex Oliver, moderated a panel discussion with Dr Euan Graham, Director, International Security at the Lowy Institute, and renowned expert on Asia-Pacific security Profes...
Matthew Busch, Research Fellow, East Asia Program at Lowy Institute and special guests Rahimah ‘Ima’ Abdulrahim, Executive Director of The Habibie Centre, Jakarta, and Sandra Hamid, Indonesia Country Representative for The Asia Foundation, had a discussion about Indonesia in an era of vigorous electoral competition and growing sectarianism. In advance of more than 100 local elections in 2018 and presidential and legislative elections in 2019, now is an ideal time to take stock of the trajectory ...
There is no more urgent security issue for Australia than North Korea, a nuclear-armed power with a regime described by Professor Robert Kelly as a ‘mafia state’. At his only public appearance in Canberra, Professor Kelly discussed North Korea’s enigmatic regime, its confrontation with the United States, and the likelihood of war. The conversation was moderated by Lowy Institute Senior Fellow Sam Roggeveen, and questions were taken from the audience. Robert Kelly is a professor of international ...
The Turnbull government has announced it will introduce legislation to combat foreign intervention in Australian politics, after allegations of interference by the Chinese party-state. The government’s critics, in turn, say it has mishandled the issue, alienating Australia’s biggest trading partner, and unfairly targeting Chinese-Australians. Richard McGregor, Lowy Institute’s Senior Fellow for East Asia, hosted a panel discussion with Adam Ni, Australian National University (ANU); Maree Ma, Vis...
“Prosperity” has been a significant theme in several of President Xi Jinping’s major speeches over the past year, both at home and abroad. But what does he mean by prosperity? And what challenges does this nebulous concept create? Domestically, Xi’s promise to transform China into a “moderately prosperous society” by 2020 has been well-received. But does it have global resonance? Australian National University’s Dr Jane Golley and Linda Jaivin discssed with Dr Merriden Varrall, Director of the L...
Panel discussion on policy implications for Australia at the Lowy Institute conference between Dame Meg Taylor, Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, Dr Colin Tukuitonga, Dr James Batley, chaired by Dr Euan Graham. The discussion took place at the Lowy Institute conference Australia in the Pacific: enhancing security through regional resilience, held in Canberra on 5 April 2018. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Senator Marise Payne, Minister of Defence, delivering the keynote address at the Lowy Institute conference Australia in the Pacific: enhancing security through regional resilience, held in Canberra on 5 April 2018. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
