Lowy Institute: Live Events

In the past two decades Indonesia has made great strides in improving access to education, as children begin school earlier and remain there longer than ever before. At the same time, however, quality and learning outcomes have been largely unchanged. A new Lowy Institute Analysis by the University of Melbourne’s Andrew Rosser explores how Indonesia’s underlying political and social relationships have contributed to this conundrum of access over quality. On 20 November the Lowy Institute hosted a discussion of the paper and its themes with Andrew Rosser, the Asia Institute's Dr Ken Setiawan and the Lowy Institute's Matthew Busch. In light of Australia’s development assistance to, and commercial links with, its near neighbour, the panel discussed how these lessons might shape Australia’s engagement with Indonesia. The Lowy Institute acknowledges the support of the Victorian Government Department of Premier and Cabinet for this event.

On 21 November, the Lowy Institute hosted an address by the Hon Richard Marles MP, the Shadow Minister for Defence, who spoke on ‘Australia and the Pacific: A question of identity’. The Hon Richard Marles MP is the Federal Member for Corio. His previous appointments include Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Minister for Trade, Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs, Parliamentary Secretary for Innovation and Industry, and Chair of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Affairs.

This morning the Australian Bureau of Statistics released the results of the same-sex marriage survey conducted earlier this year – of a turnout of 79.5% of eligible Australians, a total of 61.6% said 'Yes' to the question of whether the law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry. The Lowy Institute's Executive Director Michael Fullilove, Senior Fellow Sam Roggeveen and Research Associate Bonnie Bley discuss the result and what it means for Australia's place in the world and its international reputation.

Donald Trump’s first trip to Asia as President, which began on 5 November, will bring his unique approach to diplomacy to our region for the first time. Over ten days, President Trump will visit five countries and attend two summits, and outline his Asia policy for the first time. How he responds to the pressures of these high-stakes meetings will set the tone of America’s relationship with Asia for the remainder of his presidency. On 10 November, the Lowy Institute hosted an expert panel to discuss President Trump’s early forays into Asia policy, featuring Euan Graham, Director of the Lowy Institute's International Security Program; Aaron Connelly, Research Fellow in the Lowy Institute's East Asia Program; and Huong Le Thu, Visiting Fellow at the ANU's Strategic and Defence Studies Centre. The discussion was moderated by Dr Merriden Varrall, Director of the Lowy Institute's East Asia Program.

The relationship between China and the United States is central to security and prosperity in Asia. On 27 October Executive Director Michael Fullilove examined the future of this critical relationship in conversation with Managing Editor of The New York Times and long-time China watcher, Joseph Kahn. Together they explored issues such as the evolution of Asia policy under the Trump administration, the implications for Chinese foreign policy of this year’s 19th Party Congress in Beijing, and future developments on the Korean peninsula. Joseph Kahn has won two Pulitzer Prizes, including one for his coverage of China. He first reported from China in 1989 after the Tiananmen crackdown for The Dallas Morning News. In 1994 he joined The Wall Street Journal as a China correspondent. In 1998 he joined the Times, and was appointed Beijing bureau chief in 2003. He returned to New York in 2008 to become an editor for the Times.

In this edition of Canberra Conversations, Lowy Institute Senior Fellow Sam Roggeveen speaks with Gareth Evans, former Australian Foreign Minister.

In the early part of the twentieth century, the world turned inwards as fear shut down flows of people and goods across national borders. A century later, can we make a better choice? On 28 September the Lowy Institute launched of Choosing Openness, a new Lowy Institute Paper by the Hon Dr Andrew Leigh MP and published by Penguin Random House Australia, at the National Press Club in Canberra. Across the developed world, global engagement has become a major political fault line. Some say that trade, investment, and immigration are threats rather than opportunities. Global uncertainty, rising inequality, and populism present real challenges to globalists. Choosing Openness argues that Australia’s past prosperity has flowed from engaging with the world. An open Australia requires stronger advocacy and smarter policies.

On 23 September the Lowy Institute hosted the 2017 Lowy Institute Media Award dinner, where the 2017 Award was won by Matt Brown of the ABC. New York Times columnist Bret Stephens delivered the keynote speech, addressing the dying art of disagreement.

In this edition of Canberra Conversations, Lowy Institute Senior Fellow Sam Roggeveen speaks with Frances Adamson, Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, about her life and career, the influences that shaped her, the media diet she consumes, as well as the challenges facing her department and the nation.

The Lowy Institute's East Asia Program Research Fellow Aaron Connelly speaks with Milton Osborne, a former Lowy Institute Nonresident Fellow and one of the world's leading historians of Cambodian politics, about recent political developments in the country and how to put them in the context of Cambodian history. In the middle of the night on Saturday, hundreds of police surrounded Cambodian opposition leader Kem Sokha’s house. Despite his parliamentary immunity, they arrested him and took him to the notorious Correctional Center 3 on the border with Vietnam. On Monday, prosecutors announced that they had charged Kem Sokha with treason for conspiring with the United States to overthrow the government. As evidence, they produced a video of a talk he had given in Australia four years earlier describing US support for democratisation in Cambodia. Under the Cambodian Constitution, parliamentary immunity is void if a member is caught committing a crime in flagrante delicto, or in the act, and the prosecutors said the video qualified. At the same time, the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen has been cracking down on Cambodia’s English-language press, handing a disputed $6.3 million tax bill to the Cambodia Daily that forced the paper's closure on Monday. The Cambodia Daily’s final headline ('Descent into Outright Dictatorship') summed up the high drama of the weekend’s crackdown.

On 28 August in Melbourne, Lowy Institute Research Director Anthony Bubalo chaired the launch of ‘Globally Connected: Victoria’s Trade Statement’, by Victoria’s Trade Minister Philip Dalidakis.

Canberra has a large community of foreign-policy professionals - public servants, political staffers, diplomats, journalists, academics, students. In our new occasional podcast series ‘Canberra Conversations’, Lowy Institute Senior Fellow Sam Roggeveen will interview Canberra's national-security and foreign-policy leaders about their lives, their influences, and how they do their jobs. In the first episode of Canberra Conversations, Roggeveen speaks with Mike Pezzullo, Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection and the front-runner to head the powerful new Home Affairs Ministry upon its eventual formation.

Donald Trump has now been president of the United States for seven months. He is a very different president from his predecessors. What does this mean for Australia? How should we manage the US alliance in the age of Trump? The Executive Director of the Lowy Institute Michael Fullilove is the author of a new essay on the Trump administration and Australia in Foreign Affairs magazine. On 23 August, Dr Fullilove and Nonresident Fellow Professor James Curran, author of Fighting with America, discussed the first months of the Trump administration and Australia’s response.

On 22 August the Lowy Institute hosted a conversation with two of America’s leading analysts, Kori Schake of the Hoover Institution and Thomas Wright, Director at the Brookings Institution and Lowy Institute Nonresident Fellow, who discussed how the Trump administration will deal with a range of foreign and security challenges. From North Korea’s missile program and the fight against Islamic State in the Middle East, to Russia’s resurgence and China’s growing assertiveness, this event examined the growing list of global challenges facing the United States and its allies such as Australia. Dr Kori Schake is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. She teaches Thinking About War at Stanford, is a contributing editor at the Atlantic, and also writes for War on the Rocks and Foreign Policy. She has served in various policy roles including at the White House for the National Security Council; at the Department of Defense for the Office of the Secretary and Joint Chiefs of Staff and the State Department for the Policy Planning Staff. During the 2008 presidential election, she was Senior Policy Advisor on the McCain-Palin campaign. In 2016, she edited the book Warriors and Citizens: American Views of Our Military, with the current US Secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis. Thomas Wright is a Nonresident Fellow at the Lowy Institute. He is also a senior fellow in international order and strategy and Director of the Center for the the US.and Europe at the Brookings Institution. Previously, he was Executive Director of Studies at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, a lecturer at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, and senior researcher for the Princeton Project on National Security. Tom's book All Measures Short of War: The Contest for the 21st Century and the Future of American Power was published by Yale University Press in May 2017.

On June 30 2017, the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands came to an end, marking the conclusion of the longest Australian-led intervention mission in our history. RAMSI was a response to a tumultuous period in Solomon Islands history known locally as ‘The Tensions’. Since 2003, thousands of police, military and civilian personnel from 15 member countries of the Pacific Islands Forum have taken part in RAMSI to help restore law and order and strengthen Solomon Islands institutions. How successful has this intervention been and how has it left Solomon Islands? What challenges does Solomon Islands continue to face and what plans does the current government have to address those challenges? On 14 July the Lowy Institute hosted a conversation with Prime Minister Hon Manasseh Sogavare and former RAMSI Special Coordinator James Batley about the lessons learnt from RAMSI, and what’s next for one of Australia’s closest neighbours, Solomon Islands.