Speeches

Climate change is real and a significant challenge facing humanity. In this event in the Lowy Institute’s Distinguished Speaker Series, Bjørn Lomborg and Michael Green, two world-leading experts on the subject of climate change, addressed the need for innovative solutions to achieve significant

The recent turmoil in Tunisia and Egypt underlines that something fundamental is shifting in the Middle East, with profound implications for both the region and the wider world. At the Wednesday Lowy Lunch on 16 February, Anthony Bubalo explored how far such uprisings are likely to spread in the

On 8 February, Mr Pierre Krähenbühl, Director of Operations of the International Committee of the Red Cross (the ICRC) addressed the Lowy Institute on the subject of how recent trends in integrated missions, the militarisation of aid and increasingly complex coordination challenges are impacting

On 2 February, the second half of the Wednesday Lunch series was launched with a discussion by three Lowy Institute scholars, Rory Medcalf, Annmaree O'Keeffe and Sam Roggeveen, on how Australia should be preparing for some of the big global and regional policy challenges in the second decade of the

On Wednesday 19 January 2011, as part of our Distinguished Speaker Series, The Rt Hon William Hague MP, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs of the United Kingdom, spoke at the Lowy Institute on opportunities for the Commonwealth in a networked world

On Friday 10 December, the Lowy Institute brought together the Hon Dr Craig Emerson MP, Minister for Trade, and an expert panel including Alex Thursby, the Chief Executive Officer, Asia Pacific, Europe & America, ANZ Banking Group and Anwarul Hoda, the Chair Professor of ICRIER’s Trade Policy and

In March 2011 the National Museum of Australia will celebrate the tenth anniversary of the opening of its building in Canberra. We are well used to the idea that the Museum has a role in explaining national identity. Yet the National Museum - like museums around the world - has to make a place for

Since the start of the millennium, Australia’s trade integration with East Asia has deepened, while the investment relationship has lagged. That may now be changing

On Thursday 18 November, Dr Megan Clark, Chief Executive of CSIRO, delivered the 2010 Lowy Lecture on Australia in the World. In her lecture, 'Science and Australia's place in the world', available here, Dr Clark argued that Australia's science and innovation capability are fundamental to our future

On 25 November, as part of the Institute's Distinguished Speaker Series, Ethan Nadelmann, Director of the US Drug Policy Alliance, argued that the 'war on drugs' has been ineffective, counterproductive and expensive, with dire consequences for national and international stability. He analysed the

On 28 October, two panels convened at AEI to discuss the emergence of the Indian Ocean as a key strategic space. The first panel focused on the potential for economic and political rivalries among regional players. Speakers debated whether the Indian Ocean is part of a larger pan-Asian system, what

In the Food for Thought series in Canberra, Malcolm Cook, Director of the Lowy Institute’s East Asia program, and Hugh White, a Visiting Fellow at the Institute and head of the ANU’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, debated what the Asian strategic order will look like in 20 to 30 years

In the Lowy Institute's latest Strategic Snapshot, Dr Hiroyasu Akutsu explores the strategic dynamics animating the China-Japan maritime relationship, which is becoming dangerously militarised. Against a backdrop of shifting power balances, enhanced military capabilities and lingering territorial

As a follow-up to the Lowy Institute MDG conference held in Sydney in June and the recent UN MDG summit in New York, the Lowy Institute, through The Myer Foundation Melanesia Program, convened a special panel of diverse commentators and experts from government and non-government sectors to tackle

The realm of international affairs has become a 'state of nature' with asymmetrical powers of a kind that Thomas Hobbes would recognise as entirely familiar. What, then, should be the prescription to cure this ill? At the Wednesday Lunch on 29 September, Dr Simon Longstaff, Executive Director of the

Lowy Institute Executive Director Michael Wesley presented the 70th Anniversary Address of Radio Australia on 1 December 2009. The address is available here

Executive Director Michael Wesley presented a speech at the ABC International Conference in Melbourne on 1 December 2009 on issues in Australia's relationships in the Asia-Pacific region.The speech can be read here

Lowy Institute Executive Director Michael Wesley delivered the Perspective Asia Lecture at the Griffith Asia Institute in Brisbane on 29 July 2010. The lecture, entitled 'Australia's place in the world', can be read here

Aviation is one of the world’s more challenging industries. On 22 September, as part of the Lowy Institute's Distinguished Speaker Series, Alan Joyce discussed the Qantas approach to managing short- and long-term risks and seizing commercial opportunities within a complex and rapidly changing

What sort of world will a new Australian government be dealing with, and how is it likely to approach it? Deputy Director Martine Letts, Director of Studies Andrew Shearer, International Security Program Director Rory Medcalf and Myer Foundation Melanesia Program Director Jenny Hayward-Jones briefed

In the Lowy Institute’s latest Asia security ‘Strategic Snapshot’, distinguished American Asia scholar and former senior White House official Dr Michael J. Green examines Asia’s changing power dynamics and asks what grand strategy 19th century geo-strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan, the father

On Friday, 27 August 2010, the Executive Director of UNAIDS, Mr Michel Sidibé, addressed the Lowy Institute for International Policy as part of our Distinguished Speaker Series.In 1996, UNAIDS was established as a specialised agency of the United Nations to give policy guidance and advice on all

On 29 July in Canberra, in the latest in our Food for Thought series, Mark Thirlwell, Director of the Lowy Institute’s International Economy program, looked at our post-GFC world and tried to answer the question, 'Just how much has changed as a result of the global financial crisis

Over the last thirty years, China has emerged as a major political and economic power on the international stage, and the pace of this growth has been astonishing. Though China's presence in the global arena continues to grow rapidly, the most remarkable part of this country's transformation has