Speeches

From global leaders and Lowy experts

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New media and world politics

Sam Roggeveen, editor of the Lowy Institute's influential political commentary site, The Interpreter, www.lowyinterpreter.org, spoke in Melbourne on 4 November on new media and world politics.As a participant in the global online conversation, he offered his perspectives on how new media is changing

By Sam Roggeveen

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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy: Comprehending Copenhagen - Dr Greg Picker and Fergus Green presentations

At the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 25 November a new Lowy Institute Analysis, 'Comprehending Copenhagen: A Guide to the International Climate Change Negotiations', by Dr Greg Picker and Fergus Green, was launched. The authors outlined the issues on the Copenhagen agenda – from carbon markets to

By Fergus Green, Greg Picker

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2009 Lowy Lecture: Australia resources in the world

The 2009 Lowy Lecture on Australia in the World was delivered on 18 November by Mr Marius Kloppers, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of BHP Billiton Ltd

By Marius Kloppers

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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy: China strategic culture - Thomas Mahnken presentation

China’s rise is transforming the Asia-Pacific strategic landscape, and understanding how 'China' thinks preoccupies governments across the region. At the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 18 November, Thomas Mahnken explored features of China’s national strategic culture, including a sense of cultural

By Thomas G. Mahnken

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Abolishing all nuclear weapons

The Right Hon. Malcolm Fraser, AC CH, Former Prime Minister of Australia, delivered the 2009 Dr John Gee Memorial Lecture presented by the ANU Strategic and Defence Studies Centre and the Lowy Institute for International Policy.Mr Fraser addressed the current state of nuclear weapons acquisition and

By Malcolm Fraser

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Regional security and middle power diplomacy

The Honourable Dr Mike Kelly, AM MP, delivered the second Annual Dr John Gee Memorial Lecture, presented by the Lowy Institute for International Policy and The Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, ANU.Dr Kelly addressed the Rudd Government's approach to regional security and middle power diplomacy

By Mike Kelly

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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy: Stemming the 'evil flowers' - Brigadier Phil Winter presentation

In Afghanistan, Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) are now the number one killer of coalition forces, and the 2009 campaigning season is seeing a record number of IED attacks. At this week's Wednesday Lowy Lunch, the Commander of Australia’s Counter-IED Task Force, Brigadier Phil Winter,

By Phil Winter

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Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall

Monday, 9 November, 2009 was the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. To mark this anniversary, the Lowy Institute engaged three prominent commentators on the significance of the end of the Cold War. Lowy Institute Executive Director, Michael Wesley, moderated a conversation between

By Owen Harries, Huw McKay, Michael Wesley, Claire Mallinson

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Distinguished Speaker Series - The Hon. Kevin Rudd MP

On Friday, 6 November 2009, the Honourable Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister of Australia, spoke at the Lowy Institute for International Policy on 'Australia, the region and the world: the challenges ahead'. A transcript of the Prime Minister's speech is available for download

By Kevin Rudd

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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy: When boring became sexy - Kevin Lynch presentation

At the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 4 November, the Honourable Kevin Lynch, the former Clerk of the Privy Council, Canada, addressed the significant role that public policy plays in responding to the global financial crisis, the most fundamental challenge to free-market orthodoxy since the 1970s, and

By Kevin G. Lynch

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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy: The March of Patriots - Paul Kelly presentation

This week’s Wednesday Lowy Lunch focused on the foreign policy dimensions of Paul Kelly’s new book, 'The March of Patriots: The struggle for modern Australia'. Divided by temperament, politics and values, Paul Keating and John Howard had passionate views about Australia’s role in the world

By Paul Kelly

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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy - Mark Thirlwell presentation

Next month will mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. This also makes it the 20th anniversary of the birth of the new global economy. At the Wednesday Lunch on 21 October, Mark Thirlwell, Director of the Institute’s international economy program, looked at some of the forces

By Mark Thirlwell

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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy: Australia bid for election to the UN Security Council - Amb. Colin Keating presentation

At the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 7 October 2009, Ambassador Colin Keating, who was New Zealand Ambassador on the Security Council in 1993/94, and now the Executive Director of Security Council Report, gave an insider’s view of what it takes to get elected and what being on the Council could

By Colin Keating

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Lowy Institute Panel: Can Obama disarmament agenda work?

On 29 September, the Lowy Institute convened an expert panel to examine the implications of President Obama's push to reduce nuclear dangers, as well as to debate broader questions about nuclear disarmament. Moderated by Executive Director Dr Michael Wesley, the panel also included Deputy Director

By Lowy Institute for International Policy, Martine Letts, Rory Medcalf, Michael Wesley,

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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy: Preparing for the second nuclear age - Martine Letts presentation

At the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 30 September, Deputy Director Martine Letts explored prospects for partnership between government and industry on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, and how Australia could lead

By Martine Letts

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Distinguished Speaker Series: H.E. Prof. László Sólyom presentation

On 28 September 2009, as part of the Institute's Distinguished Speaker Series, the Lowy Institute was pleased to host H.E. Prof. László Sólyom, the President of the Republic of Hungary, who discussed how the experiment in Central and Eastern Europe started twenty years ago offers parallels and

By László Sólyom

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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy: Australia’s UN Security Council bid - Dr Michael Fullilove presentation

At the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 23 September Dr Michael Fullilove launched his new paper making the case for Australia’s UN Security Council bid

By Michael Fullilove

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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy - William Paterson presentation

At the Wednesday Lowy Lunch on 16 September, Australia’s Ambassador for Counter-Terrorism, William Paterson PSM, provided an overview of the terrorist threat in Southeast Asia against the background of terrorism trends worldwide

By William Paterson

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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy: The need for a global response to gender-based violence - Ms Lyn Lusi presentation

At the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 9 September, Ms Lyn Lusi spoke about her experiences in the Democratic Republic of Congo, what we must learn from its tragic predicament and how the international community needs take responsibility for tackling the problem of gender-based violence as a tool of war

By Lyn Lusi

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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy - Professor Warwick McKibbin presentation

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process has focused on commitments of developed countries with an exclusive goal of emission reductions from historical base year emissions. However, these baseline emissions trend vary widely, and achieving similar targets can

By Warwick McKibbin

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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy: TV and war - Tony Maniaty presentation

Difficult and dangerous work, covering wars with TV cameras has become a core component of modern conflict - so much so that a 'military-media' nexus has arisen alongside what US President Eisenhower famously termed the 'military-industrial complex'. From Vietnam to Iraq and beyond, televised

By Tony Maniaty

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The Pacific Islands and the World Conference

The countries of the Pacific region, once remote from the global centres of economic power, are now in the most dynamic economic region in the world. But are they using this position to their own advantage? Are they taking the right approach to realise their potential? These were the key questions

By Jenny Hayward-Jones

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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy: China perverse rising superpower - Rowan Callick presentation

Westerners have presumed that China's rise will take a familiar trajectory incorporating first economic, then political and social development in a broadly liberal democratic, market-driven direction. The recent tensions with Australia underline the failure of that perspective to explain modern

By Rowan Callick

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Conference papers

The following papers presented at the Lowy Institute conference, The Pacific Islands and the World: The Global Economic Crisis, are available here.Jim Adams, The Global Financial Crisis and the Pacific paradox.Ann Sherry AO, Partnerships for prosperity.Dr Jong-Wha Lee, Impacts of the Global Economic

By Lowy Institute for International Policy

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The Pacific Islands and the World Conference

The Lowy Institute's conference, The Pacific Islands and the World: The Global Economic Crisis, held in Brisbane on 2 and 3 August, created an opportunity for Pacific Island leaders, minsters, officials from international and regional organisations, private sector and civil society representatives

By Lowy Institute for International Policy

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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy: Thinking blue - Dr Sylvia Earle presentation

Governing climate and weather, shaping planetary chemistry, generating most of the atmospheric oxygen, the ocean is vital to all life. In the past 50 years, more has been learned about the ocean than during all preceding history, but at the same time, more has been lost. Sharp declines in

By Sylvia Earle

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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy: Research universities and Australia - Professor Ian Chubb presentation

The Rudd Government has announced major reforms to our university system in order to ensure that Australia can meet challenges of the next century. At the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 29th July, Professor Ian Chubb argued that it is imperative for Australia that we lift our sights and rebuild our

By Ian Chubb

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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy: China: Stumbling through the Pacific - Fergus Hanson presentation

At the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 22 July a Lowy Institute Policy Brief by Fergus Hanson, 'China: Stumbling through the Pacific', was launched. The Policy brief examines the shortcomings of China's current approach to aid-giving in the Pacific region.Fergus Hanson is a Research Fellow at the Lowy

By Fergus Hanson

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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy: The global war on drugs - Dr Alex Wodak presentation

When Nixon launched the War on Drugs in 1971, it was intended primarily as a political strategy rather than as a public policy. While it has failed as a public policy, the War on Drugs has often succeeded as a political strategy. However, significant health, social or economic benefits are hard to

By Alex Wodak

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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy: The GFC and international migration - Dr Khalid Koser presentation

The global financial crisis is having a significant impact on international migration: for the first time in 25 years there has been a reduction in labour migration flows around the world; growing numbers of migrant workers are losing their jobs and returning home; the global value of remittances

By Khalid Koser

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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy: Australia international future - Dr Michael Wesley presentation

At the Wednesday Lowy lunch on 1 July, Dr Michael Wesley, the new Executive Director of the Lowy Institute, talked about the challenges ahead for Australia and the Lowy Institute. The world after the Global Financial Crisis will be a world which asks some very searching questions of Australia's

By Michael Wesley

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Distinguished Speaker Series: Australasian Anxieties - Graham Freudenberg presentation

On Tuesday 30 June the Lowy Institute was pleased to host a lecture in its Distinguished Speaker Series by the author and political adviser Graham Freudenberg AM. The title of the lecture was: 'Australasian Anxieties: How Winston Churchill shaped Australia's relations with Britain, Japan and the

By Graham Freudenberg

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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy: Wicked weapons - Rory Medcalf presentation

At the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 24 June, Rory Medcalf, Program Director International Security, drew upon recent consultations in the region to warn that efforts to reduce global nuclear dangers will founder if they do not account for the rising strategic concerns of North Asian powers, especially

By Rory Medcalf

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The Lowy Institute MacArthur Foundation Asia Security Project

On the 28-29 May, a team from the Lowy Institute attended the inaugural grantees meeting of the MacArthur Foundation Asia Security Initiative in Singapore. The team, led by Director of Studies Andrew Shearer, participated in a workshop alongside 26 partner institutions from the Asia-Pacific, which

By Andrew Shearer, Raoul Heinrichs

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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy: Going global: Australia-Japan relations - Andrew Shearer and Malcolm Cook presentations

At the Wednesday Lowy Lunch on 16 June, Malcolm Cook and Andrew Shearer discussed how the Australia-Japan relationship can help both countries respond to the emerging new order in international relations. This order is characterised by changing global power balances, the move towards a more multi-

By Malcolm Cook, Andrew Shearer

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Distinguished Speaker Series - Ambassador de Brichambaut presentation

On 16 June, as part of the Lowy Institute's Distinguished Speaker Series, the Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Co-operation (OSCE) in Europe, Ambassador Marc Perrin de Brichambaut, spoke on the relevance of this body to the Asia-Pacific and what it offers to partners in this

By Marc Perrin de Brichambaut

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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy: How will global trade fare post GFC? - Professor Robert Lawrence presentation

At the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 10 June, Professor Robert Lawrence of Harvard University spoke on the global financial crisis and international trade.At precisely the time when coordinated global action is required to meet the GFC, there are worrying signs in the US and other leading economies of

By Robert Lawrence

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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy - Anthony Bubalo presentation

At the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 3 June 2009, Anthony Bubalo, Director of the West Asia Program at the Lowy Institute, previewed Iran's presidential election on 12 June. He discussed what it will mean for Iran's foreign relations and in particular for the Obama Administration's efforts to engage

By Anthony Bubalo

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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy: Innocent Abroad - Ambassador Martin Indyk presentation

On 27 May, the Lowy Institute was pleased to host, as part of its Wednesday Lowy Lunch series, Martin Indyk, who spoke on his new book 'Innocent Abroad: an Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East'.Ambassador Indyk has a distinguished career in United States foreign policy and

By Martin S. Indyk

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Distinguished Speaker Series - Dr David McCormick presentation

On 26 May, 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

By David McCormick

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Distinguished Speaker Series - Robert McClelland presentation

The Lowy Institute was pleased to host, as part of its Distinguished Speaker Series, the Commonwealth Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, who in his presentation, 'Human rights: a moral compass', outlined the Government's approach to human rights and upcoming reforms aimed at strengthening

By Robert McClelland

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Distinguished Speaker Series: 2009 Defence White Paper - Professor Alan Dupont presentation

Is the Rudd Government’s new Defence White Paper more of the same or a significant departure from the previous strategic orthodoxy? More importantly, is it affordable, and will future governments commit to the level of spending necessary to ensure that the White Paper’s ambitious goals for the

By Alan Dupont

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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy - Florian Westphal presentation

On 20 May 2009 at the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy, Florian Westphal, the head of media at the International Committee of the Red Cross, in a presentation entitled 'Dealing with war crimes: what role for media and humanitarian organisations?' addressed the question of how the media and humanitarian

By Florian Westphal

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The role of the civil nuclear industry in preventing proliferation

Lowy Institute Deputy Director Martine Letts and Research Associate Fiona Cunningham prepared a paper for the Second Meeting of the International Commission on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament in Washington, DC, 13-15 February 2009, entitled 'The role of the civil nuclear industry in

By Martine Letts, Fiona Cunningham

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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy: Smart Power - Michael Smith AO presentation

In the Wednesday Lunch at Lowy on 13 May, Michael G. Smith AO, Executive Director of the Asia Pacific Civil-Military Centre of Excellence, joined us to discuss the way ahead for the Centre, which was set up in 2008 by the Rudd Government to develop 'national civil-military capabilities to prevent,

By Michael G. Smith

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India security challenges: Pakistan, Afghanistan and the neighbourhood

In the 2009 Australia-India Strategic Lecture, delivered at the Lowy Institute on 11 May, Ambassador Chinmaya Gharekhan examined India’s dangerous neighbourhood, and in particular the deep security challenges posed by the situations in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He presented a sobering picture of

By Chinmaya Gharekhan

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Power balances in Asia: The Coalition perspective

On Friday 1 May 2009, in his first major foreign policy speech as Opposition Leader and first address to the Lowy Institute, Malcolm Turnbull discussed the challenges and priorities in managing sensibly Australia's vital relationships across the region

By Malcolm Turnbull

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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy: Obama First Hundred Days - Dr Michael Fullilove presentation

Ever since the days of Franklin Roosevelt, a new president’s first hundred days in office have come to be seen as the first important measure of his performance. Next week marks the end of Barack Obama’s first hundred days as president. How impressively has he performed compared to expectations

By Michael Fullilove

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Wednesday Lunch at Lowy:Evolution of the Indonesian party system - Dr Marcus Mietzner presentation

The most significant and positive change in Southeast Asia in the last decade has been the democratisation of Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country. Thirteen days ago, Indonesia held national parliamentary elections and it appears that the biggest winners are President Susilo Bambang

By Marcus Mietzner

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Australia contribution to a global agreement on climate change

On Monday 20 April 2009, the Lowy Institute was pleased to host Senator the Hon. Penny Wong, Minister for Climate Change and Water, who addressed the Institute on the subject of Australia's contribution to a global agreement on climate change

By Penny Wong

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