The Lowy Institute

To mark the 70th anniversary of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, ASIS Director-General Paul Symon addressed the Lowy Institute on the past, present and future of foreign espionage from an Australian perspective. After the speech, Mr Symon spoke in conversation with Dr Michael Fullilove, Executive Director of the Lowy Institute.Paul Symon’s military career spanned 35 years and culminated in the rank of Major General. He served as the Deputy Chief of the Australian Army from late 2008 until 2011, and from 2011–14 was Director of the Defence Intelligence Organisation. In mid-2015, Paul left the military and joined the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. He was appointed Director-General of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service on 18 December 2017.https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/foreign-espionage-australian-perspectiveSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is a special Women in Politics series for the Australia-PNG Network, in which the Lowy Institute's Jessica Collins sits down with prominent women from Papua New Guinea (PNG) to discuss the deep-seated challenge of women’s political representation in the country.In this third episode, Jessica speaks with Damarise Bonga, a female candidate in the upcoming 2022 national election. Damarise shares her experience of running unsuccessfully in a prior election, and talks about the broader challenges for women trying to represent their communities in parliament. She says a fundamental issue lies in how people (both men and women) perceive leadership in PNG, and how this continues to be a significant barrier to balanced representation in the country.“In politics, in PNG it’s quite different … They think that the Parliament is … hausman in Tok Pisin, meaning that it’s a house for man. And that’s kind of bias, you know.”Join Jessica and Damarise as they talk about how women can be more successful in future elections

The Solomon Islands – China security pact has sent shockwaves across the Western world, with analysts from Australia to the United States arguing that the deal represents a fundamental shift in geopolitical dynamics in Australia’s immediate region. But what does the agreement mean for Solomon Islands and the Pacific? What impact will it have on Australia’s interests in Solomon Islands? And what does it signal for the future and stability of the Pacific region? Jonathan Pryke, Director of the Lowy Institute’s Pacific Islands Program, chaired this discussion between three experts on the issue.Dorothy Wickham is a highly experienced media and communications specialist with an in depth understanding of Pacific islands politics, cultures and effective communication practices. Dorothy was a longstanding host of what was RAMSI’s national radio talkback program Talking Truth and Managing Editor of One News Television, founding editor of social media site Melanesia News Network, and coordinator of Cchange – Solomon Is

The May 21 election has been branded by some commentators as a ‘khaki election’, one in which national security and foreign policy issues will be pivotal in deciding the result. The Coalition government has questioned the ability of the Labor Party to manage increasingly tense relations with China, and its commitment to higher defence spending. But do national security issues sway votes in Australia, and in what circumstances? And how do voters see the relative strengths of the two parties on national security? Richard McGregor, the Lowy Institute’s Senior Fellow for East Asia, chaired this discussion between three experts on the issue. Brian Loughnane, Federal Director of the Liberal Party for 13 years from 2003, is one of Australia’s most experienced political campaigners. An adviser to federal and state government ministers, he ran four federal campaigns for the Liberal Party. He is also tied into global networks as Deputy Chairman of the International Democrat Union, an alliance of centre-right political

In this episode of Conversations, Jennifer Hsu talks with Natasha Kassam and Richard McGregor about the results of the Being Chinese in Australia survey report. The second Lowy Institute’s Being Chinese in Australia poll, published in April 2022, finds a diverse range of experiences and perspectives across Chinese-Australian communities on topics such as political participation, security and foreign policy and Australia-China relations. How has the deterioration in bilateral ties affected Chinese-Australians, and is the relationship shaping Australia’s federal election campaign narratives? What might Chinese-Australians expect post-election in terms of Australia’s China policy?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When he became Prime Minister in 2018, Scott Morrison was a foreign policy amateur confronted by unprecedented challenges: an assertive Beijing and a looming rivalry between the two biggest economies in world history, the United States and China. Morrison plunged into foreign and security policy by making highly contentious changes that will be felt for decades, not least the historic decision to build nuclear-powered submarines. Now his vision for Australia’s place in the world is about to be judged by the Australian electorate, and compared to that of Labor’s Anthony Albanese.On Tuesday 26 April 2022, the Institute hosted the Melbourne launch of the new Lowy Institute Paper Morrison's Mission by eminent journalist and political commentator, Paul Kelly. Managing Editor of the Lowy Institute’s international magazine, The Interpreter, Daniel Flitton, chaired the conversation, which included questions from the audience.Paul Kelly is Editor-at-Large for The Australian. He has covered Australian governments from

In this special Women in Politics series for the Australia-PNG Network, the Lowy Institute's Jessica Collins sits down with prominent women from Papua New Guinea to discuss the deep-seated challenge of women’s political representation in Papua New Guinea in the lead-up to its national election.In this second episode of the series, Jessica speaks with Vagi Hemetsberger, co-founder of the Seven Sisters Foundation, which aims to provide long-term support to women seeking office in Papua New Guinea. They discuss what help Papua New Guinean women need to get elected, and how issues such as money politics and security put them at a significant disadvantage. Vagi argues that partnering is vital if women are to improve their political representation in Papua New Guinea. “We want our men and women to … be a part of the solution”, but, she adds, women’s civil groups and policymakers also need to work strategically and collaboratively, “because we’re stronger together”.Join Jessica and Vagi as they take you through thes

In this episode of Lowy Institute Conversations, journalist and biographer Troy Bramston speaks to Lowy Institute Director of Research Hervé Lemahieu about the foreign policy of Bob Hawke. In 1983, Australia elected a government quite unlike any it had seen before led by the charismatic former union leader Bob Hawke. In office, Hawke formed close personal relationships with some unlikely international partners – the US Republican President Ronald Reagan, the UK Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and the Soviet Union’s Mikhail Gorbachev, among others. Along the way, Hawke's government tackled international trade reform, oversaw an overhaul in relations with China and led the way in regional institution building. Does Hawke’s foreign policy legacy still have relevance for Australia today? Or is it a foreign policy tradition from a bygone era?Troy Bramston is a senior writer and columnist with The Australian newspaper, for which he has written since 2011. He was previously a columnist with the Sunday

In April 2022, the Lowy Institute launched a new opinion poll on Indonesian attitudes to the world and foreign policy. The poll offers unique and fascinating insights into how the citizens of one of Asia’s most important rising nations perceive their neighbours, US-China competition, the major threats facing Indonesia, and Indonesia’s position in this increasingly contested world. It has been a decade since the Institute last surveyed Indonesian public opinion. To discuss the poll and its findings, the Institute hosted an online panel event which was chaired by Natasha Kassam, Director of the Institute’s Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Program, alongside Ben Bland, Director of the Institute’s Southeast Asia Program, Dr Evan Laksmana, a Senior Research Fellow with the Centre on Asia and Globalisation at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore and Dr Lina A. Alexandra, Head of the Department of International Relations at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta.View the pol

In this special Women in Politics series for the Australia-PNG Network, the Lowy Institute's Jessica Collins sits down with prominent women from Papua New Guinea discuss the deep-seated challenge of women’s political representation in Papua New Guinea in the lead-up to its national election. In this first episode, Jessica speaks with Theresa Meki – an expert in Papua New Guinean women’s political representation – about the experience for women trying to enter politics in the country, where no women are currently serving in the national parliament. They discuss the realities and challenges of campaigning, including how vote-buying and clientelism, traditional obligations, reciprocity, patriarchalism and legacy candidates contribute to the uneven playing field for female candidates. Theresa tells Jessica there have been years wasted in between elections to work on the problem. “We only talk about women when it's election time … And I think that's the issue. There was a whole five years that more things could ha

Ben Scott discusses the war in Ukraine and international law with Professor Fleur Johns and Dr Eve Massingham. They talk about the laws of war, economic sanctions, cyber operations, neutrality, international humanitarian law, and war crimes. Professor Fleur Johns is Professor in the Faculty of Law and Justice at the University of New South Wales in Sydney and Visiting Professor at the University of Gothenburg Sweden. She is the author of four books and her fifth, #Help: The Digital Transformation of Humanitarianism and the Remaking of Global Order, will be published this year by Oxford University Press.​​​​​​​Dr Eve Massingham is a Senior Research Fellow with the School of Law at The University of Queensland where she focuses on how the law constrains and enables autonomous functions of military platforms, systems and weapons. She has also worked for the International Red Cross and served as an Australian Army Reserve Officer. Dr Massingham is the co-editor of Ensuring Respect for International Humanitarian L

The United Nations’ declaration of the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022-2032) raises a critical issue: Indigenous languages are in an endangered state. The UN’s declaration is hoped to spur preservation and promotion of them and curb the tide of extinction.Papua New Guinea holds more Indigenous languages than anywhere else in the world. Current estimates of its living languages are between 830 to over 850, but that number is in steady decline as Papua New Guinea’s communities become more mobile and interconnected. Yet, while extinction to local languages remains a severe problem in Papua New Guinea, in 2020, a new language was added to its list – and there’s potential for more.Jessica Collins, the Lowy Institute’s Research Fellow for the Aus-PNG Network and Pacific Islands Program, talks with four experts about language, diversity, and cultural identity in Papua New Guinea. The panel includes Dr Kilala Devette-Chee, Senior Research Fellow and Program Leader of the Education Research Program

Australians will go to a federal election in a few months’ time. A fraught international environment is challenging the old rule that Australians do not vote on foreign policy questions. How will global issues — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s icy relations with Australia, climate change, the pandemic, and headwinds in the global economic recovery — influence the course of the election campaign? On Tuesday 22 March 2022, the Lowy Institute hosted a discussion event in Canberra to examine foreign policy and national security in this election year. The panel was chaired by Director of Research, Hervé Lemahieu and featured Senior Fellow for East Asia Richard McGregor, Director of the International Security Program Sam Roggeveen and Director of the Power and Diplomacy Program Susannah Patton. Recorded Tuesday 22 March 2022 at the National Press Club, Canberra.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Australians will go to a federal election in a few months’ time. A fraught international environment is challenging the old rule that Australians do not vote on foreign policy questions. How will global issues — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s icy relations with Australia, climate change, the pandemic, and headwinds in the global economic recovery — influence the course of the election campaign? On Monday 21 March 2022, the Lowy Institute hosted this discussion event to examine foreign policy and national security in this election year. The panel was chaired by Director of Research, Hervé Lemahieu and featured Senior Fellow for East Asia Richard McGregor, West Asia Program Research Fellow Lydia Khalil, the Director of the Australia's Security and the Rules-Based Order project Ben Scott, and the Director of La Trobe Asia Bec Strating.Recorded Monday 21 March 2022 at State Library Victoria.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of Lowy Institute Conversations, former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans speaks to Executive Director Michael Fullilove about his new book Good International Citizenship: The case for decency. He argues that being, and being seen to be, a good international citizen is in a country's national interest. He sets out four benchmarks by which a country's performance can be judged: its foreign aid generosity, its response to human rights violations, its reaction to violence and mass atrocities, and its contribution to dealing with complex global issues such as nuclear proliferation and climate change. The Hon Gareth Evans AC QC was a Cabinet minister throughout the Hawke–Keating governments and served as foreign minister from 1988 to 1996. He was president of the International Crisis Group from 2000 to 2009, and Chancellor of the Australian National University from 2010 to 2019. He was co-chair of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty and the Australia–Japan Int

Whether Australia leases, buys or builds nuclear-fuelled submarines as part of the AUKUS pact with the United Kingdom and the United States, it will be the first non-nuclear state to do so. How nuclear non-proliferation issues are addressed by these three countries is not the sole test of AUKUS, but it will form an important part of managing its future trajectory and global reception. On 14 March 2022, the Lowy Institute hosted Dr Alan J. Kuperman, Associate Professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs in Texas for a discussion with Hervé Lemahieu, Director of Research. They discussed the implications of AUKUS for the nuclear non-proliferation regime and how the current negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna aim to mitigate any proliferation risks stemming from AUKUS.Dr Alan J. Kuperman is Associate Professor of Public Affairs and founding coordinator of the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. He wa

On 10 March 2022, Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese addressed the Lowy Institute on how a Labor government would deliver national security in a complex world.Mr Albanese’s speech was followed by a Q&A session chaired by Dr Michael Fullilove AM, Executive Director of the Lowy Institute.The Hon Anthony Albanese MP is the Leader of the Opposition. He previously served as Deputy Prime Minister; Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government; Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy; and Leader of the House. He has represented the electorate of Grayndler in the federal Parliament since 1996.See more about this event including a transcript: https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/address-opposition-leader-anthony-albaneseSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From the brutal invasion to the imposition of crippling economic sanctions – where are we now? What are Putin’s goals? How is Europe responding? What should we read into China’s reaction, and what are the implications for the Indo-Pacific? Natasha Kassam, Director of the Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Program at the Lowy Institute, hosted this conversation on International Women’s Day with Dr Olga Oleinikova, Zoya Sheftalovich and Dr Maria Repnikova. Dr Olga Oleinikova is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Communication at the University of Technology Sydney. Zoya Sheftalovich is a contributing editor at Politico and editor of Politico’s Brussels and London Playbooks. Dr Maria Repnikova is an Assistant Professor in Global Communication at Georgia State University and a Wilson Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center.Broadcast 8 March 2022https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/war-ukraineSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Monday 7 March 2022, Prime Minister Scott Morrison addressed the Lowy Institute on the situation in Ukraine, the implications for the Indo-Pacific, and Australia's response. After the speech, Mr Morrison spoke in conversation with the Institute’s Executive Director Michael Fullilove. The Hon Scott Morrison MP is the 30th Prime Minister of Australia. He previously served as Treasurer, Minister for Social Services and Minister for Border Protection. He was first elected to Parliament as the Federal Member for Cook in 2007.See more about this event at https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/address-prime-minister-scott-morrisonSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine continues to surprise Western analysts, many of whom thought President Vladimir Putin’s incendiary rhetoric and troop build-up along Ukraine’s border were a bluff. In recent days the surprises have kept coming – despite Russia’s encirclement of Kyiv, its air and ground forces appear to have been far less successful than expected. Likewise, Russia’s much-feared skills in information operations have been no match for Ukraine’s deft control of the propaganda narrative. In turn, this has helped harden Western resolve against Russia and inspired Sweden and Finland to pursue NATO membership. What is Putin’s endgame and how serious is his threat of nuclear escalation? In this episode of Rules Based Audio, Sasha Fegan speaks to Major General Mick Ryan about Russia’s military strategy in Ukraine, and his new book War Transformed: The Future of Twenty-First-Century Great Power Competition and Conflict.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.