Sworn in as prime minister in the week of the Wall Street Crash, in October 1929, James Scullin was bewildered and politically devoured by the economic and sociopolitical turmoil of the Great Depression. Scullin was Australia’s first Prime Minister of Catholic faith, which profoundly influenced him, though he saw secular and religious principles as compatible rather than [...]
In 2024, The Sydney Institute’s Annual Dinner Lecture was given by The Hon Michelle Rowland MP, Minister for Communications in the Albanese Labor Government. Her lecture captured thinking around the continuing regulation of digital platforms, especially with regard to minors. Her speech was a comprehensive overview of what citizens have come to regard as vital [...]
As Australians prepared to go to the polls in 2025, the chances of minority government after the federal election seemed real according to the polls. The increasing number of independents in the parliament also suggested the outcome would be unpredictable. The Hon Paul Fletcher, a former minister in the Turnbull and Morrison governments and Member [...]
Shirley Hazzard and Elizabeth Harrower are two giants of Australian and international literature who were brought together by Shirley Hazzard’s mother who became Elizabeth Harrower’s friend. In a long and complicated correspondence over 40 years, the world they knew and wrote about comes to life, no longer the substance of their numerous novels but from [...]
Matthew Levitt is the Fromer-Wexler Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute and director of its Jeanette and Eli Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence. From 2005 to early 2007, he served as deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. In that capacity, he served both as a senior [...]
August 2024 marked 80 years since Robert Menzies brought together the dysfunctional groups of non Labor political associations and the remnants of the United Australia Party to found a new party to be called The Liberal Party of Australia. Over two conferences in Canberra and Albury at the end of 1944, the Party took roots [...]
Allegra Spender was elected as a teal MP representing the electorate of Wentworth in Sydney at the 2022 federal election. Her election ended a long history of the seat being a blue ribbon Liberal constituency. As Ms Spender explained in an address to The Sydney Institute on Tuesday 29 October 2024, her election was part [...]
In 2025, the Robert Menzies Institute published the third volume in its Menzies series – titled The Menzies Ascendency - Fortune, Stability, Progress 1954–1961. The Sydney launch took place at The Sydney Institute on Monday 3 February. The book was launched by former High Court judge The Hon Michael Kirby and The Australian’s Paul Kelly. [...]
Australia prides itself on its multicultural and socially cohesive nature. But in the months following the October 7 massacres in Israel, intolerance, even hatred, has seen a disturbing level of social division, especially in attacks both verbally and physically on Australian Jews. Julian Leeser, the Liberal member for Berowra in Sydney has long been a [...]
Shirley Hazzard and Elizabeth Harrower are two giants of Australian and international literature who were brought together by Shirley Hazzard’s mother who became Elizabeth Harrower’s friend. In a long and complicated correspondence over 40 years, the world they knew and wrote about comes to life, no longer the substance of their numerous novels but from [...]
