Political Choices Matter
On Monday 17 December 2018, The Hon Mathias Cormann – Australia’s Finance minister – addressed The Sydney Institute. It was the day the Morrison Government had released its Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook report. The report forecast a Budget surplus and predicted a round of tax cuts for wage earners. Mathias Cormann addressed The Sydney…
International Relations
The Hon Scott Morrison, Prime Minister of Australia, addressed The Sydney Institute on Saturday 15 December 2018. His speech was a wide ranging and comprehensive review of the government’s approach to foreign relations especially towards the Middle East. In the prime minister’s speech, he also argued the case for recognition of West Jerusalem as the…
Growth: Why it Matters
Grant King is President of the Business Council of Australia. In an address to The Sydney Institute on Monday 10 December 2018. Grant King outlined why good economic growth equals jobs and opportunity, and a healthy economy. In doing this, Grant King also explained the critical importance of economic growth in meeting community expectations and…
James Packer and His World
The Packer family – Sir Frank Packer, Kerry Packer and James Packer – has dominated Australia’s media and gaming world for decades. In 2019, James Packer opened up about life with his family. Damon Kitney was given exclusive access by James to tell the story. Damon Kitney is the author of The Price of Fortune, The…
Enid Lyons: Her Life and Times
To mark the 75th anniversary of Dame Enid Lyons’s maiden speech in the House of Representatives in September 1943, the Menzies Research Centre produced an anniversary edition of Anne Henderson’s Enid Lyons – Leading Lady to a Nation (Connor Court Publishers) At The Sydney Institute, on Monday 24 September 2018, Anne Henderson, Deputy Director of…
Ending the Culture Wars
Across the Western world, nations are dividing along sharply separated lines around identity and individual belief structures. Some columnists write that traditional institutions are under threat as cynicism and disruptive action around campuses and in social media have taken hold. Individuals are attacked for what till now have been accepted community values as issues such as gay marriage, transgender identity, Donald…
The Art of Counter-Terrorism
Professor Boaz Ganor is Dean & Ronald Lauder Chair for Counter-Terrorism, Lauder School of Government; Founder & Executive Director, International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Israel. On a visit to Australia in, Boaz Ganor addressed The Sydney Institute on Monday 29 October 2018 and gave a comprehensive analysis of the complexities of terrorist activity and the work…
Why I Am No Longer A Feminist
Bettina Arndt trained as a clinical psychologist before becoming well known as one of Australia’s first sex therapists. She is also a commentator and author, most recently of #MenToo. Bettina Arndt argues that most women are fed up with trivial issues being blown up as sexism. In Australia, as elsewhere, people are turning away from mainstream…
Australia’s Part in Man’s First Walk on The Moon
Many still remain unaware of the significant role played by Honeysuckle Creek, near Canberra, in the telecast of man’s first steps on the moon. The NSW town of Parkes has received most attention because its dish beamed remaining images of Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk to the world, or greater part of it. But it was Honeysuckle…
John Russell: And the Importance of the Australian Arts Documentary
He grew up in Sydney’s Darlinghurst, but Australian John Russell was to become one of the most influential impressionist painters in 19th-century France. He was friends with Rodin, painted with Monet, mentored Matisse and studied with Toulouse Lautrec and Vincent van Gogh, who also became a close friend. Catherine Hunter has had a long career covering…
Villers-Bretonneux: What Really Happened
In March 1918, the Germans launched an immense offensive that led to Britain’s gravest crisis of WWI. There was widespread concern — under-recognised today — that after years of terrible casualties and hardships the war might be lost. Australia’s soldiers, rushed to the rescue in this climax of the conflict, were influencing the destiny of…
Enid Lyons – Her Life and Times
To mark the 75th anniversary of Dame Enid Lyons’s maiden speech in the House of Representatives in September 1943, the Menzies Research Centre produced an anniversary edition of Anne Henderson’s Enid Lyons – Leading Lady to a Nation (Connor Court Publishers) At The Sydney Institute, on Monday 24 September 2018, Anne Henderson, Deputy Director of…
The Snowy Hydro Legacy Fund
The Hon John Barilaro is the NSW Deputy Premier, Minister for Regional New South Wales, Minister for Skills and Minister for Small Business. He is also the leader of the Nationals in NSW. In March 2018, the NSW government sold its 58 per cent shareholding of the Snowy Hydro Scheme to the federal government for…
Australian Federal Politics on the Eve of The Wentworth By-Election
In August 2018, the Westminster system of government took its toll, yet again, of an Australian prime minister. And, after three weeks of parliamentary power play, former PM Malcolm Turnbull resigned his seat of Wentworth bringing on a much-contested by-election. Amid accusations of a “women problem”, the pre-selection for the Liberal candidate in Wentworth instead…
Twentieth Century Communism – What Millennials Need to Know
The evil of totalitarian Nazism is a living memory, due in particular to the establishment of Holocaust museums. However, memory of totalitarian communism – in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, China, Cambodia, Vietnam and North Korea – is fading in the West. That’s why James Bartholomew, UK author and leader writer, The Daily Telegraph, wants…
Fighting Back to Preserve our Freedom
The Hon Dominic Perrottet MP has been the New South Wales Treasurer and the Minister for Industrial Relations since January 2017 in the Berejiklian Government. Perrottet was also elected as the Deputy Leader of the New South Wales Liberal Party in January 2017. For centuries, classical liberal freedoms – of speech, assembly and faith – have…
Rusted Off: Navigating the Gulf between Parliament and Rural Australia
Gabrielle Chan is a journalist who became a farmer. In her new book Rusted Off, she looks to her own rural community’s main street for answers to the big questions driving voters. Why are we so fed up with politics? Why are formerly rusted-on country voters deserting major parties in greater numbers than their city cousins?…
The Internet – Not an Ungoverned Space
The internet is arguably the greatest technological development in human history, enabling people and business to connect and engage in ways never thought possible. But it has also produced its own challenges and threats, as well as providing new ways of undertaking nefarious activities. Senator The Hon Mitch Fifield is the Minister for the Arts…
Australian Federal Politics on the Eve of The Wentworth By-Election
In August 2018, the Westminster system of government took its toll, yet again, of an Australian prime minister. And, after three weeks of parliamentary power play, former PM Malcolm Turnbull resigned his seat of Wentworth bringing on a much-contested by-election. Amid accusations of a “women problem”, the pre-selection for the Liberal candidate in Wentworth instead…
Rotten Luck and Self-Inflicted Wounds – How the U.S. Pollsters Failed in the 2016 Presidential Election and Why a Similar Result is Unlikely in Australia
Martin O’Shannessy is a partner at OmniPoll and a former CEO of Newspoll with a 100 per cent record of calling state and federal election outcomes. Polling is now part of so many aspects of our daily lives – from product pushing to poll pushing. The art of the pollster is complex and many factors…
Australia, the Soviet Union & the Cold War – and Russia Today
Professor Paul Dibb works at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the ANU, is a former defence intelligence official and is the author of (most recently) Inside the Wilderness of Mirrors: Australia and the Threat from the Soviet Union in the Cold War and Russia Today [MUP, 2018]) Throughout the Cold War, Paul Dibb worked with…
