Events

The Pacific Islands region has vaulted back to the centre of Australian foreign policy thinking. Prime Minister Morrison has positioned Australia’s “step up” in the region as his signature foreign policy initiative. Other governments have responded with their own “redial”, “pivot”, “uplift”, and “elevation” plans.
 
Much of this reaction is being driven by China’s rise, amid fears that fearing China will try to leverage its influence – be it debt, diplomacy, or trade – to achieve strategic outcomes. Great power competition has returned to the Pacific.

The Lowy Institute’s Sam Roggeveen has written a provocative new book, Our Very Own Brexit, arguing that the political conditions which created Brexit also exist in Australia. But forget what you have read about populism and the rise of right-wing xenophobia. What Australia has in common with Britain and other Western democracies is something we rarely talk about: the steady decline of our big political parties. The ‘hollowed out’ state of contemporary politics could lead one of our political parties to exploit an issue that ties Australia to Asia and which will determine our future security: immigration.

Join us for a conversation between Sam and Lowy Institute Nonresident Fellow Anthony Bubalo to mark the launch of Our Very Own Brexit.

As the United Kingdom faces a divisive but potentially decisive election framed around Brexit, the European Union is contemplating a future without the UK. 
 
If British voters back Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Brexit plan, what sort of future relationship will the EU look to build with the UK? What will be the impact on Ireland and Northern Ireland? And how will Brexit affect Australia's ties with the EU?

The Lowy Institute’s Sam Roggeveen has written a provocative new book, Our Very Own Brexit, arguing that the political conditions which created Brexit also exist in Australia. But forget what you have read about populism and the rise of right-wing xenophobia. What Australia has in common with Britain and other Western democracies is something we rarely talk about: the steady decline of our big political parties. The ‘hollowed out’ state of contemporary politics could lead one of our political parties to exploit an issue that ties Australia to Asia and which will determine our future security: immigration.

Join us for a conversation between Sam and award-winning journalist George Megalogenis to mark the launch of Our Very Own Brexit.
 

The Pacific Islands has vaulted back to the centre of Australian foreign policy thinking. Prime Minister Morrison has positioned Australia’s Pacific “step up” as his signature foreign-policy initiative. Other governments have responded with their own “redial”, “pivot”, “uplift”, and “elevation” plans.
 
Much of this reengagement is being driven by China’s rise, with analysts fearing China will try to leverage its influence – be it debt, diplomacy, or trade – to achieve strategic outcomes, including setting up a military base. Great power competition has returned to the Pacific.
 
Foreign aid is often the first tool used by nations to engage in the region, much of which is underdeveloped and vulnerable to disasters and the effects of climate change. Each year, more than 60 donors invest more than US$2 billion in foreign aid in the Pacific. More than one third of this aid goes to Papua New Guinea.
 
This event will showcase the second-year update of the map, which incorporates new data and new functionality, as well as present new analysis of Chinese debt diplomacy and its impact on debt sustainability in the Pacific.
 
Join Lowy Institute researchers to discuss what’s new in the Lowy Institute Pacific Aid Map, and what it can tell us about development in Papua New Guinea.

In March 2019, Islamic State officially lost its caliphate. The last remaining sliver of territory under its control was overtaken by Coalition forces, and US President Donald Trump declared the militant group “100% defeated”. 
 
Yet Islamic State remains defiant. Its reclusive leader has made two public pronouncements encouraging his followers since the fall of the caliphate. It retains affiliate networks around the world, and in the wake of its defeat, it committed one of the largest terrorist attacks ever – the Easter Bombings in Colombo, Sri Lanka. 

One of America’s most distinguished diplomats will be in Canberra for one public event. This is your opportunity to hear from – and to question – Ambassador Nicholas Burns about America’s place in the world under Donald Trump, the growing competition between the US and China, and other global issues.
 
Join us for a conversation with Nicholas Burns, the Lowy Institute’s 2019 Rothschild & Co Distinguished International Fellow. The discussion will be moderated by the Lowy Institute’s Sam Roggeveen, and will include audience questions.

What made America a great power? What is Trump doing to weaken America on the global stage, and what must the US do to revive its global leadership after the Trump presidency?
 
Join us for a speech by distinguished American diplomat Nicholas Burns, the Lowy Institute’s 2019 Rothschild & Co Distinguished International Fellow.

How should the US and Australia plan for a future of both strategic competition and cooperation with China? How do we get the balance between them right?
 
The distinguished American diplomat Nicholas Burns, the Lowy Institute’s 2019 Rothschild & Co Distinguished International Fellow, will address these questions in the 2019 Owen Harries Lecture.
 
The annual Owen Harries Lecture honours the enormous contribution Mr Harries, a Nonresident Fellow at the Lowy Institute, has made to the international policy debate in Australia.

The Lowy Institute is delighted to invite you to the 2019 Lowy Lecture, to be delivered by Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

The Hon Scott Morrison MP was sworn in as the 30th Prime Minister of Australia on 24 August 2018. Since the re-election of his government in May, the Prime Minister has focused closely on issues of foreign policy. In September he will be the guest of honour at a State Dinner at the White House hosted by US President Donald Trump.

The 2019 Lowy Lecture and Dinner will be held on Thursday, 3 October 2019 at 6:00pm for 7.00pm at the Sydney Town Hall, 483 George Street, Sydney. The dress code is lounge suit.

This event will launch the second-year update of the map, which incorporates new data and new functionality, as well as present new analysis of Chinese debt diplomacy and its impact on debt sustainability in the Pacific.
 
Join Lowy Institute researchers to discuss what’s new in the Lowy Institute Pacific Aid Map, and what it can tell us about the broader geopolitical developments playing out in Australia’s immediate region.
 
Jonathan Pryke is Director of the Lowy Institute Pacific Islands Program. Alexandre Dayant is a Research Fellow in the Lowy Institute Pacific Islands Program, and lead researcher of the Pacific Aid Map. Roland Rajah is Director of the Lowy Institute International Economy Program.

Australia finds itself in an increasingly precarious position. The relationship between Australia’s traditional ally, the United States, and its largest trading partner, China, continues its precipitous decline. Four out of Australia’s top five trading partners are embroiled in trade wars, and a global economic slowdown is underway. At the same time, Beijing’s deepening embrace of authoritarianism and expanding global ambitions continue to rattle Australia’s regional allies and partners.

As our political leaders grapple with new and daunting foreign policy challenges, what do Australians think about the world? The Lowy Institute Poll has surveyed Australians on their views for the past 15 years. In the span of a generation, the Poll has uncovered striking changes in public opinion about Australia’s most important neighbours and partners as well as the challenges to national security and prosperity.

The news today is dominated by trade issues in a way not seen since perhaps the clash between the United States and Japan in the 1980s. The headlines point to a trade war between the United States and China, and strained trade relations between South Korea and Japan. The trading system has not delivered new multilateral agreements during the last five years. The WTO dispute-settlement system appears to be breaking down. It appears to be getting easier to depart from international agreements. 

Intensifying strategic competition between the US and China is having ramifications around the globe. The risk of military conflict is growing in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait. Global economic growth is slowing, and supply chains are shifting. China and Russia are forging closer ties in response to commonly perceived threats. Will US-China competition abate or increase? How can Australia best navigate these dangerous shoals?

Join us for a speech by Lowy Institute Nonresident Fellow Bonnie Glaser followed by a Q&A with Michael Fullilove, the Institute’s Executive Director.

The last wave of globalisation delivered enormous economic benefits. But the massive social disruption and displacement fell disproportionately on less-skilled workers, helping to spawn the current populist revolt. The next wave of globalisation, however, might prove different, as emerging technologies combine with global economic forces to create a whole new set of opportunities and challenges.
 

Indonesian President Joko Widodo was decisively re-elected in April but his second, and final, term in office looks set to be anything but plain sailing. The election revealed deep divides in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, with politics polarised along religious lines. The economy remains sluggish despite promises of structural reforms to unlock rapid growth. And Indonesia’s democratic system, long seen as a beacon of progress, is facing intensifying challenges, from crackdowns on free speech to a deterioration in the protection of minority rights.  

Please join us at a Sydney edition of the Australian National University’s Indonesia Update to discuss the state of democracy in Indonesia and the challenges ahead in Jokowi’s second term. The event will include a political update presented by Edward Aspinall, an update on the economy by Paul Burke, and panel discussions featuring Burhanuddin Muhtadi, Nava Nuraniyah, Martin Daniel Siyaranamual, Eve Warburton and Ben Bland.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) is charged with protecting Australia and its citizens from terrorism, foreign interference, espionage, sabotage, and politically motivated violence.

Join us for a public address by ASIO Director-General Duncan Lewis at the Lowy Institute followed by a Q&A with the Institute’s Executive Director, Dr Michael Fullilove.

Duncan Lewis has served as the Director-General  of Security since 2014. Mr Lewis served in the Australian Defence Force for 33 years, including as commander of the Special Air Service Regiment and Major General, Special Operations Commander Australia.

Since 2005, Mr Lewis has served in a number of Australian Public Service roles, including assistant secretary of the National Security Division within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Australia’s inaugural National Security Adviser, and Australia’s Ambassador to Belgium, Luxembourg, the European Union, and NATO. Mr Lewis was appointed Officer of the Order of Australia in 2005.

Modern technologies offer enormous opportunities for police and for criminals. Most crimes have a digital element. Rapid technological advances have led to new tools such as facial recognition, camera-equipped drones, and fingerprint scanners. These advances provide enormous amounts of data to be assessed and interpreted, generating a role for artificial intelligence in modern policing. They also create new tensions between protection of citizens’ safety and protecting personal data, as well as presenting a multitude of challenges for police leaders, policy makers, and those who hold the police to account. 

Cressida Dick was appointed UK Commissioner of Police in 2017, the first female commissioner in the history of the Metropolitan Police. She leads the United Kingdom’s largest police service, having served as a police officer for most of her 35-year career.
 

Anna Fifield, a long-time foreign correspondent, is one of the most knowledgeable journalists writing about North Korea, a nation that has largely walled itself off to outsiders. In her new book, The Great Successor: The Secret Rise and Rule of Kim Jong Un, she draws on her dozen-plus trips to the country to penetrate the layers of myth and propaganda surrounding the young leader and his nuclear arsenal. Fifield has gained rare access to Kim’s inner circle (including the aunt and uncle who posed as his parents while he was growing up in Switzerland, members of the entourage that accompanied basketballer Dennis Rodman on his visits, and the Japanese sushi chef who pointed to Kim as the most likely successor to his father) to give a detailed and insightful portrait of one of the world’s most secretive dictators. Fifield, the Beijing bureau chief for The Washington Post and former Seoul correspondent for The Financial Times, will be in conversation with Richard McGregor, a Lowy Institute Senior Fellow.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Bobo Lo and Lowy Institute Executive Director Michael Fullilove discuss key themes in Russian domestic and foreign policy, including the stability of the Putin regime, the issue of political succession, and Moscow’s growing activism in the Asia-Pacific region.

Join us for an in-conversation with Dr Bobo Lo and Dr Michael Fullilove, Executive Director of the Lowy Institute, followed by a Q&A.

Join us for a discussion with esteemed archaeologist and historian Professor Ian Morris on the forces that drove the rise of the West to global dominance in the 16th–19th centuries and those that now propel China. The Lowy Institute’s Sam Roggeveen will chair this conversation on the patterns of history and what they reveal about the future.
 

Effective engagement with the Asia-Pacific holds the key to Russia’s prospects in the 21st century world. Yet it is unclear how far Moscow is ready to move away from its traditional focus on the West. Bobo Lo assesses the commitment, and chances of success, of the Kremlin’s latest effort to project Russia as a significant player in Asia.
 

Join Dr Euan Graham, Executive Director of La Trobe Asia and Lowy Institute Nonresident Fellow, for an in-conversation with Dr Bobo Lo, followed by a Q&A.

It is two decades since a bloody secessionist conflict on Bougainville was settled – first in a truce, and then in a peace agreement that deferred the question of the region’s future political status. 

In 2019, that question will be answered when the people of Bougainville vote on whether to become independent from Papua New Guinea.
 
Join us for this special event to hear from Ben Bohane on the prospects of a new nation being formed on Australia’s doorstep. 
 

The withdrawal by the Trump administration from the Obama-era nuclear deal (known as the JCPOA) and the subsequent campaign of ‘maximum pressure’ against Iran by the United States in an effort to get a better deal from Tehran, has raised regional tensions to near boiling point. Five ships have been attacked in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, a US drone shot down by an Iranian missile, and an Iranian and UK tanker seized. The war of words between Washington and Tehran has been escalating week by week. And the European states have been busy trying to keep the JCPOA alive rather than signing up to President Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ campaign.
 
It is a difficult policy problem to resolve and even more difficult to gauge how the current American policy is seen by Iranians given the difficulty in gaining press access. In order to provide some insight into these questions, Lowy Institute Research Fellow Dr Rodger Shanahan will hold a discussion with Dr Amir Mogadam from the University of Newcastle, Mahmoud Pargoo from the Australian Catholic University and Dr Gorana Grgic from the University of Sydney to discuss the current tensions in the Gulf from US and Iranian policy perspectives.