Lowy Institute

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 parties.Rebecca Huntley is one of Australia’s foremost researchers and authors on social trends. She has led research at Essential Media and Vox Populi and was a director at Ipsos Australia. She now heads her own research and consultancy firm working with climate and environment NGOs, government and business on climate change strategy and communication. Rebecca was a broadcaster with the ABC and is on the Executive Board of the NSW branch of the Australian Labor Party.Tony Mitchelmore, the founder of Visibility, a leading strategic communications firm, is a veteran of 12 state and federal elections. He has also advised state and federal political leaders of both major parties on research, messaging and communications.The event was broadcast on YouTube at 12pm AEST on Thursday 5 May 2022.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 Gough Whitlam to Scott Morrison. He is the author of many books including The End of Certainty on the politics and economics of the 1980s, and the Lowy Institute Paper Howard’s Decade. Recorded on 26th April 2022See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 these issues and present ideas on how to change the nature of women’s political representation in Papua New Guinea.Vagi Hemetsberger is co-founder of the Seven Sisters Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation supporting female leaders in Papua New Guinea. The Seven Sisters Foundation aims to improve equality for women through resource support, upskilling and advocacy.Jessica Collins is a Research Fellow in the Pacific Islands Program at the Lowy Institute. Her research interests cover foreign aid and development policy in Pacific Island nations (particularly for Pacific women), Pacific migration, remittance policy, and Myanmar’s humanitarian and refugee challenges. Prior to joining the Institute, Jessica completed a PhD in Anthropology at the Queensland University of Technology. Jessica also holds a Master of Global Development from Griffith University. Her Honours research project, completed at the Queensland University of Technology, explored diasporic life for Samoans living in Brisbane, and her undergraduate studies at the University of Sydney focused on the anthropology of the Pacific.Find our more about this episode: https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/aus-png-network-women-politics-png-vagi-hemetsbergerSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 Telegraph. Troy is the author or editor of ten books, including Robert Menzies: The Art of Politics (2019) and Paul Keating: The Big-Picture Leader (2016). Troy co-authored The Truth of the Palace Letters (2020) and The Dismissal (2015) with Paul Kelly. He was the co-winner of the Australian Book Industry Award for The Dismissal. His biography of Paul Keating was a finalist for the Walkley Award, shortlisted for the National Biography Award and longlisted for the Australian Book Industry Award. He was awarded the Centenary Medal in 2001.More about this episode: https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/conversations-foreign-policy-and-hawke-legacySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 poll data and analysis here: https://interactives.lowyinstitute.org/features/indonesia-poll-2021/Event recorded on Thursday 8 April 2022See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 have been done.” Join Jessica and Theresa as they take you through these issues and present ideas on how to change the nature of women’s political representation in Papua New Guinea.Theresa Meki is a PhD Candidate with the Department of Pacific Affairs, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University. Her research focuses on women’s presence and vote share in Papua New Guinea’s election history. Prior to commencing her candidature, Theresa worked as a field producer and research assistant for the DFAT funded Pawa Meri film project, a partnership between the Victoria University, Melbourne and the University of Goroka in Papua New Guinea.Jessica Collins is a Research Fellow in the Pacific Islands Program at the Lowy Institute. Her research interests cover foreign aid and development policy in Pacific Island nations (particularly for Pacific women), Pacific migration, remittance policy, and Myanmar’s humanitarian and refugee challenges. Prior to joining the Institute, Jessica completed a PhD in Anthropology at the Queensland University of Technology. Jessica also holds a Master of Global Development from Griffith University. Her Honours research project, completed at the Queensland University of Technology, explored diasporic life for Samoans living in Brisbane, and her undergraduate studies at the University of Sydney focused on the anthropology of the Pacific.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 Law (Routledge, 2020).Read more about this episode at https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/rules-based-audio-ukraine-and-future-rules-based-orderSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 at the Papua New Guinea National Research Institute; Dr Sakarepe Kamene, Head of Linguistics and Modern Languages at the University of Papua New Guinea; Adjunct Professor Craig Volker, of The Cairns Institute, James Cook University; and Dr. Lidia Federica Mazzitelli, post-doctoral researcher at the Slavic Institute, University of Cologne and scientific consultant at the Australian National University.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 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.