Sydney Ideas

Part of the 2016 Festival of Urbanism. A conversation on the divergence of Sydney and Melbourne’s cultural policy between the University of Melbourne’s Dr Kate Shaw and the University of Sydney’s Dr Oliver Watts. SPEAKERS: Dr Kate Shaw is an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow in Urban Geography and Planning at the University of Melbourne. Her current research focuses on urban renewal in the 21st century. Accepting that the economic case for growth combines with the environmental case for limiting urban sprawl to produce an irresistible logic for increasing the densities of Australian cities, the research explores ways of improving on the renewal projects of the last 50 years. The current project examines the legislative, regulatory, financial, political and cultural barriers to socially equitable urban development, and pursues practices elsewhere that do it better. Kate’s background is in alternative cultures. She has particular interest in Melbourne’s live music and indie arts scenes, and advises governments and local campaigns on planning and policies to maintain them. Dr Oliver Watts is a writer, practicing artist and cultural theorist. Oliver lectures in theory at The University of Sydney, Sydney College of the Arts. He writes regularly for The Conversation and Buro 24/7 on cultural and aesthetic issues of the day from architecture to fashion. His work looks at how power and authority is reified in cultural artefacts. He sees buildings particularly as manifesting cultural history and ideology, society’s concerns, hopes and biases. Not only do buildings mirror our society but they also help create the pattern of our lives. Oliver most recently spoke at the 2016 Vivid Idea Sydney event ‘Voice of the Artist: Age of the Image’.

The vocation of public service remains a cornerstone of Australian democracy. Yet its traditional virtues are under pressure. Too often exciting innovations have remained at the periphery, failing to deliver on their promise. New approaches to the designing, commissioning and funding of government services have yet to transform the centre of public administration. Bureaucratic structures, regulatory compliance systems and a culture of risk aversion have narrowed the manner in which public accountability and stewardship have been perceived. Yet, with political authority, governance can become more participatory and inclusive. Businesses, social enterprises and research institutions can partner with government agencies to become co-producers of public benefit. Sectoral boundaries can become porous and relationships collaborative. A new public service can emerge, based upon principles of flexibility, experimentation, facilitative leadership and organisational agility. ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Professor Peter Shergold AC is Chancellor of Western Sydney University. He has had a distinguished career in the Australian Public Service. Peter headed a range of Commonwealth agencies and was Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet for five years from 2003. He now has a portfolio career serving on the Boards of AMP, Corrs Chambers Westgarth and QuintessenceLabs. He chairs Opal Aged Care. He remains active in public administration, having been appointed as the Coordinator General of Refugee Resettlement in NSW. In the tertiary education arena he chairs both the National Centre for Vocational Education Research and the Higher Education Standards Panel.

Under capitalism, how does the state organise space in our everyday lives through the streets we walk, the monuments we visit, and the places where we meet? A talk by Univeristy of Sydney Professor Adam Morton, Department of Political Economy.

The 2016 Australian Book Review Laureate’s Fellow Michael Aiken in conversation with David Malouf, the ABR Laureate. The forum includes Michael Aiken reading from his verse Fellowship project, ‘Satan Repentant’, a violent epic leaping from the cosmological to the infinitesimal, and a story of contrition. Sydney Ideas event infomation http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/ABR_laureate_2016_satan_repentant.shtml

At 35 years of age Dr Marjorie Aunos had made a name for herself nationally and internationally as a leading practitioner-researcher and advocate for parents with intellectual disabilities. In her own words, “life was good”; she was doing what she loved especially her new role as a mother to her 18 month old son. On the 5th of January 2012, on her way to work, Marjorie’s life took a sharp turn. Her car slipped on ice and collided with an oncoming truck. She was left with paraplegia. In this lecture Marjorie will share the experience of moving from being an “outsider” to an “insider” as a disability practitioner-researcher and the lessons learnt (thus far). SPEAKER: Marjorie Aunos, adjunct professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal and Brock University Part of the Faculty of Education and Social Work Dean’s Lecture Series, which provides an opportunity to hear internationally renowned experts as they contribute to the debates and discussions in education, social work and social policy.

According to recent reports, 1.2 million Australians regularly struggle to put good, healthy food on the table. From low incomes to high living costs, casualised labor markets to government policies, more and more Australians don’t have enough money to eat or to eat well. In policy jargon, problems like these are often referred to as food and nutrition insecurity. This panel focuses on the problem of food insecurity here in Sydney, its causes, consequences, and – ultimately – what can be done to put good food back on the table. Drawing together academic, policy and practitioner perspectives we hope to open up a space to talk about pathways to and opportunities for a more just food system. Professor David Schlosberg (Chair, Co-director, Sydney Environment Institute Elizabeth MillenProgram Manager, Healthy Environments, South Western Sydney Local Health District Health Promotion Service Tegan Picone, Nutrition Programs Manager, SecondBite Luke Craven, Phd Candidate, University of Sydney A Sydney Ideas and Sydney Environment Institute event in the Food@Sydney series http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/food@sydney_series_2016.shtml

Tax evasion is as old as taxes. But with the introduction of mass income taxes at the beginning of the twentieth century, the problem took on new dimensions. After 1918, the first tax haven countries appeared initially in continental Europe. After the Second World War, a new generation of havens opened up in the dissolving British Empire in places such as the Bahamas, Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, Singapore, and, for Australia, the New Hebrides and other Pacific territories. This talk will looks at the role of governments in setting up countries as tax havens after 1945. Most tax havens were state-sponsored projects, making current calls for shutting down havens and curbing avoidance appear problematic. What, then, can be done against tax havens especially in the face of mounting inequality today? ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Vanessa Ogle is the Julie and Martin Franklin Assistant Professor in the Department of History University of Pennsylvania, Her first book, The Global Transformation of Time: 1870 - 1950, was published in 2015.. She is now writing a book on the history of tax havens, offshore money markets, and free trade zones, 1920s-1980s. Vanessa is the Kathleen Fitzpatrick Visiting Fellow in the Laureate Research Program in International History, at the University of Sydney. More event information http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/vanessa_ogle.shtml

The Second World War still has a defining place in how we imagine war today, despite its increasing distance from us. The west has not experienced ‘major war’ since 1945, and so our comprehension of what it means has not had to be redefined. But the war, which we have invented for ourselves, is a caricature: a ‘good’ war fought for ‘necessary’ reasons by a generation of ‘heroes’. The implicit contrast is with the First World War, which is portrayed as none of these things. This construction of the Second World War has created a massive obstacle to our capacity to understand the war of 1914-18 on its own terms. It too has become a caricature of itself: futile, wasteful and needless. Yet many of the concepts with which we frame modern war are derived from the First, not the Second, World War, including ‘grand strategy’, ‘total war’ and even ‘existential conflict’. The First World War changed what we mean by strategy with effects that still resonate. And the conflict has a further claim to our attention in this centenary period. The complexities and ambiguities that surround it can help us understand the place of armed conflict in our own world – its causes, conduct and termination – and often do so much better than the stories which we tell ourselves of the Second World War. SPEAKER: Sir Hew Strachan FRSE, Hon D. Univ (Paisley) was the Chichele Professor of the History of War at the University of Oxford and is now Professor of International Relations at the University of St Andrews. He is an Emeritus Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford and a Life Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. His recent books include The First World War: Volume 1: To Arms (2001), The First World War: an illustrated history (2003); related to a multi-part television series and translated into many languages, Clausewitz’s On War: a Biography (2007), and The Direction of War (2013). He is the editor of The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War (revised edition, 2014), and a clutch of volumes arising from his Directorship of the Oxford Changing Character of War Programme.

The Astronomical Society of Australia (ASA) 2016 Harley Wood Lecture for the ASA 50th anniversary Annual Scientific Meeting Over the last 40 years, scientists have uncovered evidence that if the Universe had been forged with even slightly different properties, life as we know it - and life as we can imagine it - would be impossible. With small tweaks to the way the Universe works, we can erase the periodic table, disintegrate particles and remove all traces of structure in the cosmos. Join us on a journey through how we understand the Universe, from its most basic particles and forces, to planets, stars and galaxies, and back through cosmic history to the birth of the cosmos. ABOUT THE SPEAKER Luke Barnes is a postdoctoral researcher at the Sydney Institute for Astronomy. Having gained his PhD from the University of Cambridge, he has published papers in the field of galaxy formation and on the fine-tuning of the Universe for life. His forthcoming book co-written with Geraint Lewis is A Fortunate Universe: Life in a Finely Tuned Cosmos. RESPONDENT Professor Mark Colyvan, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sydney. His research includes work on philosophy of mathematics, decision theory, and philosophy of probability. Sydney Ideas event information http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/ASA2016_harley_wood.shtml

The human war against the mosquito is once again garnering global public attention. An explosion in the number of cases of Zika virus in the Americas, has resulted in huge media coverage and the World Health Organisation declaring a global health emergency. Spread by the mosquito Aedes aegypti, Zika virus causes a mild fever in most cases, but it has recently been associated with rising rates of microcephaly (abnormal brain development) if a woman is infected during pregnancy. This panel outlines and explore issues relating to both the recent Zika outbreak and relevant broader, contextual features of human-mosquito relations. More info: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/defending_the_aussie_mozzie_forum.shtml