On Monday 19 April, Peter Khalil MP and Dave Sharma MP had a discussion about Australia’s place in the world with Lowy Institute’s Director of Research Alex Oliver. They covered: what Australia should be doing in the world as an engaged middle power, Australia-China relations, and the fight against climate change.

Peter Khalil is the Federal Labor Member for Wills, elected to Parliament in 2016 and re-elected at the 2019 election. Prior to his parliamentary career, Mr Khalil was a Victorian Multicultural Commissioner, an Executive Director at SBS and a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Washington DC. He was foreign policy adviser to the prime minister (2007–08), served in Iraq (2003–04) with the Department of Defence and worked at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Mr Khalil has bachelor’s degrees in arts and law from Melbourne University and a master’s degree in international law from Australian National University.

Dave Sharma was elected to Parliament as the Liberal Member for Wentworth at the 2019 federal election. He was formerly a career diplomat, serving in Papua New Guinea and Washington, DC before being appointed Australia’s Ambassador to Israel in 2013. He has been an adviser to Australia’s foreign minister and was head of the International Division of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet from 2010 to 2012. He graduated in law with first class honours from the University of Cambridge.

With a priority vaccination program underway, Papua New Guinea is striving to get control of a mushrooming outbreak of Covid-19. The virus is putting immense strain on the country’s health system, with hospitals and facilities struggling to cope.

PNG Health Minister Hon. Jelta Wong has been a key figure in the country’s response. Mr Wong was first appointed Minister for Health in 2019, and after a reshuffle in late 2020 was reappointed to the key post. Mr Wong has also served in the portfolios of Police and Civil Aviation after being elected to the East New Britain seat of Gazelle Open in 2017.

Listen to this special Aus-PNG Network online event with Minister Wong in conversation with Jonathan Pryke, the Director of the Lowy Institute’s Pacific Islands Program. Recorded on 1 April 2021.

We are one year into a pandemic that has upended life as we once knew it. How has the pandemic affected women across the world – in their employment prospects, their caring and household responsibilities, the rate of domestic violence they suffer, their access to education and the mental health challenges they face?

COVID-19 has also provided lessons in leadership. New Zealand and Taiwan appeared first and third on the Lowy Institute’s recently released COVID Performance Index. To what extent can their success be attributed to the approaches and styles of their female leaders?

In this special event marking International Women's Day 2021, our panel discusses the effect the pandemic has had on women and examine women’s leadership throughout the past year.

Event Speakers

Professor Michelle Ryan, inaugural Director of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, ANU, and Professor of Social and Organisational Psychology, University of Exeter

Professor Jacqui True, Director of Monash University’s Centre for Gender, Peace and Security and Professor of Politics and International Relations

Natasha Kassam, Director of the Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Program at the Lowy Institute

What are the key issues likely to dominate Australia’s international agenda in 2021? China's economic statecraft, regional friction in the Pacific, the climate-change agenda, and how the world recovers economically from the coronavirus pandemic are covered in this wide-ranging panel discussion between Lowy Institute experts.

This event was hosted by the Lowy Institute at our headquarters on 31 Bligh St in Sydney on Tuesday 23 February 2021.

- Event Speakers -

Alex Oliver is the Director of Research at the Lowy Institute, where she is responsible for the Institute's team of experts and directs the research program. Until 2018, she directed the Lowy Institute's program on diplomacy and public opinion, including the annual Lowy Institute Poll.

Roland Rajah is the Lead Economist and Director of the International Economics Program at the Lowy Institute. Before joining the Lowy Institute Roland was a Senior Economist and Country Manager at the Asian Development Bank, where he worked on macro-fiscal policy, economic growth, and development issues in the Pacific region.

Jonathan Pryke is Director of the Lowy Institute’s Pacific Islands Program. Jonathan joined the Lowy Institute in 2015 from the Development Policy Centre at the Australian National University where he was a researcher, editor of the Development Policy Blog and a co-convener of the Australasian Aid Conference.

Peter Cai returns to the Lowy Institute in 2021 as director of a new project on Australia-China relations. Peter led the Institute’s China work in 2016, and is the author of the 2017 Lowy Institute Analysis Understanding China’s Belt And Road Initiative, which has become one of the world’s most consulted and popular pieces of research on the BRI.

Patrick Kaiku from UPNG, journalist Rebecca Kuku and Transparency International's Yuambari Haihuie join the Lowy Institute's Shane McLeod to talk about the topics and themes likely to be in the news in 2021 in PNG. This discussion was recorded on 9 February 2021.

Event Speakers

Rebecca Kuku is a Senior Reporter covering Politics and Security with more than eight years experience in the mainstream media. She regularly writes about Gender Based Violence and Sorcery Accusation Related Violence and other social issues. Rebecca is currently reporting for the PNG Post-Courier newspaper and is also a content contributor for The Guardian. Rebecca also publishes work through her Facebook page Becky’s World which has more than 15,000 followers.

Yuambari Haihuie is the Deputy Director (Policy and Advocacy) at Transparency International PNG. He’s been working on good governance and anti-corruption campaigns in PNG for more than six years and has contributed to TI’s research and advocacy work such as the 2017 PNG National Election Report, Corruption Risk Assessment of Mining Licences, and the need for Access to Information Legislation in PNG. He is a volunteer director on the board of the Young Professionals Network of PNG and was a participant in the 2017 Australia-PNG Emerging Leaders Dialogue.

Patrick Kaiku is a lecturer in Political Science at the University of Papua New Guinea, and has written extensively on national and international political affairs in PNG. After undergraduate and honours studies at UPNG, he received a Masters in Pacific Studies from the University of Hawaii.

Shane McLeod is a Research Fellow working with the Lowy Institute’s Australia-PNG Network. Before joining the Institute, he was a senior editor at ABC News in roles where he managed its Sydney newsroom and the flagship radio programs AM, The World Today, and PM. He is a former foreign correspondent with postings in Japan and Papua New Guinea, as well as reporting assignments throughout the Asia-Pacific region. He has also worked as a journalist in regional Queensland, Melbourne, Sydney, and Canberra.

Two of America’s most influential and respected commentators, David Ignatius of The Washington Post and Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report, joined Lowy Institute Executive Director Dr Michael Fullilove for this conversation on the Biden administration, American unity and recovery after the Trump administration and Covid-19, and the early indications of President Biden’s international policies.

Keep up to date with all Lowy Institute events via our YouTube channel, click and subscribe here.

The opportunities and challenges presented by globalisation are very much on the mind of India’s Minister for External Affairs, Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. He wants India to enter the global arena “with cards to play” and, to that end, has argued for India to take a stronger approach to building its national capabilities. Those national capabilities have been tested by COVID-19, which has infected over 1 million Indians and claimed nearly 140,000 lives.

But Dr Jaishankar also recognises the need for India to focus on greater international cooperation in solving the existential problems of the day, including climate change, terrorism and pandemics.

“The world is not going to carry on with business as usual,” Dr Jaishankar recently observed. “Those with a more self-centred view of world politics will have to come to terms with the needs of the day.”

The Lowy Institute was pleased to host Dr Jaishankar at a time of great ambition for India-Australia ties. In this virtual event, the Executive Director of Australia’s Lowy Institute, Dr Michael Fullilove, chaired a discussion ranging over topics such as India’s place in the world, its relations with China, the recently reconstituted ‘Quad’ grouping, COVID-19, and the future of India’s relations with Australia.

- About the Speakers -
Dr Jaishankar was Foreign Secretary from 2015 to 2018, Ambassador to the United States from 2013 to 2015, Ambassador to China from 2009 to 2013, High Commissioner to Singapore from 2007 to 2009 and Ambassador to the Czech Republic from 2000 to 2004. He is the author of a new book, The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World.

Dr Fullilove writes widely on Australian and US politics and foreign policy in publications including The New York Times, Financial Times, The Atlantic and Foreign Affairs. Dr Fullilove is the author of several books including Rendezvous with Destiny: How Franklin D. Roosevelt and Five Extraordinary Men Took America into the War and into the World (Penguin).

The Lowy Institute recaps a year marked by the coronavirus pandemic, US-China competition, the US presidential election and bushfires in Australia.

Narrated by the Lowy Institute's Executive Director, Dr Michael Fullilove, this video also includes an overview of the Institute's work and how we have developed new ways of delivering our content in light of COVID-19 restrictions.

Delivering the 2020 Lowy Lecture, Dr Fareed Zakaria evaluates the turbulent year in world politics marked by the growing rivalry between the US and China, and the coronavirus pandemic. The Lowy Lecture is followed by an extended Q&A with Lowy Institute Executive Director Dr Michael Fullilove.

The annual Lowy Lecture is the Lowy Institute’s flagship event, at which a prominent speaker reflects on Australia and the world. Past Lecturers have included German Chancellor Angela Merkel, UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, former CIA Director David Petraeus, News Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch, Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Lowy Institute Chairman Sir Frank Lowy and Prime Minister John Howard, who delivered the inaugural Lowy Lecture in 2005. Dr Zakaria delivered this year's lecture via webcast from the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City.

The Lowy Institute is grateful for the support of the sponsors of the 2020 Lowy Lecture: BHP and Capital Group

- Event Speakers -

Fareed Zakaria hosts Fareed Zakaria GPS for CNN Worldwide, which earned a Peabody Award in 2011 and has received multiple Emmy nominations. He is also a columnist for The Washington Post and a contributing editor at The Atlantic. Dr Zakaria is the author of a number of New York Times bestselling books, the latest of which is Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World. Previously, Zakaria was editor of Newsweek International, managing editor of Foreign Affairs, a columnist for Time and an analyst for ABC News.

Dr Michael Fullilove AM is the Executive Director of the Lowy Institute. He writes widely on Australian and US foreign policy in publications including The New York Times, Financial Times, The Atlantic and Foreign Affairs, as well as in the Australian press. Dr Fullilove is the author of several books including Rendezvous with Destiny: How Franklin D. Roosevelt and Five Extraordinary Men Took America into the War and into the World (Penguin).