VIDEOS
Videos from the Lowy Institute, including of events with prime ministers, global media proprietors, leading intellectuals, and the most influential world leaders of our generation.
ABC Chair Kim Williams AM will deliver the 2024 Lowy Institute Media Lecture on Wednesday 25 September. Kim Williams AM is Chair of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and since 2018, Chair of the Reuters Trustees. He has been a prominent figure in the arts, entertainment, and media industries since the late 1970s, holding key executive roles at News Corp Australia, FOXTEL, Fox Studios Australia, and the ABC, among others. He was CEO of FOXTEL until 2011, where he spearheaded digital broadcast innovations, earning the 2012 ASTRA Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2006, he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for his contributions to the arts and public policy, and in 2009, he received an honorary Doctorate of Letters from Macquarie University. Mr Williams has held numerous Board positions (and Chairmanships) in commercial and public life over more than three decades, including as Chair of the Australian Film Finance Corporation, which he founded in 1988, and Chair of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Musica Viva Australia, and the Sydney Opera House.
Indonesia is in the countdown to the October presidential transition from Joko Widodo (Jokowi) to Prabowo Subianto, who won a decisive victory in the April presidential election. Hugely ambitious and popular, Jokowi leaves a complex legacy, including strained democratic institutions, the politicisation of the police and military, and an at times transactional foreign policy that benefited China’s standing.
The panel drew on perspectives presented at the 2024 Australian National University Indonesia Update conference to explore the legacy of Jokowi’s presidency and the direction that Prabowo may now seek to steer Indonesia.
Eve Warburton is a senior lecturer at the Department of Political and Social Change in the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, and Director of ANU's Indonesia Institute at the College of Asia and the Pacific. Her research is concerned broadly with problems of representation, governance, and business-state relations, in young and developing democracies, with a regional focus on Southeast Asia and Indonesia in particular. She has published in leading disciplinary and area studies journals on these topics, and her first book manuscript, Resource Nationalism in Indonesia: Booms, Big Business and the State, was published by Cornell University Press in late 2023.
Sidney Jones is Senior Adviser to the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) in Jakarta, a non-governmental research organization she founded in 2013. She served as director from 2013 to 2021, when she returned to New York. From 2002 to 2013, Jones worked with the International Crisis Group in Jakarta, first as Southeast Asia project director, then from 2007 as senior adviser to the Asia program. Before joining Crisis Group, she worked for the Ford Foundation in Jakarta and New York (1977-84); Amnesty International in London as the Indonesia-Philippines-Pacific researcher (1985-88); and Human Rights Watch in New York as the Asia director (1989-2002). She took a leave from the latter position in 2000 to serve as chief of the human rights office of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET). Jones holds a B.A. and M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania.
Marcus Mietzner is Associate Professor at the Department of Political and Social Change, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University in Canberra. He has published extensively on Indonesian politics, including in peer-reviewed international journals such as Democratization, International Political Science Review, Governance, Journal of Democracy, Contemporary Politics, Australian Journal of International Affairs, Journal of Contemporary Asia and Critical Asian Studies. His latest book is "The Coalitions Presidents Make: Presidential Power and its Limits in Democratic Indonesia" (Cornell University Press, 2023). He is currently writing a book on the Jokowi presidency, based on a series of interviews with the outgoing president and other key actors.
Rizal Sukma is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Indonesia. Previously, he was Indonesia’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Ireland and the International Maritime Organization (IMO), London, from 2016 to 2020. He joined CSIS in 1990 as a researcher and assumed the role of Executive Director in 2009 until 2015. Dr Sukma also served as Chairman of International Relations, Muhammadiyah Central Executive Board (2005-2015). Since receiving a PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1997, he has worked extensively on such issues as Southeast Asian security, ASEAN, Indonesia’s defense and foreign policy, military reform, Islam and politics, and domestic political changes in Indonesia.
The panel was moderated by Susannah Patton, Director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Lowy Institute.
All Lowy Institute public events are on the record and open for media attendance.
Thursday 15 August 2024
The Lowy Institute was delighted to host the Rt Hon Christopher Luxon, Prime Minister of New Zealand, for a special foreign policy address on Thursday 15 August.
Rt Hon Christopher Luxon is the 42nd Prime Minister of New Zealand. Since coming to power in October 2023, Prime Minister Luxon has focused closely on issues of foreign, defence and trade policy, including re-engaging and reinvigorating New Zealand’s relationships with traditional and like-minded partners. He is also the Minister for National Security and Intelligence and the Minister Responsible for Ministerial Services. He entered Parliament at the 2020 election as the MP for Botany and was elected Leader of the National Party in November 2021.
Prior to entering Parliament, Prime Minister Luxon enjoyed a long career in the private sector: as Chief Executive Officer of Air New Zealand from 2013 to 2019, and at Unilever where he worked in New Zealand, Australia, the UK, the USA and Canada.
On Tuesday 3 September 2024 we had a conversation with Sean Turnell about his latest book, Best Laid Plans, a unique first-hand account of the radical reforms implemented in Myanmar under the ill-fated civilian government of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. These reforms, designed both to turn around Myanmar’s dire economy and lay the economic foundations for democracy, were brought to a dramatic end following the military coup in Myanmar in February 2021. Sean Turnell was one of Suu Kyi’s key economic advisers who was imprisoned alongside her in the wake of the coup.
The event was moderated by the Lowy Institute’s Hervé Lemahieu and will include questions from the audience.
Dr Sean Turnell is a Senior Fellow in the Southeast Asia Program at the Lowy Institute. He has been a Senior Economic Analyst at the Reserve Bank of Australia, a policy adviser to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and is a Professor of Economics at Macquarie University. From 2016 to 2021, he served as the senior economic adviser to Myanmar’s democratic government, led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
Hervé Lemahieu is the Director of Research at the Lowy Institute.
A copy of the book is included in the ticket price.
Memorial Event
Ambassador Martin Indyk AM
20th August 2024
Speeches:
Dr Michael Fullilove AM
Steven Lowy AM, on behalf of Sir Frank Lowy AC and the Board of the Lowy Institute
Peter Khalil MP, on behalf of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese
US Consul General, Christine Elder, on behalf of the Government of the United States
Shelley Indyk
David Gonski AC
Robert Goot AO SC, on behalf of
Emeritus Professor Murray Goot
Tony Jones
Bruce Solomon
On Monday 12 August 2024 we hosted the FDC-Lowy Institute Pacific Panel with leading experts and practitioners on advancing gender equality in the Pacific Islands.
We heard from those making a positive difference in the region and why gender equality is essential to addressing local and global challengesSpecial introductory remarks were delivered by the Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Senator the Hon Penny Wong.
The panel was moderated by Dr Jessica Collins, Research Fellow on the Pacific Islands Program at the Lowy Institute, with special guest speakers from around the region including:
Stephanie Copus Campbell AM - Australia’s Ambassador for Gender Equality.
Lailanie Burnes - Westpac Women in Business Executive “Manager of the Year” awardee; host of Fiji’s first dedicated women’s sports television program Soaring Marama; World Rugby Women in Rugby Leadership Scholar; Fijian Drua and Super Rugby commentator; and former captain, Fijian Women’s Rugby team.
Dr Fiona Hukula - Gender Equality Policy Adviser, Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat. Former Senior Research Fellow and Programme Leader Building Safer Communities, PNG NRI, former Deputy Chair PNG Constitutional and Law Reform Commission.
Loau Donina Va’a - CEO, Samoan Ministry for Women, Community and Social Development; Chair, Pacific Women’s Professional and Business Network; former Board member, NSW Council for Pacific Communities; and founder of the first Pacific Women’s Network in Australia.
Panellists discussed progress towards Pacific women’s advancement drawing on their experience in business, leadership, sport and economic empowerment, sharing inspirational stories of success and thoughts on where further gains can be made.
This Pacific Panel was supported by the Foundation for Development Cooperation, which established the FDC Pacific Fellowship in conjunction with the Lowy Institute.
Eminent military historian and strategist Sir Lawrence Freedman talks with the Lowy Institute’s Sam Roggeveen about whether there is a plausible path towards peace or a ceasefire, the implications of a Trump Administration on support for Ukraine’s war effort, whether Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian civilian targets are working, and innovations on the battlefield. Roggeveen also asks Freedman: what did you get wrong in your early analysis of the war?
Recorded on Wednesday 24 July 2024
The Lowy Institute’s Southeast Asia Aid Map is the most comprehensive account of development projects in Southeast Asia ever assembled. Using millions of data points, the Aid Map tracks more than 120,000 projects from more than 100 development partners to all eleven Southeast Asian countries. In this digital launch, Lowy Institute scholars Roland Rajah, Alexandre Dayant, Grace Stanhope and Susannah Patton discuss the key findings and what they mean for development and geopolitics in the region.
The Treasurer will speak on the domestic and international economy, and the government’s agenda to position Australia as an indispensable part of the global economy. After his remarks, the Lowy Institute's Executive Director Dr Michael Fullilove AM will chair a Q&A session with the Treasurer.
The Hon Dr Jim Chalmers MP is the Treasurer of Australia. He has been the Member for Rankin in the House of Representatives since 2013. He served as Shadow Treasurer from 2019 to 2022, and Shadow Minister for Finance from 2016 to 2019. Prior to Dr Chalmers’ election to parliament, he was the Executive Director of the Chifley Research Centre and Chief of Staff to the Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer. He has a PhD in political science and international relations from the Australian National University and a first-class honours degree in public policy from Griffith University and is a qualified company director.