Experience Anu

The belief that China will soon become the dominant power in Asia is based on assumptions that its continued and rapid economic rise, and its emergence as a regional peer of America’s in military terms is all but assured. Such a belief underpins arguments that a fundamental strategic reorganisation of Asia is inevitable, and that it will be necessary and perhaps even desirable to concede to China significant ‘strategic space’. Dependent largely on linear extrapolations about the future, such arguments ignore the implications of China’s economic, social and national fragilities, its lack of major friends or allies in the region as well as the considerable military deficiencies and challenges faced by the People’s Liberation Army. With the Defence White Paper due for release in 2015, the government should bear in mind that planning for an era of Chinese dominance in the region—or even its emergence as an American strategic peer in Asia—would be premature if not improbable. Australia should not design its defenc

ANU/Canberra Times meet the author event with Anna Bligh in conversation with The Hon Tanya Plibersek MP Anna Bligh knows something about hard knocks and high walls. She was raised by a single mother in the working class Gold Coast, a young girl with a soon-to-be-estranged dad who struggled with alcoholism. She spent over 17 years in the rough and tumble of the Queensland Parliament (seven of them as either Deputy Premier or Premier). In 2011, she led Queensland through the devastation of Australia's largest natural disasters. Her Party then lost the 2012 State election and Anna stepped down to start a new life, only to find herself diagnosed with cancer. Writing with her trademark honesty, warmth and humour about the challenges that public and private life have thrown her, Anna reflects candidly - as a wife, mother, daughter, friend and political leader - on the lessons of leadership, resilience, community and family. Anna Bligh became Deputy Premier of Queensland in 2005 and Premier in 2007. In March

Antibiotic resistance is rapidly rising internationally. Many bacterial infections are now very difficult, and sometimes impossible, to treat. Gram negative bacteria are the pointy end of this growing problem, including very common bacteria such as E. Coli. Antibiotic resistance is proportional to use. The more antibiotics used, the more resistance develops and spreads. This is both in individuals (e.g. with the pneumonia bacteria - pneumococcus) and for populations in different countries. Decreasing the total amounts of antimicrobial used in people and agriculture, decreasing corruption in countries around the world, adopting a One Health approach and ensuring people and food animals have access to “safe” water will all make major contributions to controlling antimicrobial resistance. Presented by Professor Peter Collignon AM. Exec Director, ACT Pathology. Infectious Diseases Physician and Microbiologist, Canberra Hospital. Professor, ANU Medical School.

The incoming Head of the ANU National Security College, Professor Rory Medcalf, offers some assessments on the long-term policy choices Australians and their governments will need to make to advance their country’s security interests in the uncertain decades ahead. Professor Rory Medcalf commenced as the Head of the National Security College in January 2015. His professional background spans diplomacy, intelligence analysis, think tanks and journalism. Most recently he was the Director of the International Security Program at the Lowy Institute for International Policy from 2007 to 2015.

His Excellency Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão is the Minister of Planning and Strategic Investment for the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste. He has served as President of his country for five years, Prime Minister for seven and a half years and was a central figure in his country’s 24-year struggle for the restoration of independence. In this public address he discussed Political Transition and National Unity: The Timor-Leste Story, exploring the lessons of nation building and transition in Australia’s ‘near neighbor to the north’. He reflected on the ways Timor-Leste’s experience relates to international experience and present his views on how emerging global trends are impacting developing nations and fragile States. His Excellency Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão is the Minister of Planning and Strategic Investment of the Government of Timor-Leste. Until stepping aside in February 2015 to facilitate a generational leadership transition, he was the Prime Minister of his country for seven and a half years. Prior to this r

Internationally acclaimed author David Malouf joins Gerard Vaughan AM in conversation for a discussion featuring art, literature and music. After exploring the idea of home, where and what it is in A First Place, what does it mean to be a writer and where writing begins in The Writing Life, David Malouf moves on to words, music, art and performance in Being There. With pieces on the Sydney Opera House - then and now - responses to art, artists and architects, and including Malouf’s previously unpublished libretti for Voss and a translation of Hippolytus, this is an unmissable and stimulating collection of one man’s connection to the world of art, ideas and culture. David Malouf’s Collected Stories won the 2008 Australia-Asia Literary Award and his most recent books are A First Place and The Writing Life. Dr Gerard Vaughan AM is the Director of the National Gallery of Australia, a position he has held since November 2014.

The rise of the so-called Islamic State (IS) on vast swathes of territories in Syria and Iraq, and the US-led military response to it, have introduced another complex dimension to an oil-rich but already very volatile Middle East. The old correlation of forces in support of maintaining the status quo, especially following the Iranian revolution more than 35 years ago, has been changing. A set of new alignments and realignments along multiple regional fault-lines, including sectarian divisions and geopolitical rivalries at different levels, has come to redefine the region and possibly change its traditional political and territorial contours. IS has confronted all the regional states, from the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with a common enemy. Yet, it is the United States and its Western allies that have taken the lead in launching a military intervention to ‘degrade and eliminate’ IS, despite lacking a laudable past record in this respect. This raises a number of questions. Should

Science has evolved over thousands of years of human enquiry to provide a rational basis for understanding and predicting what happens in the world around us. We rely on science to enhance our standard of living, to keep us healthy and to address the problems and challenges that we face. Science has put men on the moon, probed distant planets, discovered DNA and cured disease. And yet, there are many who still question the value and legitimacy of science which raises the question: when and why does science matter? Four of the world’s most eminent scientists come together at ANU for one night only to discuss and deliberate on the biggest challenges facing the science community today. If you don’t think science matters to you, you may think again. Professor Steven Chu was the co-recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize for Physics. He has devoted his recent scientific career to the search for new solutions to our energy and climate challenges. In December 2008 Dr Chu was selected by then President-elect Barack

In today’s classrooms academics and teachers are increasingly expected to incorporate new communication technologies into their curriculum. However, by adopting these new mediums are we reducing the quality of students’ educational experience or is this just the way of the classrooms of tomorrow? In the final ‘blow up the lecture’ event for the year, our panel of experts examine the future of education in an online world addressing questions such as: What digital resources can we harness to enhance our massive open online courses (MOOCs)? Are there any resources that need rapid development? What is our single most relevant hurdle to fully harnessing digital education What are the key target populations for ANU in online learning? What do you think are the measures of success for MOOCs? Armando Fox is a professor in Berkeley's Electrical Engineering & Computer Science Department and the Faculty Advisor to the UC Berkeley MOOCLab. With his colleague David Patterson, he co-designed and co-taught Berkeley's f

Professor Steven Chu gives the plenary opening at the Light, Energy and the Environment Congress held on 5 December 2014.

The Australian community has, to an unprecedented extent, become involved in reconciliation through Reconciliation Action Plans and other initiatives. There is acceptance that there is a broad responsibility beyond governments to help close the gap. At the same time we have sharpened political and government focus with a Prime Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, massive reorganisation of how the Commonwealth goes about its business, and all-party support for Constitutional recognition. In these respects, it can be said to be the best of times. But the wide community support this suggests is support for equality, that we all become the same in a social and economic sense. Reconciliation is about more than equality. It involves recognition of the possibility of continuing difference as well. The continuing place of the world's oldest living cultures is still unfinished business. Reconciliation here requires more than the legally mandated post-Mabo requirement to deal with the Aboriginal native title collectives id

In his valedictory address, outgoing Head of College Professor Michael L'Estrange argues that the NSC is a good example of how the worlds of public policy and academia can best work together.

In this podcast ANU classics expert Dr Ioannis Ziogas delivers the 2014 Last Lecture. Classics, the study of the ancient Greek and Roman world, deals with the traditional literature of Greece and Rome and the themes of history, philosophy, and culture. Dr Ziogas says it makes it a multi-faceted and diverse subject for students to learn, especially since the topic is always on the news and in movies. “It actually covers a lot of motifs that are appealing to this young age group – the coming of age, the challenges within families, discovering yourself – all these lie at the heart of Greek myth and all these issues appeal to the young students.” The Last Lecture is an initiative supported by the Dean of Students, the ANU Students' Association (ANUSA) and the Postgraduate and Research Students' Association (PARSA). Around 1,200 students voted in the Last Lecture process. They chose from 100 lecturers who made it through to final nominations.

This talk was given at The Australian National University on 22 October 2014. The Art of Belonging advances the argument put forward in Mackay's bestselling The Good Life: a 'good life' is not lived in isolation or in the pursuit of independent goals; a good life is lived at the heart of a thriving community, among people we trust, and within an environment of mutual respect. Drawing on 50 years' experience as a social researcher, Mackay creates a fictional suburb, Southwood, and populates it with characters who - like most of us - struggle to reconcile their need to belong with their desire to live life on their own terms. He chronicles the numerous human interactions and inevitable conflicts that arise in a community when characters assert their own needs at the expense of others. The Art of Belonging is the book that will reignite the conversation about how we want to live; it will provide the framework for those who argue for a particular vision of community, one that sustains, protects and nurtures th

The 2014 OAA-ANU Lecture The world’s tallest flowering plants – the Mountain Ash forests – lie just 90 minutes’ drive north-east from the Melbourne Cricket Ground. They are the world’s most carbon dense ecosystems. They yield almost all of Melbourne’s water supply and are a critical environment for a wide range of native plants and animals. Mountain Ash forests are also subject to widespread logging, primarily for paper production and were the scene of the 2009 Black Saturday wildfires – the worst natural disaster in Australian history. The ANU has conducted key research programs on forest ecology, biodiversity conservation and disturbance (logging and fire) impacts in these forests since mid-1983 leading to a major body of new knowledge and an array of exciting scientific discoveries. In this lecture Professor David Lindenmayer summarises some of the extra-ordinary ecology of Mountain Ash forests and some sobering recent research results highlighting links between past logging operations and the elevated

One of the major questions raised regarding many protracted and violent intergroup conflicts is why the adversaries do not succeed in reaching a settlement that seems obvious and easily attainable to outsiders. This question is of special importance because despite great losses, destruction, and personal suffering, many members of societies engulfed in these conflicts remain entrenched in their conflict supporting narratives that prevent peace making process and cannot go easily through a societal change that is required in order to achieve peaceful settlement of the conflict. These conflict-supporting narratives are propagated over many years by various channels of communication and various institutions in each involved society, including the educational system. They become pillars of culture of conflict and leaders with the help of the societal institutions make all the efforts to maintain them. Various societal mechanisms are employed to prevent transmission and dissemination of alternative information tha

Seventeenth Geoffrey Sawer Lecture 2014 Geoffrey Sawer was the first Professor of Law at The Australian National University, appointed in 1950 at the age of 40. His fluid and incisive writing, especially on Australian constitutional law and politics, has had a significant impact on succeeding generations of academics, practitioners and judges. In 1998, two years after Sawer’s death in 1996, in honour of this pioneering scholar, the Dean of the ANU College of Law, Michael Coper, with then Centre for International and Public Law Director Hilary Charlesworth, inaugurated the annual Sawer Lecture. Since then, the annual lecture has been delivered by such luminaries as Sir Ninian Stephen, Sir Gerard Brennan, and Professor Leslie Zines. Ms Deborah Glass OBE is the current Victorian Ombudsman. She was appointed in March 2014; the appointment is for a term of 10 years. Deborah has recently stepped down as Deputy Chair of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) of England and Wales, completing a 10-year

After enacting an array of new anti-terror laws in the years following the September 11 attacks, Australia is now seeking to introduce additional laws in response to the threat posed by fighters returning from conflicts in Syria and Iraq. This talk will examine whether these measures are needed, exploring whether Australia already has the laws in place to protect the community from home-grown terrorism? Drawing from current examples, Professor George Williams will consider if changes need to be made. This includes such measures as the collection of metadata on calls and internet use, reversing the onus of proof by deeming a person guilty of an offence if they travel to certain locations, and making it easier for government to ban organisations (and jail their members) based on their speech about terrorism. George Williams AO is the Anthony Mason Professor at the University of New South Wales. As an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow, Professor Williams is engaged in a multi-year project on ant

Graeme Simsion talks about his latest book, creative processes and adapting the Rosie Project for the big screen. The Rosie Project was an international publishing phenomenon, with more than a million copies sold in over forty countries around the world. Now Graeme Simsion returns with the highly anticipated sequel, The Rosie Effect. Don Tillman and Rosie Jarman are now married and living in New York. Just as Don is about to announce that Gene, his philandering best friend from Australia, is coming to stay, Rosie drops a bombshell: she’s pregnant. In true Tillman style, Don instantly becomes an expert on all things obstetric. But in between immersing himself in a new research study on parenting and implementing the Standardised Meal System (pregnancy version), Don’s old weaknesses resurface. And while he strives to get the technicalities right, he gets the emotions all wrong, and risks losing Rosie when she needs him most. Graeme Simsion was born in Auckland and is a Melbourne-based writer of short stori

Authoritarian regimes are under siege in many parts of the world. Some have already given way and others are likely to follow. Building democracies in their place will not be easy or quick, and in some cases it will not happen in the medium term. Much has been learned about how to organize free and fair elections, but building the other institutions and the habits of democratic governance inevitably takes time. Some countries in transition face intense divisions that make democracy challenging to achieve. But the historic possibility of decisive movement from exclusionary and repressive rule toward more open, inclusionary and accountable democratic governance beckons in North and sub-Saharan Africa, Western Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Caribbean. Learning how unexpected transitions toward democracy were accomplished should be of great interest to those who want to understand, undertake or support democratic transitions today. Abraham F. (Abe) Lowenthal has combined two careers: as an analyst of Latin Americ