Seventy years ago Australians were asked to give the Federal Government sweeping powers to ban communists and legislate on them, and by the narrowest of margins they voted ‘no’. Leading Australian constitutional lawyer, Professor George Williams, joins Afternoon Light to discuss the 70th anniversary of the Communist Party Referendum on 22 September 2021.

Prominent Australian economist, Henry Ergas AO, joins Afternoon Light to discuss the economic legacy of the Menzies era, a period of sustained economic growth where unemployment was virtually zero, home ownership expanded rapidly, and the middle class, the backbone of Menzies’s forgotten people, made up an ever-increasing proportion of Australian society.

Sean Jacobs is the author of a new biographical monograph on Neville Bonner, the first Indigenous member of Australia’s Federal Parliament.

Neville Bonner was a truly remarkable Australian. Not only did he blaze a trail as the first Indigenous member of our Federal Parliament, but his life serves as a shining example of an individual overcoming tremendous disadvantage in order to make a real impact.

Sean is a Papua New Guinean-born Australian writer and public policy specialist who brings a unique perspective to a subject that deserves far more attention.

Stephen Loosley AM speaks about Australia in the leadup to the signing of ANZUS, particularly the contribution of Labor Prime Ministers John Curtin and Ben Chifley, how ANZUS operates in the present day and what the future holds for the Alliance.

Stephen Loosley AM is Deputy Chairman of Thales Australia, and Non-Resident Fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and the US Studies Centre. He served as a Senator for NSW in the Australian Parliament during the Hawke and Keating Governments (1990-1995), where he chaired both the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade and the Senate Regulations Committee.

As we continue our ANZUS podcast series on Afternoon Light, US foreign policy expert Professor Timothy Lynch talks about the changing geopolitics of ANZUS, from World War II, the Cold War, and the rise of China.

On 1 September 1951, Australia signed the ANZUS security pact with the United States and New Zealand. 70 years on, former Australian Defence Minister Dr Brendan Nelson shares his reflections on ANZUS, its legacy and its future.

Afternoon Light is the podcast of the Robert Menzies Institute at the University of Melbourne. Each week your host, Georgina Downer, will discuss Sir Robert Menzies’s contemporary legacy with guests from Australia and around the world.