Boyer Lectures

"Australia has never been a monoculture.  Its history is not a singular narrative.  It is polyphonous, multilingual, plural. Yet the country keeps looping back into the same stale old arguments, driven by domestic politics."  

How can we engage meaningfully with Asia when we haven’t come to terms with our own Asian history? That’s the question driving Louisa Lim – the first Asian Boyer lecturer.  

She argues that in forgetting or erasing a huge part of our national story, we have crippled our capacity to understand Asia and to capitalise on the opportunities that Asia presents. If we really want to embrace an Asian future, we need to do more to reclaim our Asian past.  

Credits:

• Presented by Louisa Lim, an award-winning journalist and author, Associate Professor of Journalism at the University of Melbourne and co-host of The Little Red Podcast.
• Featured audio thanks to (in order of appearance):
  • William Yang and the National Portrait Gallery 'Portrait Story: William Yang' 2022. Music by Philip Daniel. Produced by the National Portrait Gallery with funds provided by Tim Fairfax AC © National Portrait Gallery
  • Noah Szto, Comedian.
  • Grace Yee, Poet. Grace was reading from her collection Joss: A History, published in 2025 by Giramondo Publishing.
• Series introduced by Geraldine Doogue and Hamish Macdonald
• Producer: Taryn Priadko
• Sound Engineer: Emrys Cronin and Tim Jenkins

More information

If you'd like to seek out some of the texts exploring Australia's Asian history, you can start here:

• Sinophone Australia (2026) edited by Craig A. Smith, Sydney University Press
• South Flows the Pearl; Chinese Australian Voices (2022), by Mavis Gock Yen, Sydney University Press
• The Poison of Polygamy;  A Social Novel (2019) by Wong Shee Ping, Ely Finch, Mei-fen Kuo, Michael Williams
• First Name, Second Name by Steve MinOn (2025), UQP
• A Short History of Longans by Mirandi Riwoe (2026), UQP
• Scattered Legacy website
• Our Chinese Past website

"Australia can’t afford to turn its back on Asia the way the UK turned its back on Europe. If there is a key to averting such a future, it is for Australians to internalise the fact that we can no longer rely on powerful friends. Creating the conditions for an Australia that stands strong and independent in Asia begins with a simple act of recognition: we must look after ourselves." 

The Keynote Boyer Lecturer for 2026 is Sam Roggeveen, Director of the Lowy Institute's International Security Program. 

Sam argues that Australia’s place in the region is being dramatically transformed by three tectonic shifts: the decline of one empire, the rise of another, and the emergence of a powerful neighbour right on Australia’s doorstep. On top of this, he says a fourth potent force is at play: an unmistakeable change in the character of Western liberal democracy, including here in Australia.  

This is the beginning of Asia’s post-Western era, says Sam, and how Australia navigates this moment will have consequences for years to come.  

After the Keynote address, Hamish Macdonald and Geraldine Doogue joined Sam Roggeveen in a lively discussion flowing from the keynote address. 

Credits:

• Presented by Sam Roggeveen, Director of the Lowy Institute's International Security Program.
• Series introduced by Geraldine Doogue and Hamish Macdonald
• Producer: Taryn Priadko
• Sound Engineer:  Harvey O'Sullivan

In our fifth and final Boyer Lecture for 2025, James Curran, professor of modern history at the University of Sydney, analyses our partnership with the world’s most powerful democracy, the USA, addressing options for how we can deal with, and even construct, a post -American future.

In his talk, Professor Curran argues that we need to stop hoping for ‘regional strategic equilibrium' because US primacy is a thing of the past.  Instead, we need to look for new solutions within our Asia-Pacific region to secure amity, commerce, and cooperation into the future.

“The point is not that we cannot have an independent foreign policy: the point is that it does not need to be articulated by the shaking cans of bully beef or dressing up the Eureka Stockade incident in the borrowed robes of Gettysburg or the storming of the Bastille.  We cannot be entirely dependent of the US and China because their actions still have such a powerful influence on us. And we need to retain influence in Washington and Beijing to press the cause of peace.”

Credits:

• Presented by James Curran, professor of modern history at the University of Sydney
• Series curated and introduced by Dr Julia Baird
• Executive Producer, Julia Baird
• Producer,  Gail Boserio
• Sound Engineer, Simon Branthwaite

In the fourth Boyer Lecture for 2025, Amelia Lester, deputy editor at Foreign Policy Magazine in Washington, explores why it is so difficult to have meaningful discussions about the possible repercussions of Artificial Intelligence in all our lives. Given it is being described as possibly more transformative than electricity, even more transformative than fire, and even worthy of threatening our very human nature, what needs to happen?

If it seems that we are being carried along a road without return, Amelia begs to differ, arguing that given Australia’s track record in standing up for workers’ rights and human rights puts us in a good place to exercise action against these threats to our very humanness.

“A handful of big tech companies control what we know about AI, and because these companies want to consolidate oligopoly control over the AI ecosystem, we’re constantly having to parse what’s factual and what’s hype. But just because AI’s hard to talk about, doesn’t mean we have to resign ourselves to it, or any technology, being harmful to humanity.”

Credits:

• Presented by Amelia Lester, deputy editor at Foreign Policy Magazine in Washington.
• Series curated and introduced by Dr Julia Baird
• Executive Producer, Julia Baird
• Producer,  Gail Boserio
• Sound Engineer, Simon Branthwaite

Larissa Behrendt, AO a Euahleyai/Gamillaroi woman and Distinguished Professor of Law and Inaugural Chair in Indigenous Research at the University of Technology, is passionate about the Australian courts’ record of upholding democracy, but reminds us the legal system has been used to exclude and discriminate against First Nations people.  

In the third Boyer Lecture for 2025, she presents a three-point remedy to get us past the ‘us and them’ mentality, highlighting the necessity and importance of truth and story-telling and the critical importance of universities, the arts and creative and cultural institutions to forge a truly healthy democracy.

Larissa Behrendt also advocates for the inclusion of ancient Indigenous philosophies into our traditional Western liberal traditions, to create a truly inclusive and engaging democracy.

“The law is shaped by power. It reflects who has a voice, and who does not. If we want a fairer society, we must ensure the law listens to those too often silenced.  And we have to acknowledge that at the heart of the Constitution, there lies an historic and structural wound.”

Credits

• Presented by Larissa Behrendt, AO 
• Series curated and introduced by Julia Baird
• Executive Producer, Julia Baird
• Producer,  Gail Boserio
• Sound Engineer, Simon Branthwaite

In the second Boyer Lecture for 2025, the Hon John Anderson, AC, farmer, grazier and former deputy prime minister of Australia, takes a sweeping look over our history and concludes that the liberal world order that has so far defined us, is ending.

While such turning points require big and important decisions, what happens to Australia, he understands, is inextricably linked to what happens to the global democratic order.

John Anderson argues for the need to counter distrust, disengagement and other pressing social issues, and has found in talking to many young participants in his podcast series, that the views of the young need to be far better respected to foster new Australian leadership.

“As the great American economic historian Thomas Sowell put it best, ‘Civilisation doesn’t always sustain itself, it has to be built, maintained, defended, and most importantly understood.’   When that understanding is lost, decline is not just likely, it becomes inevitable.  And that’s the illusion we’re living under today – that civilisation is permanent – but it isn’t.”

Credits:

• Presented by Hon John Anderson, AC, farmer, grazier and former deputy prime minister of Australia
• Series curated and introduced by Dr Julia Baird
• Executive Producer, Julia Baird
• Producer,  Gail Boserio
• Sound Engineer, Simon Branthwaite

The Keynote Boyer Lecturer for 2025 is Justin Wolfers, Professor of Economics and Public Policy from the University of Michigan and visiting Professor at the University of NSW.

After many years teaching in the USA, he argues that Australia’s political institutions are unique; in fact, they are the very key to its prosperity and asks if we require a form of conservative radicalism to preserve them.

“Australia’s institutions are world-leading – which might seem like an unlikely argument if you follow the news. Every day we’re bombarded by bulletins of broken institutions: Power-hungry politicians; dysfunction and deadlocked debate, and the maddening messiness of democracy. But travel the world and you’ll get a different perspective. Australia’s rules aren’t perfect, but just about every other country is imperfect-er.”

Credits:

• Presented by Justin Wolfers.,  Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of Michigan.
• Series curated and introduced by Julia Baird
• Executive Producer, Julia Baird
• Producer,  Gail Boserio
• Sound Engineer, Simon Branthwaite

"Whilst our new Australian choral music began in a classical context, artistic collaborations have extended our musical realm to a point where it no longer fits this classification – it is simply choral music." 

As the founder of Gondwana Choirs, Lyn Williams AM is particularly well placed to talk about the future of classical music. Her work with children over 30 years has created a whole new choral repertoire and a new standard for children’s choirs. In the final Boyer Lecture for 2024, she looks at different kinds of excellence, what accessibility really means, and the pathways that choral singing reveals to young musicians.

Iain Grandage is a composer, a cellist, a pianist, a festival director, and a career collaborator. 

In his Boyer Lecture, he asks whether classical music has been underestimated in its capacity to connect communities. His work with Indonesian Gamelan ensembles, Noongar elders, theatre companies and the late, great Jimmy Chi, provide waypoints on a long journey from childhood piano lessons to a mature acquisition of knowledge that only serves to reveal how much more understanding is still to seek. 

“There is much to be gained by tapping into the tens of thousands of years of culture that we have available to us in this country. Exposing more people to it can only help to highlight our shared humanity, and to advance the cause of reconciliation.”

Aaron Wyatt is a Noongar, Yamatji and Wongi musician: a conductor, composer, violist, educator and programmer. And as the Artistic Director of Ensemble Dutala, Australia’s first First Nations chamber ensemble, he’s working to rectify the conditions in the classical music industry that often see him being the only Indigenous person in an orchestra. 

In their 2024 Boyer Lecture, Aaron traces the ways that classical music in Australia has attempted to fold in Indigenous ideas, music, and people – from the appropriative, to the naive, the collaborative, and the groundbreaking. 

This lecture was written on Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Land and produced on Gadigal Land.