On Friday 14 June 2024 we had our inaugural lecture in honour of Allan Gyngell, the first Executive Director of the Lowy Institute and one of Australia’s most respected foreign policy thinkers. Allan’s friend and contemporary, Ric Smith, delivered the Lecture on the subject of statecraft — a notion dear to Allan, and one that reaches beyond routine foreign policy and diplomacy and implies vision, a sense of history, and a strategic appreciation of a nation’s place in the world.

Ric Smith AO joined the Department of External Affairs in 1969. He served in Australia’s diplomatic missions in India, Israel, the Philippines and Hawaii and then as Ambassador to China and Mongolia (1996–2000) and later Indonesia (2001–2002). He was Secretary of the Department of Defence from 2002 to 2006. From 2009 to 2013, he was Australia’s Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1998, and awarded a Public Service Medal in 2002 for his service in response to the Bali bombing. The Allan Gyngell Lecture honours Allan Gyngell AO (1947–2023), the first Executive Director of the Lowy Institute (2003–09). Allan was the Director-General of the Office of National Assessments, Australia’s peak intelligence analysis agency, from 2009 to 2013. He was later the National President of the Australian Institute of International Affairs and an honorary professor in the ANU’s College of Asia and the Pacific. Allan joined the Department of External Affairs in 1969, with postings in Rangoon, Singapore and Washington, DC. He headed the international division in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and served as international adviser to Prime Minister Paul Keating. ‍

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