Ideas at the House

The scale of the Middle East refugee crisis is overwhelming authorities. But war, failed states and climate change seem to be the new world normal – and so does the global flow of desperate people. What does it mean for the future?

Philippe Legrain is a critically acclaimed thinker and communicator who has also been a senior policy adviser. A senior visiting fellow at the London School of Economics’ European Institute, he is the founder of Open Political Economy Network (OPEN), an international think-tank. A columnist for Project Syndicate, Foreign Policy and CapX, he commentates for many international media outlets. From 2011 to 2014 he was economic adviser to the President of the European Commission and head of the team providing the president with strategic policy advice. Previously he was special adviser to World Trade Organisation director-general Mike Moore and trade and economics correspondent for The Economist. Philippe is the author of four successful books, includingImmigrants: Your Country Needs Them (2007), which was shortlisted for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year, and European Spring: Why Our Economies and Politics are in a Mess – and How to Put Them Right(2014), which was among the FT’s Best Books of 2014. His first study for OPEN is Refugees Work: A Humanitarian Investment that Yields Economic Dividends (2016).

As The Economist's environment correspondent, Miranda Johnson attended UN climate negotiations at COP21, the UN Paris Climate Conference, and the GLACIER conference on the state of the Arctic, in Alaska, last year. She also helped run The Economist's own recent events on energy and sustainability in England. Prior to this, Miranda was the influential UK title’s US southeast correspondent based in Atlanta, Georgia, and has written for its International, Europe, United States, Britain, China, Science and Business sections, on topics ranging from youth unemployment to energy policy and smartphones to fiscal corruption. Miranda also edited online coverage as a science correspondent and served as the editorial assistant for The Economist’s 'The World in 2014' publication.

Hamish Macdonald is an award winning International Affairs Correspondent and Harvard Fellow. In recent years Hamish has covered war in Ukraine, the rise if ISIS in the Middle East, missing Nigerian schoolgirls, and the Gaza conflict. Previously, Hamish worked as anchor and correspondent for Aljazeera English. At Australia’s Ten Network he was creator, Executive Producer & host of prime-time documentary series ‘The Truth Is?’. Hamish has received a prestigious Walkley Award for Journalism and a Human Rights Australia Award for Journalism. Britain’s Royal Television Society named him “Young Journalist of the Year” in 2008 and GQ Magazine named Hamish “Media Man of the Year” in 2012.

Jane McAdam is Scientia Professor of Law and Director of the Andrew & Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at UNSW. She is a non-resident Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy at The Brookings Institution in Washington DC, a Research Associate at Oxford University’s Refugee Studies Centre, and an Associated Senior Fellow at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Norway. Professor McAdam publishes widely in international refugee law and forced migration, with a particular focus on climate change and mobility. She is Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Refugee Law, the leading journal in the field. Professor McAdam serves on a number of international committees, and has provided expert advice to organizations including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the International Organization for Migration, and the World Bank. She holds a doctorate in law from the University of Oxford, and first class honours degrees in law and history from the University of Sydney. In 2013, she was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. In 2015, she was honoured as one of Australia's top ten Women of Influence, winning the ‘global’ category of the Australian Financial Review and Westpac’s 100 Women of Influence awards.

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The tumultuous 17th century Enlightenment created the modern mind. What were the radical forces that shaped this intellectual world view we still share? And how is this under threat today?

A.C. Grayling is the Master of the New College of the Humanities, London, and its Professor of Philosophy, and the author of over thirty books of philosophy, biography, history of ideas, and essays. His new book, The Age of Genius, was published by Bloomsbury in April 2016. He is a columnist for Prospect magazine, and was for a number of years a columnist on The Guardian and Times. He has contributed to many leading newspapers in the UK, US and Australia, and to BBC radios 4, 3, 2 and the World Service, for which he did the annual 'Exchanges at the Frontier' series; and he has often appeared on television. He has twice been a judge on the Booker Prize, in 2015 serving as the Chair of the judging panel. He is a Vice President of the British Humanist Association, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

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In a time of turmoil, what happens when art and politics collide? Molly Crabapple is an artist and journalist who has covered Occupy Wall Street, Guantanamo Bay, migrant workers in Abu Dhabi, the US prison system, and the Syrian civil war.  Is it time for art to get out of the galleries and back on to the street?

Molly Crabapple is an artist, journalist, author of the memoir, Drawing Blood and, according to New Republic, "an emblem of the way art can break out of the gilded gallery”. She has drawn and reported from Guantanamo Bay, Abu Dhabi's migrant labor camps, and in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank, and Iraqi Kurdistan. Crabapple is a contributing editor for VICE, and has written for publications including The New York Times, Paris Review, and Vanity Fair. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.

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When you're on a bicycle at a red light with no car or pedestrian in sight, do you still wait for the green? Do you obey every single law? Surely fearful compliance with every niggling regulation defies the much-vaunted "freedom" that is the premise of democracy. Maybe that’s what drives our fascination with film and fiction criminality: we envy renegades. Is breaking a rule a day better than an apple for your health?

Lionel Shriver's books include the international bestselling We Need to Talk About Kevin as well as Big Brother, New Republic, So Much For That, The Post-Birthday World, Double Fault and Game Control. Her latest book isThe Mandibles (2016). She writes frequently for the Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and The Independent. Lionel lives in London and Brooklyn, New York.

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Have we entered the golden age of surveillance? With our own devices recording everything we do, have we brought this on ourselves? Does the Apple vs the FBI case expose our underlying tensions about privacy, technology and national security?

Lev Grossman is the author of five novels, including the #1 New York Times bestselling Magicians trilogy, published in 25 countries and made into an hour-long drama on the Syfy channel. Grossman is the book critic for Time magazine and has written essays and criticism for Salon, Slate, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Wired, Lingua Franca, The Week, Village Voice and The Believer, among others. He lives in New York City with his wife and three children.

Tobias Feakin is the founding director of the ASPI International Cyber Policy Centre. He researches how cyberspace is used by state and non-state actors and creating collaborative national and international policy responses. He is an Oxford Martin Associate at the Oxford University Global Cyber Security Capacity Centre and a Research Advisor for the Global Commission on Internet Governance.

Alastair MacGibbon is the Special Adviser to the Prime Minister on Cyber Security, Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet. He was Formerly Children's eSafety Commissioner, General Manager (Security) for Dimension Data Australia, Director of the Centre for Internet Safety at the University of Canberra and Managing Partner at Surete Group, CEO Council of Registered Ethical Security Testers (CREST) Australia. As well as the Former Director of the Australian High Tech Crime Centre and Federal Agent with the Australian Federal Police. 

Dr Katina Michael is a professor in the School of Information Systems and Technology at the University of Wollongong whose research looks at the socio-ethical implications of emerging technologies. She is the senior editor-in-chief of the IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, and senior editor of the IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine. Since 2008 she has been a board member of the Australian Privacy Foundation, and until recently was the Vice-Chair.

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Class war, multiculturalism, race, politics, culture wars, free speech, global warming - Bolt’s favourite targets get audiences excited, and this is a rare chance to explore where his ideas come from and whether he thinks they are dangerous. How dangerous is being an Australian commentator speaking your mind without reservation?

Andrew Bolt is Australia’s most-read political commentator, published in the Herald Sun, Daily Telegraph, Courier-Mail and Advertiser and runs Australia’s most popular political blog. On weeknights he hosts The Bolt Report on Sky News at 7pm and his Macquarie Radio show at 8pm, the top-rating show in its time slot in Melbourne and Sydney. His first book of columns, Still Not Sorry, was a best-seller and his second, Worth Fighting For, was released in June. Andrew was born in Adelaide and has worked on Labor election campaigns, the State Opera of South Australia and flower exporters in The Netherlands. He is married with three children and two dogs.

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Have decades of social, political and economic change in the United States wrecked its social cohesion and a sense of community? How does the American dream work today?

George Packer is the author, most recently, of The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America, a New York Times bestseller, which won the National Book Award for non-fiction in 2013. He has published four other works of non-fiction, including The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq, which received several prizes and was named one of the ten best books of 2005 by The New York Times Book Review; two novels; and a play,Betrayed, based on a New Yorker article, which ran five months Off Broadway in 2008 and won the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play. He is the editor of The Fight Is for Democracy: Winning the War of Ideas in America and the World, and of a two-volume edition of George Orwell’s essays. Packer has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2003. 

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Hot off the U.S. convention and campaign trail, America’s favourite living wit and best-selling author P.J. O'Rourke is heading straight to our stage to deliver his Dangerous State of the Nation. P.J. O’Rourke is a collection of curious contradictions. Roaming foreign affairs correspondent for Rolling Stone magazine for 20 years, he is also a conservative Republican satirist who recently reluctantly backed Hilary Clinton as “the second-worst thing that can happen to [America].” Former gonzo Editor of National Lampoon and writer of Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government, he is now the H.L Mencken Research Fellow at the Cato Institute. Whether you share his political persuasions or not, his penchant for stiff drink or not, PJ O’Rourke has the rare ability to make you laugh out loud while being aghast at the same time. Join humourist hellraiser P.J. O’Rourke for a rollicking ride across the US political landscape and a firsthand assessment of the candidates hoping to make it into the White House in 2017.

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Ira Glass, creator and host of podcast phenomenon This American Life joined us at the Sydney Opera House to deliver a once in a lifetime workshop on broadcast journalism for university students. Share the wisdom of one of the world's most listened-to podcast hosts as he walks you through the elements that make a successful radio story. He discusses everything from how he got his start in the industry through to how to score a radio story. 

A number of radio stories are featured throughout this recording and they were kindly contributed by AFTRS students: Ryan Pemberton, Lex Hall, Pat Carey, Sajarn Stow, Kit Mochan and Tim Reuben

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Are the arts in crisis? What does the future hold for creative companies, both large and small? Join us to discuss the changing face of arts funding, the impact of the recent cuts, and the response from artists and arts companies across Australia. The panel will include Michael Lynch CBE AM, Nick Atkins, Lily Shearer and Tamara Winikoff OAM. Michael Lynch CBE AM As one of Australia's most recognised and experienced arts administrators and cultural figures, Michael has lead some of Australia's most prominent arts companies including Sydney Theatre Company, the Australia Council for the Arts and the Sydney Opera House. From 2002 to 2009 he was chief executive of the South Bank Centre in London and has also served as Director of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and as a board member of Film Victoria. Michael was the CEO of the West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong until 2015 and is now the chair of the Sydney Community Foundation.. Nick Atkins A theatre maker and producer, Nick is currently the Producer for Q Programs at The Joan and Board Member of PACT Centre for Emerging Artists. His work at The Q has seen him develop and implement the Young Artist Program. Previously Nick worked as the Associate Producer and Co-Artistic Director of Crack Theatre Festival. From this role he collaboratively programmed the festivals presentation, panel and masterclass series. Lily Shearer A proud citizen of the Murrwarri Republic and Ngemba Nation (north-west NSW/south-east QLD), Lily has over thirty years of experience in First Peoples Cultural Development, Arts Management and in theatre and performance making. She is currently a freelance performance artist, cultural collaborator and a founding and volunteer member of the Mooghalin Artistic Directorate. Tamara Winikoff OAM Tamara Winikoff is Executive Director of the National Association of Visual Arts (NAVA) and well known in Australia as an arts advocate, cultural commentator and senior arts manager. Tamara has been involved in arts management for over thirty years and has spoken, written and published extensively about cultural and design issues.

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