This week, Statecraft is joined by the indefatigable Dan Quill to talk about that mysterious second 'P'... philosophy! As animated as always, Dan explains just how philosophy fits into a PPE degree, before walking us through some of the major strands of the discipline. Discussion revolves about the role of philosophy, not just a standalone subject, but rather a set of crucial tools with which one can better understand the workings of power and the economy. Discussion also revolves around which courses are worth the HECS debt. Not an episode to be missed, Dan helps us realise just how important and rich a basis in philosophy can be.

Next time, join us as we continue our focus on the big ideas of PPE with Sam, who adroitly explains how PPE is better than BAFE at everything. See you then!

In response to absolutely ravenous fan demand, Pillar Talk is back! We round out our programming for this semester in Lachie and Aunima’s welcome company, trying to explain a little about the social side of PPE. Our two interviewees join Kaya in an engaging group discussion, talking a little about how they were introduced to the PPE community (big shoutouts to netball), their favourite events, the role of drinking within the program, and what they get up to as executives in the society! 

Perfectly times to coincide with third-round Soiree tickets coming out this Wednesday, our third episode of the PPES Survival Guide is tailor-made to be enjoyed whilst speed-typing essays, cramming exam content, or whatever other activities are taking up the end of your semester. 

In our second episode, the Publications team dives into the murky pool that is the PPE job market! With graduate job applications in full swing (and PPE Pathways coming up on the 19th of March!), it seems high time to have a chat to some employment experts and find out their perspectives on getting students into jobs.

Our two guests for this week are Lucy Boyle, UQPPES Vice President of Vocations, and Devika Moss, a 2024 PPE graduate currently working in the Queensland Government's Policy Futures graduate program. As well as discussing what strategies this year's graduating cohort can employ, we consider what sort of opportunities other cohorts should be looking out for, as well as whether things like GPA and choice of major are as important as they're cracked up to be.

It's a new year, and with it comes new UQPPE initiatives! This is the first episode of the PPE Survival Guide, a series of interviews organised by the UQPPE Publications Portfolio to help communicate different perspectives on the degree. The PPE cohort has always been brimming with warnings, stories, and advice: our hope is that this series helps broadcast these experiences throughout the degree, as well as to give people outside of the degree a bit of an insight into what studying PPE is all about!

Our first guest is Jack Sutton, the current president of the UQPPE Society. Jack and Elliott chat about the role of president, the opportunities out there for PPE students, and what advice they would pass on to 2025's first years.

In the final episode of season one of Pillar Talk, Will and Ollie chat with Dr Cameron Murray. Cameron is a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Sydney Henry Halloran Trust, specialising in the economics of property and urban development, environmental economics, rent-seeking, and corruption.

This conversation covers a lot of these topic areas, beginning with Cameron’s work on corruption, before honing in on the ongoing crisis of housing affordability, and Cameron’s proposed solution: a policy he calls HouseMate.

To read more about this and other ideas of Cameron's check out his substack here.

This episode is a follow-up to the 2022 Statecraft Autumn Lecture, which Cameron gave back in March last year, on the topic: Why politicians must pretend to care about cheap housing. As with the lecture & podcast we did with George Brandis, you don’t need to have seen that lecture to know what’s going on here, but I recommend you checking it out anyway, as it was a real highlight of my time with the UQ PPE Society, and clarifies a lot of the issues discussed in this episode.

This is the last episode we’re uploading from the first season of Pillar Talk. As such, I just want to take a moment to thank both Will and Oliver for their efforts with the podcast in 2022. In my opinion, both did a great job hosting these episodes, and I’m particularly grateful to Will for his passion in getting the project up and running, and for his work in organising all the guests for what has been a fantastic first season. Will, Ollie, and the rest of the graduating cohort of 2022, thanks, congratulations, and all the best starting your careers post-PPE.

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Pillar Talk is published by the University of Queensland Politics, Philosophy & Economics Society. It is produced by Will Splatt and co-produced and edited by Tom Watson, with music created by Isaac Haynes. Your hosts for this episode are Will Splatt and Oliver Friendship.

If this episode has you keen for more content from the UQ PPE Society, you might want to check out our other publications: Statecraft Magazine, and The Statecraft Review.

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KPMG is a platinum sponsor of the UQ PPE Society. They provide a range of professional services for businesses, non-profits, and government, including consulting on the design and implementation of key government policies. As mentioned during the ad break, they offer two programs that might interest you: a 12-month graduate employment program, and a 4-8 week vacation internship program for students in their penultimate year of study. For more information about these opportunities, click here, or reach out to the UQ PPE Society using [email protected] to talk about meeting with one of our contacts at KPMG.

In this episode, I join Will at the table as we chat with Dr Adrian Moore.

Adrian is an academic philosopher, with a keen interest in both continental and Eastern philosophy, especially existentialism, anarchism, and Buddhism. You can read his PhD thesis, which we discuss in the podcast, here.

In this conversation, we cover these topic areas, and much more. It was a really interesting conversation to be a part of, and both Will and I found ourselves taking long detours down philosophical rabbit-holes about the nature of consciousness and the self, non-dualism, and Pythagoras’s religious obsession with the number 3.

This was a less structured and more wide-ranging chat than we normally do at Pillar Talk, and I’ve chosen to leave it uncut – in part for my own sanity as an editor, and in part to let you enjoy the rabbit-holes as much as I did. I hope you do.

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Pillar Talk is published by the University of Queensland Politics, Philosophy & Economics Society. It is produced by Will Splatt and co-produced and edited by Tom Watson, with music created by Isaac Haynes. Your hosts for this episode are Will Splatt and Oliver Friendship.

If this episode has you keen for more content from the UQ PPE Society, you might want to check out our other publications: Statecraft Magazine, and The Statecraft Review.

***

KPMG is a platinum sponsor of the UQ PPE Society. They provide a range of professional services for businesses, non-profits, and government, including consulting on the design and implementation of key government policies. As mentioned during the ad break, they offer two programs that might interest you: a 12-month graduate employment program, and a 4-8 week vacation internship program for students in their penultimate year of study. For more information about these opportunities, click here, or reach out to the UQ PPE Society using [email protected] to talk about meeting with one of our contacts at KPMG.

In this episode, Will and Ollie chat with UQ’s very own John Quiggin.

John is a bit of a favourite among UQ PPE students. One of Australia’s most prolific academic economists, and an avid blogger, he is a common contributor to public debate, and isn’t scared to share his hot takes on topical issues. John takes the third year PPE course PPES3101, where he draws on his experience as a former member of the Australian Climate Change Authority to deliver a course focused on the economic and political dimensions of climate change. 

In this conversation, John talks about the 2022 Federal Election, Australian climate policy, COVID-19 policy, cost of living, and much more.

For more from John, check out his blog here, or get your hands on his latest book, Economics in Two Lessons: Why Markets Work So Well, and Why They Can Fail So Badly.

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Pillar Talk is published by the University of Queensland Politics, Philosophy & Economics Society. It is produced by Will Splatt and co-produced and edited by Tom Watson, with music created by Isaac Haynes. Your hosts for this episode are Will Splatt and Oliver Friendship.

If this episode has you keen for more content from the UQ PPE Society, you might want to check out our other publications: Statecraft Magazine, and The Statecraft Review.

What is the biggest threat to Australia’s security right now?

How can we balance civil liberties with national security?

What’s the relationship between liberalism and conservatism?

And is it even worth studying PPE?

In today’s episode, Will and Ollie chat with the Honourable George Brandis KC, former Senator for QLD, Attorney-General for Australia, and High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, and newly-appointed Professor of National Security, Policy, and Law at ANU.

This discussion took place as a follow-up after our Statecraft Winter Lecture, at which George shared some reflections on his time in politics and diplomacy. You can listen to an audio recording of George’s lecture in episode 4.

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Read More in Statecraft

Ben Colter – ‘Defending Australia Amidst an Ailing Alliance in the Asia-Pacific’

Isaac Haynes – ‘The Russian Invasion of Ukraine: A Crisis of Context’

For extended articles and exclusive content, buy Statecraft Issue 5: ‘Realignment’ now.

References

See George’s academic profile for more information. 

George’s honours thesis - ‘An interpretation of the ideology of the Liberal Party of Australia’

Isaiah Berlin – ‘Four Essays on Liberty’ (Recommended by George)

***

Pillar Talk is published by the University of Queensland Politics, Philosophy & Economics Society. It is produced by Will Splatt and co-produced and edited by Tom Watson, with music created by Isaac Haynes. Your hosts for this episode are Will Splatt and Oliver Friendship.

If this episode has you keen for more content from the UQ PPE Society, you might want to check out our other publications: Statecraft Magazine, and The Statecraft Review.

***

KPMG is a platinum sponsor of the UQ PPE Society. They provide a range of professional services for businesses, non-profits, and government, including consulting on the design and implementation of key government policies. As mentioned during the ad break, they offer two programs that might interest you: a 12-month graduate employment program, and a 4-8 week vacation internship program for students in their penultimate year of study. For more information about these opportunities, click here, or reach out to the UQ PPE Society using [email protected] to talk about meeting with one of our contacts at KPMG

Last month, the UQ PPE Society hosted the Statecraft Keynote Lecture, featuring the Honourable George Brandis KC, former Senator for QLD, Attorney-General for Australia, and High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. 

This episode is a recording of that lecture, entitled "Reflections on Politics and Diplomacy". The lecture ends at around the 45 minute mark, after which we’ve included half an hour of the best questions from our audience Q & A. 

Listen now to get George Brandis' takes on the future of the Liberal party, the Tory leadership contest, Scott Morrison's 'secret ministries' scandal, and the general irrationality of politics. 

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UQPPES is thankful to economic consultancy firm Adept Economics for generously supporting this event.

Adept Economics offers a broad range of economic consultancy and business advisory services. These services include economic impact analysis, regulatory and policy analysis, economic contribution and valuation analysis, social ROI and cost-benefit analysis, as well as data analysis and economic modelling. For more information visit: https://adepteconomics.com.au/

What is the principle of subsidiarity?

How does it challenge conventional approaches to governance?

And how can it help us tackle some of the world's most wicked problems?

In this episode, Tom and Will chat with Dr Brendan Markey-Towler about the principle of subsidiarity and polycentric governance. 

Dr Brendan Markey-Towler is a credit analyst with a background as an academic economist. His areas of interest include behavioural, institutional, and evolutionary economics, as well as the economics of technology, topics which he has explored in his books An Architecture of the Mind (2018) and Economics of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (2020). You can read more about Dr Markey-Towler here.

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Pillar Talk is published by the University of Queensland Politics, Philosophy & Economics Society. It is produced by Will Splatt and co-produced and edited by Tom Watson, with music created by Isaac Haynes. Your hosts for this episode are Will Splatt and Tom Watson.

If this episode has you keen for more content from the UQ PPE Society, you might want to check out our other publications: Statecraft Magazine, and The Statecraft Review.

***

References

Read Dr Markey-Towler's substack here. 

Elinor Ostrom - 'Beyond markets and states: polycentric governance of complex economic systems' (Recommended by Brendan).

Friedrich Hayek - 'The Use of Knowledge in Society' (A canonical expression of the Austrian view of markets as collectors & disseminators of knowledge, also recommended by Brendan).

Charles Tiebout - 'A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures' (Tiebout's seminal paper introducing the concept of competitive federalism. Here is an article which reviews the evidence underlying the 'race to the bottom' critique.)

Read more about The Federalist Papers here. 

Read a brief summary of subsidiarity within Catholic social teaching here. 

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KPMG is a platinum sponsor of the UQ PPE Society. They provide a range of professional services for businesses, non-profits, and government, including consulting on the design and implementation of key government policies. As mentioned during the ad break, they offer two programs that might interest you: a 12-month graduate employment program, and a 4-8 week vacation internship program for students in their penultimate year of study. For more information about these opportunities, click here, or reach out to the UQ PPE Society using [email protected] to talk about meeting with one of our contacts at KPMG.