Sydney Ideas

According to recent reports, 1.2 million Australians regularly struggle to put good, healthy food on the table. From low incomes to high living costs, casualised labor markets to government policies, more and more Australians don’t have enough money to eat or to eat well. In policy jargon, problems like these are often referred to as food and nutrition insecurity.

This panel focuses on the problem of food insecurity here in Sydney, its causes, consequences, and – ultimately – what can be done to put good food back on the table. Drawing together academic, policy and practitioner perspectives we hope to open up a space to talk about pathways to and opportunities for a more just food system.

Professor David Schlosberg (Chair, Co-director, Sydney Environment Institute

Elizabeth MillenProgram Manager, Healthy Environments, South Western Sydney Local Health District Health Promotion Service

Tegan Picone, Nutrition Programs Manager, SecondBite

Luke Craven, Phd Candidate, University of Sydney

A Sydney Ideas and Sydney Environment Institute event in the Food@Sydney series http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/food@sydney_series_2016.shtml

Tax evasion is as old as taxes. But with the introduction of mass income taxes at the beginning of the twentieth century, the problem took on new dimensions. After 1918, the first tax haven countries appeared initially in continental Europe. After the Second World War, a new generation of havens opened up in the dissolving British Empire in places such as the Bahamas, Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, Singapore, and, for Australia, the New Hebrides and other Pacific territories.

This talk will looks at the role of governments in setting up countries as tax havens after 1945. Most tax havens were state-sponsored projects, making current calls for shutting down havens and curbing avoidance appear problematic.

What, then, can be done against tax havens especially in the face of mounting inequality today?

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Vanessa Ogle is the Julie and Martin Franklin Assistant Professor in the Department of History University of Pennsylvania, Her first book, The Global Transformation of Time: 1870 - 1950, was published in 2015.. She is now writing a book on the history of tax havens, offshore money markets, and free trade zones, 1920s-1980s. Vanessa is the Kathleen Fitzpatrick Visiting Fellow in the Laureate Research Program in International History, at the University of Sydney.

More event information http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/vanessa_ogle.shtml

Tax evasion is as old as taxes. But with the introduction of mass income taxes at the beginning of the twentieth century, the problem took on new dimensions. After 1918, the first tax haven countries appeared initially in continental Europe. After the Second World War, a new generation of havens opened up in the dissolving British Empire in places such as the Bahamas, Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, Singapore, and, for Australia, the New Hebrides and other Pacific territories.

This talk will looks at the role of governments in setting up countries as tax havens after 1945. Most tax havens were state-sponsored projects, making current calls for shutting down havens and curbing avoidance appear problematic.

What, then, can be done against tax havens especially in the face of mounting inequality today?

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Vanessa Ogle is the Julie and Martin Franklin Assistant Professor in the Department of History University of Pennsylvania, Her first book, The Global Transformation of Time: 1870 - 1950, was published in 2015.. She is now writing a book on the history of tax havens, offshore money markets, and free trade zones, 1920s-1980s. Vanessa is the Kathleen Fitzpatrick Visiting Fellow in the Laureate Research Program in International History, at the University of Sydney.

More event information http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/vanessa_ogle.shtml

Tax evasion is as old as taxes. But with the introduction of mass income taxes at the beginning of the twentieth century, the problem took on new dimensions. After 1918, the first tax haven countries appeared initially in continental Europe. After the Second World War, a new generation of havens opened up in the dissolving British Empire in places such as the Bahamas, Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, Singapore, and, for Australia, the New Hebrides and other Pacific territories.

This talk will looks at the role of governments in setting up countries as tax havens after 1945. Most tax havens were state-sponsored projects, making current calls for shutting down havens and curbing avoidance appear problematic.

What, then, can be done against tax havens especially in the face of mounting inequality today?

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Vanessa Ogle is the Julie and Martin Franklin Assistant Professor in the Department of History University of Pennsylvania, Her first book, The Global Transformation of Time: 1870 - 1950, was published in 2015.. She is now writing a book on the history of tax havens, offshore money markets, and free trade zones, 1920s-1980s. Vanessa is the Kathleen Fitzpatrick Visiting Fellow in the Laureate Research Program in International History, at the University of Sydney.

More event information http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/vanessa_ogle.shtml

The Second World War still has a defining place in how we imagine war today, despite its increasing distance from us. The west has not experienced ‘major war’ since 1945, and so our comprehension of what it means has not had to be redefined. But the war, which we have invented for ourselves, is a caricature: a ‘good’ war fought for ‘necessary’ reasons by a generation of ‘heroes’. The implicit contrast is with the First World War, which is portrayed as none of these things.

This construction of the Second World War has created a massive obstacle to our capacity to understand the war of 1914-18 on its own terms. It too has become a caricature of itself: futile, wasteful and needless. Yet many of the concepts with which we frame modern war are derived from the First, not the Second, World War, including ‘grand strategy’, ‘total war’ and even ‘existential conflict’. The First World War changed what we mean by strategy with effects that still resonate. And the conflict has a further claim to our attention in this centenary period. The complexities and ambiguities that surround it can help us understand the place of armed conflict in our own world – its causes, conduct and termination – and often do so much better than the stories which we tell ourselves of the Second World War.

SPEAKER:

Sir Hew Strachan FRSE, Hon D. Univ (Paisley) was the Chichele Professor of the History of War at the University of Oxford and is now Professor of International Relations at the University of St Andrews. He is an Emeritus Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford and a Life Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. His recent books include The First World War: Volume 1: To Arms (2001), The First World War: an illustrated history (2003); related to a multi-part television series and translated into many languages, Clausewitz’s On War: a Biography (2007), and The Direction of War (2013). He is the editor of The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War (revised edition, 2014), and a clutch of volumes arising from his Directorship of the Oxford Changing Character of War Programme.

The Second World War still has a defining place in how we imagine war today, despite its increasing distance from us. The west has not experienced ‘major war’ since 1945, and so our comprehension of what it means has not had to be redefined. But the war, which we have invented for ourselves, is a caricature: a ‘good’ war fought for ‘necessary’ reasons by a generation of ‘heroes’. The implicit contrast is with the First World War, which is portrayed as none of these things.

This construction of the Second World War has created a massive obstacle to our capacity to understand the war of 1914-18 on its own terms. It too has become a caricature of itself: futile, wasteful and needless. Yet many of the concepts with which we frame modern war are derived from the First, not the Second, World War, including ‘grand strategy’, ‘total war’ and even ‘existential conflict’. The First World War changed what we mean by strategy with effects that still resonate. And the conflict has a further claim to our attention in this centenary period. The complexities and ambiguities that surround it can help us understand the place of armed conflict in our own world – its causes, conduct and termination – and often do so much better than the stories which we tell ourselves of the Second World War.

SPEAKER:

Sir Hew Strachan FRSE, Hon D. Univ (Paisley) was the Chichele Professor of the History of War at the University of Oxford and is now Professor of International Relations at the University of St Andrews. He is an Emeritus Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford and a Life Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. His recent books include The First World War: Volume 1: To Arms (2001), The First World War: an illustrated history (2003); related to a multi-part television series and translated into many languages, Clausewitz’s On War: a Biography (2007), and The Direction of War (2013). He is the editor of The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War (revised edition, 2014), and a clutch of volumes arising from his Directorship of the Oxford Changing Character of War Programme.

The Second World War still has a defining place in how we imagine war today, despite its increasing distance from us. The west has not experienced ‘major war’ since 1945, and so our comprehension of what it means has not had to be redefined. But the war, which we have invented for ourselves, is a caricature: a ‘good’ war fought for ‘necessary’ reasons by a generation of ‘heroes’. The implicit contrast is with the First World War, which is portrayed as none of these things.

This construction of the Second World War has created a massive obstacle to our capacity to understand the war of 1914-18 on its own terms. It too has become a caricature of itself: futile, wasteful and needless. Yet many of the concepts with which we frame modern war are derived from the First, not the Second, World War, including ‘grand strategy’, ‘total war’ and even ‘existential conflict’. The First World War changed what we mean by strategy with effects that still resonate. And the conflict has a further claim to our attention in this centenary period. The complexities and ambiguities that surround it can help us understand the place of armed conflict in our own world – its causes, conduct and termination – and often do so much better than the stories which we tell ourselves of the Second World War.

SPEAKER:

Sir Hew Strachan FRSE, Hon D. Univ (Paisley) was the Chichele Professor of the History of War at the University of Oxford and is now Professor of International Relations at the University of St Andrews. He is an Emeritus Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford and a Life Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. His recent books include The First World War: Volume 1: To Arms (2001), The First World War: an illustrated history (2003); related to a multi-part television series and translated into many languages, Clausewitz’s On War: a Biography (2007), and The Direction of War (2013). He is the editor of The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War (revised edition, 2014), and a clutch of volumes arising from his Directorship of the Oxford Changing Character of War Programme.

The Astronomical Society of Australia (ASA) 2016 Harley Wood Lecture for the ASA 50th anniversary Annual Scientific Meeting

Over the last 40 years, scientists have uncovered evidence that if the Universe had been forged with even slightly different properties, life as we know it - and life as we can imagine it - would be impossible. With small tweaks to the way the Universe works, we can erase the periodic table, disintegrate particles and remove all traces of structure in the cosmos.

Join us on a journey through how we understand the Universe, from its most basic particles and forces, to planets, stars and galaxies, and back through cosmic history to the birth of the cosmos.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Luke Barnes is a postdoctoral researcher at the Sydney Institute for Astronomy. Having gained his PhD from the University of Cambridge, he has published papers in the field of galaxy formation and on the fine-tuning of the Universe for life. His forthcoming book co-written with Geraint Lewis is A Fortunate Universe: Life in a Finely Tuned Cosmos.

RESPONDENT

Professor Mark Colyvan, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sydney. His research includes work on philosophy of mathematics, decision theory, and philosophy of probability.

Sydney Ideas event information http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/ASA2016_harley_wood.shtml

The Astronomical Society of Australia (ASA) 2016 Harley Wood Lecture for the ASA 50th anniversary Annual Scientific Meeting

Over the last 40 years, scientists have uncovered evidence that if the Universe had been forged with even slightly different properties, life as we know it - and life as we can imagine it - would be impossible. With small tweaks to the way the Universe works, we can erase the periodic table, disintegrate particles and remove all traces of structure in the cosmos.

Join us on a journey through how we understand the Universe, from its most basic particles and forces, to planets, stars and galaxies, and back through cosmic history to the birth of the cosmos.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Luke Barnes is a postdoctoral researcher at the Sydney Institute for Astronomy. Having gained his PhD from the University of Cambridge, he has published papers in the field of galaxy formation and on the fine-tuning of the Universe for life. His forthcoming book co-written with Geraint Lewis is A Fortunate Universe: Life in a Finely Tuned Cosmos.

RESPONDENT

Professor Mark Colyvan, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sydney. His research includes work on philosophy of mathematics, decision theory, and philosophy of probability.

Sydney Ideas event information http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/ASA2016_harley_wood.shtml

The Astronomical Society of Australia (ASA) 2016 Harley Wood Lecture for the ASA 50th anniversary Annual Scientific Meeting

Over the last 40 years, scientists have uncovered evidence that if the Universe had been forged with even slightly different properties, life as we know it - and life as we can imagine it - would be impossible. With small tweaks to the way the Universe works, we can erase the periodic table, disintegrate particles and remove all traces of structure in the cosmos.

Join us on a journey through how we understand the Universe, from its most basic particles and forces, to planets, stars and galaxies, and back through cosmic history to the birth of the cosmos.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Luke Barnes is a postdoctoral researcher at the Sydney Institute for Astronomy. Having gained his PhD from the University of Cambridge, he has published papers in the field of galaxy formation and on the fine-tuning of the Universe for life. His forthcoming book co-written with Geraint Lewis is A Fortunate Universe: Life in a Finely Tuned Cosmos.

RESPONDENT

Professor Mark Colyvan, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sydney. His research includes work on philosophy of mathematics, decision theory, and philosophy of probability.

Sydney Ideas event information http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/ASA2016_harley_wood.shtml