News & Events

Date: Wednesday, 29 May 2019
Time: 8:00 p.m.
Venue: Art Gallery of NSW, Art Gallery Rd, Sydney NSW 2000
Tickets: General Admission $33.34, Concession $28.16 Buy Tickets

Election Special: Western Sydney

Host: Ellen Fanning 
Panel: Rebecca Huntley, Abul Rizvi, David Borger, Maria Kovacic and Cindy Tan 
In a special episode from Parramatta NSW, the panel discusses growth, population, infrastructure & fairness in one of the key election battlegrounds

Most of the time Rebecca listens to people and there is a growing chasm between what she hears in people’s workplace and homes, to what is being heard in political spheres.

I am often asked the question, what do Australians want from democracy? What do they want from good government?

Social researcher Dr Rebecca Huntley has heard a call for change from what she describes as the "un-silent majority", with political action lagging behind the national mood for democratic reform and fairness.

“The biggest change we need to crack in Australia is donation reform, we have to change the money that's involved in Australian politics,” she said. “When you change the money, you change who the politicians listen to. Even though it seems like not as pressing an issue as health or jobs it's fundamental.”

The essay is a mosaic of cultural allusion that is meaningful precisely because it is held together by the narrative self that analyses and makes these connections.

Art critic Sebastian Smee has a message for all social media users this Christmas: it's OK to be alone with your own thoughts.

You probably own a smartphone. Chances are it’s in your pocket right now, or at least within arm’s reach – don’t pick it up. Fight the habit.

Is addiction to screens ruining our lives?

Sebastian Smee on how to protect our tender souls from being obliterated by the internet

The essay, Follow the Leader, from my perspective, is ultimately a challenge for those of us who are outside the system to look at ourselves as a fundamental part of the problem in Indigenous affairs. We allow our political leaders to remain comfortably ignorant. And while they are comfortably ignorant, they will fail us as leaders.

Recent events have left Australians, and indeed the world, wondering what makes a truly good leader. 

As a commentator, you've got to think about issues that aren't necessarily immediately in play, you put them in a broader context, you I suppose allow yourself a little more indignation sometimes, or possibly a little bit more compassion.

While Australia has been dealing with leadership instability, other countries have moved in an increasingly authoritarian direction.

Australia has changed prime ministers five times in the last decade. Our national leaders have struggled and mostly failed to propose reforms, carry them through, and make them stick. Journalist Laura Tingle is asking the question: what has gone wrong with political leadership in Australia? 

Join host Corrie Perkin and political journalist and writer Laura Tingle as they discuss Laura's latest Quarterly Essay ‘Follow the Leader – Democracy and the Rise of the Strongman’.

The extraction of mammoth coal deposits in Queensland's Galilee Basin will only exacerbate climate change. Who supports the mines - and why?

I enjoyed meeting the Townsville Mayor Jenny Hill in February this year. I found her a warm and wry person and she struck me as a fighter, someone you’d want in your corner. The problem however, with being such a vocal and determined fighter is that when it comes to the Adani proposed project, Hill — like many others — has boxed herself into a corner.

Journalist David Marr says he likes Pauline Hanson's voice; he likes it in the way he liked Julia Gillard's voice. It cuts through, it is distinctive.