Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs.

John Howard is Prime Minister

Thomas L. Friedman won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, his third Pulitzer for the New York Times. He became the paper's foreign-affairs columnist in 1995. Previously, he served as chief economic correspondent in the Washington bureau and before that he was the chief White House correspondent. In 2005, Tom Friedman was elected as a member of the Pullitzer Prize Board. Tom Friedman's latest book, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century was released in April 2005 and won the inaugural Goldman Sachs/Financial Times Business Book of the Year award. In 2004, he was awarded the Overseas Press Club Award for lifetime acheivement and the honorary title, Order of the British Empire (OBE), by Queen Elizabeth II. Friedman's book, From Beirut to Jerusalem (1989), won the National Book Award for non-fiction in 1989 and The Lexus and the Olive Tree (2000), won the 2000 Overseas Press Club Award for best non-fiction book on foreign policy and has been published in 27 languages. Tom Friedman also wrote Longitudes and Attitudes: The World in the Age of Terrorism (2002) and the text accompanying Micha Bar-Am's book Israel: A Photobiography. Tom Friedman joined the Times in 1981 and was appointed Beirut bureau chief in 1982. In 1984 he transferred from Beirut to Jerusalem where he served as Israel bureau chief until 1988. Tom Friedman was awarded the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting (from Lebanon) and the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting (from Israel).

Wayne Swan, MP - Tuesday 3 April, 2007

HE Mr Robert McCallum Jr - Wednesday 7 March, 2007

Lindsay Tanner, MP is the Federal Shadow Minister for Finance and has been the Labor Member for the House of Representatives seat of Melbourne since 1993. The author of four books (The Politics of Pollution - co-authored (1978), The Last Battle (1996), Open Australia (1999), & Crowded Lives (2003) Lindsay Tanner is recognised as a substantial contributor to political thinking in the Labor Party and the broader body politic. A member of the Labor left Lindsay holds a Masters degree in Arts and a First Class Honours degree in Law. A devoted father of four he has a passion for reading and playing the piano.

Lindsay Tanner, MP Tuesday 21 November, 2006

Frank Brennan, SJ                                 Bronwyn Bishop, MP

"[For] those of us who are religious citizens, it is very sensible for us to make our arguments comprehensible to those that do not have a religious viewpoint, but the days of the secular humanist playing trumps in the public forum are gone...one of the challenges for us in Australia post September 11, one reason why we haven't known how to deal with the place of Islam in the public square is that, unlike the Americans, we have not had the same robust discussion about the place of any religion in the public square." Frank Brennan, SJ

"The conscience is an accumulation of knowledge that we gather, but more particularly, an understanding of that knowledge to which we apply our discrimination to determine our position. Every topic we encounter in political and parliamentary life is a moral issue". Bronwyn Bishop, MP

Andrew Metcalfe was appointed Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs in July 2005. Mr Metcalfe was a Deputy Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet between August 2002 and July 2005 where he was responsible for coordination of policy advice to the Prime Minister on counter-terrorism, security, border protection, law enforcement, defence, intelligence, foreign affairs and machinery of government issues. Mr Metcalfe was born in Toowoomba, Queensland and educated at the Toowoomba Grammar School (Dux, 1976) and the University of Queensland. He holds the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws.

 "Currently, around 43% of our population was either born overseas or has at least one parent who was born overseas"

"All Australians except Indigenous people have at least one ancestor who has arrived from overseas in the past 218 years"

Andrew Metcalfe, Thursday 16 November, 2006

Alexander Downer, Wednesday 1 November, 2006

Christopher Hill is a career member of the United States Senior Foreign Service whose most recent assignment was as Ambassador to the Republic of Korea.  On February 14, 2005, he was named as the Head of the U.S. delegation to the Six-Party Talks on the North Korean nuclear issue. 

In his address to the Sydney Institute at the Museum of Sydney Mr Hill discusses the current status of international relationships in the region and in particular examines the background to and standing of the regional with North Korea. Mr Hill also considers the role of the US in the Pacific and argues for a greater contribution by the US to the economic and social development of Pacific nations.

Christopher Hill, Sunday 29 October, 2006

Mark Scott, Monday 16 October, 2006

Peter Debnam, MP, New South Wales Liberal Leader and Shadow Treasurer was elected leader of the State Parliamentary Liberal Party in August 2005. The next State election in Australia's most populous state will be on 25 March, 2007. 

The current Labor Government has a substantial numerical advantage in the lower house of Parliament where the Government is formed. It is estimated that Peter Debnam's Liberal Party and coalition partner the National Party require a uniform swing of almost 9.7 per cent state wide to achieve Government - taking into account the presence of six independent members in the lower house. In this presentation Mr Debnam speaks about the challenges he faces and those areas of public concern that he believes will be crucial to voters at the next election.

Peter Debnam, Wednesday 11 October, 2006

"In some sense there is a degree of complacency that JI has been eradicated and beaten and this will certainly impact the international cooperation within Southeast Asia."

"When you look at the number of JI leaders at large,..., there are about 18 known JI leaders at large which is of concern to anyone. That is not a small number. That's a real cadre of people with not only technical expertise but quite a few of them are some of those with the closest links to the al Qu'ida organisation or important money men."

Zachary Abuza is the author of Uncivil Islam: Muslims, Politics and Violence in Indonesia (2006); Conspiracy of Silence: The Insurgency in Southern Thailand and its Implications for Southeast Asian Security (2006); Militant Islam in Southeast Asia (2003) and Renovating Politics in Contemporary Vietnam (2001). He has also authored two studies for the National Bureau of Asian Research, Funding Terrorism in Southeast Asia: The Financial Network of Al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiya, NBR Analysis (2003); and Muslims, Politics and Violence in Indonesia, NBR Analysis (2004). He consults widely and is a frequent commentator in the press. Dr. Abuza received his MALD and Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

KEVIN RUDD, MP Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Security, Shadow Minister for Trade discusses the topic: Leading not Following: The Revival of Australian Middle Power Diplomacy.

Kevin Rudd, Tuesday 19 September, 2006

Author GREG SHERIDAN, longstanding Foreign Editor at The Australian newspaper, discusses his recent book The Partnership and, among other things, the history of the Australia-United States relationship, international terrorism and the Australian military.

The Partnership is an explosive behind-the-scenes look at the intimate alliance between John Howard and George W Bush. The book discloses never before published confidential conversations of leaders on both sides of the Pacific to uncover government strategies in the war on terror, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Greg Sheridan, Tuesday 12 September, 2006

" The danger for the future in my view, the only danger to the alliance, lies in the anti-Americanism, the visceral, atavistic anti-Americanism of so many of our media and artistic elites in Australia, especially our academic elites and civil liberties class."

THE HON MALCOLM TURNBULL MP (Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) discusses the challenges facing Australian water management.

"There is as you know an enormous amount of water in the world. It covers 70 per cent of the planet and it is constantly on the move, being recycled by the hydrological process of precipitation, and then evaporation or transpiration back into the atmosphere.

So the glass of water you drank today may have contained molecules of water that refreshed Leonardo or indeed washed his paintbrush, floated Noah's Ark, or even washed the blood off Caesar's toga. Water is indestructible - it is just that it isn't always in the form in which we can make the most use of it."

Malcolm Turnbull, Monday 28 August, 2006