Friday 15 November, 3.30-5.00pm
In this session, we invite each speaker to imagine what the country looks like in 60 years – 2084. What shape and direction will Australia take – demographically, politically, economically, culturally and digital futures? What position will it occupy in the region? What would ideal and dystopian futures look like? What should we be trying to achieve and what do we need to do to get there?
Chaired by Professor Stephen Garton AM FAHA FRAHS FASSA FRSN
Stephen Garton became a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2000, and was elected the Academy’s 20th President in November 2023.
An eminent historian, Stephen’s research expertise is in Australian history. He has also published in the fields of American and British History. His major books provide thought provoking insights into areas including the history of medicine, particularly psychiatry, social welfare, war veterans and the aftermath of war, sexuality and the history of higher education.
Stephen has also had a long career in university administration, serving as Dean of Arts, Provost and Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor, and also as interim Vice-Chancellor, at the University of Sydney. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for significant service to tertiary education administration and to history.
Speakers
Distinguished Professor Brian Schmidt AC FAA FRS FTSE
My thinkings of what Australia might be in 60 years is replete with opportunities and dangers. Keeping in mind the adage “It is very difficult to predict – especially the future…” (falsely attributed to my fellow Physics Nobel Laureate, Niels Bohr), during this session I will do my best to imagine the scenarios Australia might face, and the commonalities that exist between them. My hope is for Australia to engage in meaningful conversations about its many futures, so that we can take the steps that lead to opportunity and avoid the steps that do not.
Brian Schmidt AC FAA FRS FTSE is Distinguished Professor of Astronomy at the Australian National University. For his work on the accelerating universe, Brian Schmidt as leader of the High-Z SN Search team was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics, jointly with Adam Riess and Saul Perlmutter. Schmidt has worked across many areas of Astronomy including studying supernovae, gamma ray bursts, gravitational wave transients, exo-planets, and metal poor stars. Brian completed joint undergraduate degrees in astronomy and physics at the University of Arizona (1989), an astronomy master’s degree (1992) and PhD (1993) from Harvard University. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Brian Schmidt joined the staff of the Australian National University in 1995. In 2000 Schmidt was awarded the Australian Government’s inaugural Malcolm McIntosh award for achievement in the Physical Sciences, in 2006 he was jointly awarded the Shaw Prize for Astronomy, and shared the 2007 Gruber Prize for Cosmology and 2014 Breakthrough Prize in Physics with his High-Z SN Search Team colleagues. He served as the 12th Vice Chancellor and President of the Australia National University from 2016-2023.
Dr Liz Allen
Australia faces many challenges and opportunities over the coming decades. Ageing and diversifying, the nation has not reckoned with its racially discriminatory past and the enduring issues that undermine social cohesion. Young people are faced with an uncertain future that presents insurmountable barriers to achieving the basics of life: housing security, economic wellbeing, and a family should they choose. The nation has lost its way in many respects and hope for the future has been eroded amidst inaction on climate boiling. Yet among the confluence of demographic, socioeconomic and climate challenges the country has opportunities to harness. Hope can be restored, the future ensured…but action is needed. A blueprint for the future of Australia, where living standards don’t go backwards, is presented as a roadmap for getting us out of this mess.
Dr Allen is a senior lecturer at ANU Centre for Social Policy Research. She is a member of ANU Council and an advocate for inclusive and accessible higher education. Liz was named among the ABC Top 5 Humanities and Social Sciences academics in Australia in 2018, and a woman to watch by the Australian Financial Review in 2023. Liz serves on the National Foundation of Australian Women Social Policy Committee, and is a regular media commentator. Her book, The Future of Us (2020), is a call to action to build a stronger Australia through fairness and equality.
June Oscar AO (pre-record) and Banok Rind (in person)
June Oscar AO is a proud Bunuba woman from the remote town of Fitzroy Crossing in Western Australia’s Kimberley region.
June is an international advocate for First Nations social justice and women’s issues, and the impacts of intergenerational trauma and the need to restore societal wellbeing through the revitalization of cultural practices, languages and connection to land and water. She has worked tirelessly to reduce Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) and led a successful community driven campaign for alcohol restrictions in Fitzroy Crossing.
June has held a raft of influential positions including Deputy Director of the Kimberley Land Council, Chair of the Kimberley Language Resource Centre and Chief Investigator with WA’s Lililwan Project addressing FASD.
In 2013 June was awarded an Officer of the order of Australia for distinguished service to the Indigenous community of Western Australia, particularly through health and social welfare programs. In 2015, June received the Menzies School of Health Research Medallion for her work with FASD. In 2016, she was the recipient of the Desmond Tutu Global Reconciliation Award, she was named NAIDOC person of the year in 2018, and in 2019 she was bestowed the honorary role of a Distinguished Fellow of ANZSOG.
In April 2024, June completed her seven-year term as Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner. As Commissioner she published the landmark Wiyi Yani U Thangani (Women’s Voices) Report. In March 2024, June launched the Wiyi Yani U Thangani Institute for First Nations Gender Justice, based at the Australian National University. The Institute, a global first, will continue the vital work of Wiyi Yani U Thangani and advance and respond to the rights and aspirations of First Nations women and girls, inclusive of cis and trans women and gender diverse mob.
Banok Rind is a Badimia Yamatji woman from mid-west Western Australia and currently the Co-Lead for Impact and Engagement at the Wiyi Yani U Thangani Institute for First Nations Gender Justice. A registered nurse with over 8 years of public policy experience, Banok has worked across the Aboriginal Community Controlled Sector, the youth sector and was previously a senior policy advisor to the Productivity Commission’s Closing the Gap Review.
Emeritus Professor Libby Robin FAHA
Paper title: Restoring Ecological and Social Connections
We are increasingly aware that the world is changing all around us. By 2084, there will be many more of the disasters we already know – fires, floods, heat waves. All these will be worse in 60 years, even if we stop adding to the problems today. What sort of a world will our grandchildren inherit? How do we live with ourselves now if we feel we can do nothing about the future? We can’t spend the next 60 years overwhelmed by anxiety and feeling helpless in the face of relentless environmental destruction.
In this talk I explore emerging real-life restoration partnerships that already reconnect ecological and social futures. Local people feel they have agency in their futures. Sixty years ago, conservation was all about wild places and so-called pristine landscapes. But in this Anthropocene world, where humans are terraforming the planet, we need ways to work with damaged lands and seas, in cities and towns and farms where we grow food, and to find futures that don’t damage other forms of life.
Gondwana Link is one hopeful story: it is an ecological corridor of connection over 1,000 kms long across Western Australia. It draws on humanities leadership in music, dance, museum exhibitions, films and the important work of Traditional Owners. Together ecological repair and celebration serve to restore torn social fabric and landscapes ruined by extractive practices. It is important because it protects so many rare and spectacular species that only live in that corner of the world.
The greatest success achievement of Gondwana Link is in marrying the local and the global. Big national and international conservation organisations kicked off Gondwana Link, ‘but it is the small local groups that keep it going’, Keith Bradby, CEO of Gondwana Link declares, as his team pioneers new ways to dwell in local places more kindly and more creatively. Local and global together are crucial to engage people from all walks of life in the present and are essential to planetary health in the future.
Libby Robin is an historian of science and environmental ideas whose work includes the role of museums in exploring global change. Her latest book is What Birdo is That? A Field Guide to Bird People (2023, Melbourne University Publishing). She is Emeritus Professor at the Fenner School of Environment and Society at the Australian National University, Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities. Libby is now working on a book about restoration ecology in Anthropocene times, and the future of conservation.
More speaker details to be announced for this session.
