Politics

Fake research papers are on the rise. Explore what's fuelling this, why it's concerning, and how we can address this issue with science integrity consultant Elisabeth Bik, computer scientist Judy Kay, linguist Nick Enfield, Pro Vice Chancellor (Research) Benjamin Eggleton and host Jennifer Byrne.

This event was held on Tuesday 22 October 2024 at the University of Sydney. For more links and resources, including the transcript, visit Sydney Ideas website: bit.ly/48B2Mnk

Trust and error

Economist and parliamentarian Andrew Leigh is in conversation with technology entrepreneur and philanthropist Cliff Obrecht about Andrew’s new book, 'Battlers and Billionaires: The Updated Story of Inequality in Australia'.

This event was held on Wednesday 23 October 2024 at the University of Sydney. For more links and resources, including the transcript, visit Sydney Ideas website: bit.ly/4fuiDGs

Battlers and Billionaires

If we can define the elements of a breakthrough, can we engineer the next great discovery in business, science, policy and civic life? Join a conversation with Sophie Gee, Charlotte Wood, Stephen Simpson and Kate Harrison Brennan.

This podcast is a recording of a live public event held on 26 November 2024. For more links and resources, including the transcript, visit Sydney Ideas website: bit.ly/3CKDPdf

Is storytelling essential to innovation?

Hear Simon Schama, acclaimed historian, writer and Professor of Art History and History at Columbia University, in-conversation with Professor Avril Alba.

This podcast is a recording of a live public event held on 5 March 2025. For more links and resources, including the transcript, visit Sydney Ideas website: https://bit.ly/4bBKrb7

An evening with Sir Simon Schama

Is a language owned by its speakers or is it a public good? 'Who' gets to have a say, lay claim to, and wield a language? What does this all mean for navigating power differentials and public discourse? Unpack language, culture and power with linguist John McWhorter in a conversation with host Nick Enfield

This podcast is a recording of a live public event held on 12 March 2025. For more links and resources, including the transcript, visit Sydney Ideas website: https://bit.ly/4iuK0BQ

Is language power? with John McWhorter

Welcome back to City Road. In this episode, we reflect on 2024's Festival of 'Public' Urbanism and its panel discussion on how the public life of great cities takes place in our cultural buildings and civic spaces – from libraries to museums, town halls, streets, parks and playgrounds. 

This special Denis Winston memorial lecture, delivered by Dr Caroline Butler-Bowdon, State Librarian and award-winning author and curator, celebrates our crucial public infrastructure as the cornerstone of public and democratic life. 

The keynote address is followed by an eminent panel conversation between Dr Rob Stokes, former Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, and Professor Jennifer Barrett, Professor in Museum Studies and Pro-Vice Chancellor Indigenous at the University of Sydney. 

The annual Festival of Urbanism is brought to you by the Henry Halloran Research Trust with the assistance of the University of Sydney School of Architecture Design and Planning. 

Thanks for listening. 

See you next time on City Road. 

Host: Bill Code
Editor: Mikayla McGuirk-Scolaro

113. The Golden Thread in Public and Democratic Life

With housing *the* hot topic this election, a panel of experts at the recent festival of urbanism a panel of experts battled to convince a live audience that the private market could (or could not) solve Australia's housing crisis.  

This debate features:
- The Hon Doug Cameron, Former Senator
- Sharath Mahendran, Urban Planner and creator of YouTube channel Building Beautifully
- Emily Sims, Uralla Shire Council
- Stephanie Barker, Executive Director, Strategy and Engagement, Willowtree Planning
- Luke Cass,  editor, Honi Soit Newspaper 2023
- Emeritus Professor Peter Phibbs, Henry Halloran Research Trust, the University of Sydney 
Commentary

This debate also features commentary from Michael Koziol, Sydney editor, The Sydney Morning Herald and is chaired by Professor Nicole Gurran, Director, Henry Halloran Research Trust.

Thanks for listening.

See you next time on City Road.

Host: Bill Code
Editor: Mikayla McGuirk-Scolaro

114. Can the Private Market Solve Australia’s Housing Crisis?

Executive Director of New York-based Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth gives compelling evidence of the way some of the world’s greatest human rights violators are calling themselves democrats.  And, he argues, it is the west’s willingness to “close one’s eye” to these regimes that allows them to do so. 

“What they get away with is this label of legitimacy and in many ways I guess the question to ask is: why do we let them?” – Kenneth Roth at Sydney Ideas

For further info see this page: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2008/despot_masquerading_as_democrats.shtml

Ken Roth on Despots Masquerading as Democrats

The London-based historian, political campaigner and prolific author Tariq Ali argues that Middle East should look to Latin America. 

Pointing to the success of Venezuela's leadership under the seven-times elected President Hugo Chávez, the author of Pirates of the Caribbean: Axis of Hope (2006), said that a new level of unity lead by radical new leaders has had a "massive impact" on South America.

New pride has emerged in Latin American countries, said Ali. "You can see it in the way they walk." At the same time, the contrast to the Middle East "couldn't be greater." 

Alis said that hope came in the knowledge that political and social change was constant and discussed the future impact China's economy will have on the dominance of America as a world power.

For further information and speaker's biography see this page: http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=1795

Tariq Ali on Latin America and the Arab World: resistance and occupation

With five prime ministers in five years, and shocking truths coming to light daily about our institutions – from unions to schools to detention centres – many fear our system is broken.

'Griffith Review: Fixing the System' brings together writers and analysts to provide fresh insights into how to fix the system and why it matters.

Political biographer Chris Wallace, former teacher GJ Stroud, journalist Ann Arnold and academic Tamson Pietsch join Griffith Review editor Julianne Schultz in a spirited discussion at how our institutions – political, social and legal – both support and fail us, and what we can do about it. 

For further info see this page: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/fixing_the_system.shtml

'Fixing The System' Panel Discussion

China sees itself as a victim of imperialism and colonialism. The modern Chinese nationalism, including the one adopted and promoted by the Chinese Communist Party, is defined through this. International scholarship on China often takes this narrative of China as anti-imperialist for granted.

Professor Dibyesh Anand (University of Westminster, London) interrogates this narrative and argues that there is a fundamental disjuncture at the heart of the modern nation-state project in China. 

For more info and speaker's biography see this page: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/assoc_professor_dibyesh_anand.shtml

China, Tibet and the Colonial Question

China is a rising power in the world. Its grand strategy, regional role and foreign policy have significant impacts on global and regional affairs, and have important implications for countries such as the United States and Australia.

Australia faces the challenges of balancing its relationships with both the United States and China in a sometimes volatile regional security environment, exemplified by the South China Sea disputes.

How do the Chinese perceive their role and key relationships with global and regional powers? The University of Sydney brings together prominent Chinese scholars and Australian scholars to engage in open, extensive and in-depth conversations. 

China’s Grand Strategy

For several decades after the Second World War, capitalism regulated by democratic politics proved successful. Rapid growth and equitable distribution supported by open markets ended the pessimism about instability and inequality that permeated Joseph Schumpeter’s classic Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942) written during the war against Fascism.

Now doubts are rising again: in the developed countries, incomes have stopped growing for most people. Inequality is increasing. Vested interests are blocking stabilising interventions. Democracies are rejecting international exchange. And all this is happening at the very moment market authoritarianism in China is breaking the link between high incomes and democratic government.

Ross Garnaut’s public lecture probes these trends, and the new forces shaping the major global developments of our time. He notes how the abundance of capital, labour shortages and rising prosperity in parts of the global economy are elsewhere matched by political introversion, economic stagnation and rising inequality. The future attraction of democracy, he suggests, now depends on the capacity of democracies to come up with reforms that enable government for as well as by the people.

Sydney Democracy Network

Festival of Democracy | Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy: Old Visions, New Realities

Sydney Ideas is the University of Sydney's premier public lecture series program, bringing the world's leading thinkers and the latest research to the wider Sydney community.

Festival of Democracy | Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy: Old Visions, New Realities

Sydney Ideas

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