Australian Studies Centre, UCD School of History and Archives THE
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Australian Studies Centre, UCD School of History and Archives in collaboration with the Royal Irish Academy THE INAUGURAL AUSTRALIA LECTURE Shipwrecked in Arcadia: the Contemporary Australian Experience. Paul Kelly, Editor at Large, The Australian 26th November, 6 for 630pm Royal Irish Academy, 19 Dawson St, Dublin In this Inaugural Australia Lecture, Australia's most eminent and distinguished political journalist, Paul Kelly, considers what has happened to Australia over the past 30 years in economic, social, immigration and strategic terms. He argues that Australia’s experience is divorced from most of the rest of the West in Europe and America – its resources mean it is highly integrated into Asia and China; it retains a tight alliance with the US; it has had 30 years of growth and missed recession in the 2008‐09 global crisis. Yet it is now facing serious problems of complacency and reform exhaustion following the highly disappointing six years of Labor Government. The task of the new Abbott Government is to rekindle reform, re‐ structure the economy and restore discipline in a deteriorating fiscal environment. The risk for Australia is that it has squandered the prosperity of the past decade with far harsher times coming. There will be a wine reception before the lecture. PAUL KELLY Paul Kelly is Editor‐at‐Large on The Australian. He was previously Editor‐in‐Chief of the paper and he writes on Australian politics, public policy and international affairs. Kelly is a regular television commentator on the Sky News program, Australian Agenda and is the author of seven books including The Hawke Ascendancy, The End of Certainty and November 1975. His most recent book, The March of Patriots, offers a re‐ interpretation of Paul Keating and John Howard in office. In 2014 Kelly will publish a new book on the six years of Labor Government 2007‐13. Kelly holds a Doctor of Letters from Melbourne University and is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. He is a long‐standing participant in Australian‐American Leadership Dialogue and served for many years on the board of the Australia‐Indonesia Institute. Kelly has interviewed a number of world figures including Tony Blair, George W Bush, Jiang Zemin and Lee Kuan Yew. He has been a Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a visiting lecturer at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard. Bookings non essential but inquiries to: Professor James Curran Keith Cameron Chair of Australian History University College Dublin [email protected] 087 388 2279 .