IPAN WEBINAR: Wednesday, 8th June at 7pm, AEST
Diplomacy and the promotion of peaceful resolution to conflict and the fostering of friendly and mutually beneficial relations with other countries
This webinar is the second in a series exploring various aspects of an alternative defence policy for Australia
View the webinar here:
Discussion with Alison Broinowski, John Lander, Michael Smith & Jo Valentine
Current Australian defence policy is based on relying on the protection of a big power, the USA. This close relationship has drawn Australia into disastrous wars including Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. Can Australia defend itself without a big power protector? Are alternative defence policies possible? And, in any case, what should always comprise our first line of defence?
Facilitator: Dr Emma Shortis
Dr Emma Shortis is a historian who focuses on US and environmental politics. Her first book, Our Exceptional Friend: Australia’s Fatal Alliance with the United States, was published by Hardie Grant Books in 2021. Emma is an in-demand media expert who uses history to try to interpret and explain what on earth is happening in the United States today. She’s a regular guest on ABC News radio and television, and programs like Triple RRR’s Common Sense. Emma joined RMIT University in June 2018. In the year before that, she was a Fox-Zucker International Fellow at Yale University.
Dr Alison Broinowski AM: Alison is President, Australians for War Powers Reform. Formerly an Australian diplomat, Alison is the author or editor of 14 books about Australia’s dealings with the world, Asian countries in particular. Her PhD is in Asian Studies at ANU. She has researched and taught there, at Macquarie University, and at the University of Wollongong.
John Lander John Lander worked in the China section of the Department of Foreign Affairs in the lead-up to the recognition of the People’s Republic of China in 1972 and several other occasions in the 1970s and 1980s. He was deputy ambassador in Beijing 1974-76 (including a couple of stints as Chargé d’Affaires). He was heavily involved in negotiation of many aspects in the early development of Australia-China relations, especially student/teacher exchange, air traffic agreement and consular relations. He was Australia’s first Ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Iran (1985-88) during the Iran/Iraq War and was Permanent Delegate to UNESCO (1988-91), where he helped to consolidate Australia’s integration into the Asia/ Pacific Group of that organisation. He has made numerous visits to China in the years 2000-2019.
Michael G Smith AO (Major General -Retired) Major General Smith served for 34 years as an Army Officer in the Australian Defence Force. He was appointed as the Deputy Force Commander of the United Nations Transistional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) in 2000-2001, in recognition for which he was promoted from a Member to an Officer in the Order of Australia.
Mike has been active in international fora on issues relating to international security including security sector reform; peacekeeping and complex peace operations; the responsibility to protect (R2P) and the protection of civilians; ceasefire and arms monitoring; human security; disaster relief; and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s). He has published articles and chapters on these issues, including a book Peacekeeping in East Timor: the Path to Independence (Lynnne Reinner, London and Boulder, 2004).
Jo Vallentine Jo is a West Australian mother, grandmother, Quaker, teacher and activist. Jo’s focus since 1978 has been challenging the nuclear industry, and in more recent years, participating in the Alternatives to Violence Project, working in prisons. Jo was a West Australian Senator, elected in 1984 as an independent for nuclear disarmament, then she represented The Greens in her third term. She resigned from the Senate in 1992 and has continued community activism since then. Jo’s long- term activism in the peace movement and advocate for non-violence is typified by her involvement in “Quakers Grannies for Peace” involving blocking of military activity in a non-violent way exemplified by the Grannies’ tea-party blocking Talisman Sabre activity in Queensland in 2015.