The Sydney Institute, founded in 1989, is a privately funded, conservative, Australian

Australian people

Australian people, or simply Australians, are the citizens of Australia. Australia is a multi-ethnic nation, and therefore the term "Australian" is not a racial identifier. Aside from the Indigenous Australian population, nearly all Australians or their ancestors immigrated within the past 230 years...

 current affairs forum. The Sydney Institute took over the resources of the Sydney Institute of Public Affairs which ceased activity in the late 1980s. It receives support from the Australian business community.

The Sydney Institute was opened on 23 August 1989 by then New South Wales Premier Nick Greiner

Nick Greiner

Nicholas "Nick" Frank Hugo Greiner AC, is an Australian businessman and former politician. He was the 37th Premier New South Wales from 1988 to 1992. He was Leader of the New South Wales Division of the Liberal Party from 1983 to 1992 and Leader of the Opposition from 1983 to 1988. He is married...

 with supporting remarks from Bob Carr

Bob Carr

Robert John "Bob" Carr , Australian statesman, was Premier of New South Wales from 4 April 1995 to 3 August 2005. He holds the record for the longest continuous service as premier of NSW...

 (then NSW Opposition Leader).

Columnist and writer Gerard Henderson

Gerard Henderson

Gerard Henderson is a conservative Australian newspaper columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald.. He is also Executive Director of the Sydney Institute, a privately funded current affairs forum. His wife Anne Henderson is Deputy Director.-Education:Henderson attended the Jesuit Xavier College in...

 is the Executive Director of The Sydney Institute. His wife Anne Henderson, who is also an author, is the Deputy Director.

Activities

The Institute holds weekly forums and an annual dinner at which a lecture is given by a person who has been deemed to have made an important contribution in a particular field at either an international or national level. From time to time the institute organises and hosts international conferences, addresses to the Institute are published in The Sydney Papers. The Institute also publishes The Sydney Institute Quarterly.

Gerard Henderson writes a regular weekly column for The Sydney Morning Herald

The Sydney Morning Herald

The Sydney Morning Herald is a daily broadsheet newspaper published by Fairfax Media in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1831 as the Sydney Herald, the SMH is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Australia. The newspaper is published six days a week. The newspaper's Sunday counterpart, The...

and The West Australian

The West Australian

The West Australian is the only locally-edited daily newspaper published in Perth, Western Australia, and is owned by ASX-listed Seven West Media . The West is published in tabloid format, as is the state's other major newspaper, The Sunday Times, a News Limited publication...

. Henderson also comments on public radio and appears occasionally on the ABC TV

ABC1

ABC1 was a United Kingdom based television channel from Disney using the branding of the Disney owned American network, ABC.The channel initially launched exclusively on the British digital terrestrial television platform Freeview on 27 September 2004. On 10 December 2004 it was launched on...

 Insiders programs.

Speakers at the Sydney Institute have included the former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd

Kevin Rudd

Kevin Michael Rudd is an Australian politician who was the 26th Prime Minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010. He has been Minister for Foreign Affairs since 2010...

, former Australian Prime Minister John Howard

John Howard

John Winston Howard AC, SSI, was the 25th Prime Minister of Australia, from 11 March 1996 to 3 December 2007. He was the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies....

, former Opposition Leader Kim Beazley

Kim Beazley

In the October 1998 election, Labor polled a majority of the two-party vote and received the largest swing to a first-term opposition since 1934. However, due to the uneven nature of the swing, Labor came up eight seats short of making Beazley Prime Minister....

, Nobel Prize recipient Peter C. Doherty, General Peter Cosgrove

Peter Cosgrove

General Peter John Cosgrove AC, MC is a retired Australian Army officer. He was the Chief of the Defence Force from 3 July 2002 to 3 July 2005, when he retired from active service...

, former Reserve Bank Governor Ian Macfarlane

Ian Macfarlane (economist)

Ian John Macfarlane, AC , Australian economist, and Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia , Australia's central bank, from 1996 to 17 September 2006...

, former Chief Justice Murray Gleeson

Murray Gleeson

Anthony Murray Gleeson AC QC is a former Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, the highest court in the Australian court hierarchy.-Biography:Gleeson was born in Wingham, New South Wales, the eldest of four children...

, and writer David Malouf

David Malouf

David George Joseph Malouf is an acclaimed Australian writer. He was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 2000, his 1993 novel Remembering Babylon won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 1996, he won the inaugural Australia-Asia Literary Award in 2008, and he was...

.

International figures such as Dick Cheney

Dick Cheney

Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney served as the 46th Vice President of the United States , under George W. Bush....

, Jung Chang

Jung Chang

Jung Chang is a Chinese-born British writer now living in London, best known for her family autobiography Wild Swans, selling over 10 million copies worldwide but banned in the People's Republic of China....

, William Shawcross

William Shawcross

William Hartley Hume Shawcross, CVO is a British writer and commentator.-Career:Shawcross was educated at St. Aubyns Preparatory School, Rottingdean, Eton College and University College, Oxford. He attended St. Martin's Art School to study sculpture after leaving Oxford. He worked as a journalist...

, James A. Kelly

James A. Kelly

James Andrew Kelly was Assistant U.S. Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs . President George W. Bush nominated Kelly on April 3, 2001; he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on April 26, 2001 and sworn in on May 1, 2001....

, Alexander Dubcek

Alexander Dubcek

Alexander Dubček , also known as Dikita, was a Slovak politician and briefly leader of Czechoslovakia , famous for his attempt to reform the communist regime during the Prague Spring...

, John Ralston Saul

John Ralston Saul

John Ralston Saul, CC is a Canadian author, essayist, and President of International PEN.As an essayist, Saul is particularly known for his commentaries on the nature of individualism, citizenship and the public good; the failures of manager-, or more precisely technocrat-, led societies; the...

 and Tariq Ali

Tariq Ali

Tariq Ali , , is a British Pakistani military historian, novelist, journalist, filmmaker, public intellectual, political campaigner, activist, and commentator...

have also given lectures.

External links

• The Sydney Institute home page
• The Sydney Institute Podcast