If you missed it, you can catch up on this recording of the event.
The Festival of Questions
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What are the most important questions facing Australians – today and in the future?
At the first Festival of Questions session, we’ll scan the horizons, break deadlocked debates and dust off the issues rotting for too long at the bottom of the nation’s too-hard basket. And we’re bringing together some of the sharpest thinkers we know to help us do it.
Each of our speakers will present their ideas on the issues Australia needs to confront head-on. Then it’s over to you. Should there be a citizenship test to buy property in Australia? Should the public really have a say about ‘marriage equality’? Is compulsory voting bad for democracy? The Wheeler Centre has travelled the country asking these questions, and now it’s Melbourne’s turn.
As Australians, who do we want to be and how are we going to get there?
Featuring Gareth Evans, Julian Burnside, Shireen Morris, Helen Razer, Jamila Rizvi, Geraldine Doogue and Jack Latimore. Co-hosted by Deborah Frances-White and Rebecca Huntley.
All sessions of The Festival of Questions will be Auslan interpreted.
Presented in partnership with Melbourne Festival and City of Melbourne.
Who?
Gareth Evans
Gareth Evans is a writer, academic, lawyer and former cabinet minister.
He was a Cabinet Minister in the Hawke and Keating Governments for thirteen years, as Attorney General, Minister for Resources & Energy, Transport & Communications, and Foreign Affairs; Leader of the Government in the Senate for four years; and Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the House of Representative for three years. After 21 years in the Australian Parliament, he led the Brussels-based International Crisis Group from 2000-2009.
Julian Burnside
Julian Burnside AO QC is an Australian barrister who specialises in commercial litigation and is also deeply involved in human rights work, in particular in relation to refugees.
Geraldine Doogue
Geraldine Doogue is a highly accomplished Australian journalist and presenter whose career in print, television and radio includes Four Corners, the Australian, Life Matters, Compass and Saturday Extra.
Jack Latimore
Jack Latimore is an Indigenous researcher with the Centre for Advancing Journalism. He is currently involved in the development of several projects aimed at improving the quality of Indigenous representation and participation in the mainstream media-sphere. His journalism work has appeared in Koori Mail, Guardian Australia, Overland and IndigenousX.
Shireen Morris
Shireen Morris is a lawyer, senior policy adviser and constitutional reform research fellow at Cape York Institute, Noel Pearson’s constitutional recognition adviser, and co-editor of The Forgotten People: liberal and conservative approaches to recognising indigenous peoples (MUP, 2016).
Helen Razer
Helen Razer was a broadcaster and is now a writer. She has written on social and political matters for the Age and the Australian. She now contributes news and cultural analysis to Crikey, the Saturday Paper, the Daily Review, SBS Online and Atlantic digital publication, Quartz.
Jamila Rizvi
Over the past five years, Jamila Rizvi has firmly established herself as an eminent voice of young Australian women online. She is a columnist for News Limited, and a regular commentator for 3AW radio, as well as television shows including The Project and The Drum.
Jamila is the former Editor-in-Chief of the Mamamia Women’s Network websites. Prior to entering the media, Jamila worked in politics for former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Minister Kate Ellis. In 2014 she was named one of Cosmopolitan’s 30 Most Successful Women Under 30; in 2015, she was listed as one of Australia’s 100 Women of Influence by the Australian Financial Review and in 2017 was named one of Melbourne’s Most Influential Women Under 40 by the Weekly Review.
Jamila lives in Melbourne with her husband and an impossible toddler. Not Just Lucky is her debut book.
Deborah Frances-White
Deborah Frances-White is a stand up comedian, writer, speaker and podcaster. She is best known as the creator and host of The Guilty Feminist Podcast – which has had 20 million downloads in its first 18 months. It has just been nominated for a 2017 Aria Award for Best Podcast. She is currently writing a Guilty Feminist book for Virago at Little, Brown.
Rebecca Huntley
Rebecca Huntley is one of Australia's most respected researchers on social and consumer trends, and head of research at Essential Media. She is the author of Still Lucky: Why You Should Feel Optimistic About Australia and Its People.
The Festival of Questions
Treat yourself to The Festival of Questions – a series of thoughtful, quick-witted and exhilarating discussions that will change how you see the world. It’s one whole day of querying, questioning, wondering and asking why.
In four sessions across one day, we’ll bring together some of the sharpest and funniest thinkers we know. They’ll wrestle with the big questions facing Australia, and the world, today. Think: culture, class and climate; politics and punditry; philosophy and feminism. What are the issues that divide and unite us? Do terms like ‘right wing’ and ‘left wing’ still have meaning today? Is the world changing too fast, or not fast enough?
Join us for a day of storytelling, comedy, debate, discussion and ... possible disarray. We’ll open our minds and mind the whole world’s business. #festivalofQs
Catch up on some recordings
Where?
Presented in partnership with
Discussion
More to say? Talk it out with the Wheeler Centre community.
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