For many of us, the Commonwealth is associated, for better or for worse, with the old days of British colonial rule: cricket whites, tea plantations, ‘God Save the Queen’.

But whatever our collective ideas around this unusual global entity are, they likely won’t last much longer. The member states have a combined population of 2.4 billion people and more than 60 per cent of those people are aged under 30. The Commonwealth is young, it’s growing and it’s changing.

So, what exactly does the Commonwealth mean, and what does it do in 2018? What do we share with the other 51 countries – including Tonga, Pakistan, Barbados, Canada and Mozambique – in this sprawling, disparate global club? And will this organisation ever wield any real power or influence?

On the opening night of the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast, a group of Griffith Review writers from around the world join us to look into these questions. Hosted by Julianne Schultz, Timmah Ball, Annie Zaidi and Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm discuss the Griffith Review’s Commonwealth Edition and talk legacy and law, history, health and human rights in the Commonwealth today.

Julianne Schultz, Timmah Ball, Annie Zaidi and Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm

Pat Cunnane — Photo: Jon Tjhia

‘What’s a POTUS?’

Pat Cunnane, aged 22, asked a co-worker this question on one of his first days working at the White House. It’s safe to say he figured out the answer pretty quickly, rising from his first job as White House media monitor to become the senior writer and deputy director for messaging for the POTUS himself, Barack Obama.

In Cunnane’s new book, West Winging It: An Unpresidential Memoir, he gives fascinating insider’s account of his six years working at the heart of the Obama administration. During these years, Cunnane wrangled reporters and photographers and wrote statements, opinion pieces and even jokes in the former President’s voice. He was there for the big moments and the small and he was there, of course, for the surprise transition to Donald Trump.

With Sally Warhaft, Cunnane talks about what it’s like writing the words that would shape hearts and minds of a nation, and the world. He also shares his thoughts on the American presidency then and now – and the minutiae of daily working life in the White House – talking Trump and Twitter; history and hope.

Sally Warhaft and Pat Cunnane — Photo: Jon Tjhia

In this year’s Hazel Rowley Memorial Lecture, Jenny Hocking explores a matter that goes to the heart of questions of power and sovereignty in Australia, the secret role of the Palace in the dismissal of the Whitlam government, and her latest book, The Dismissal Dossier: Everything You Were Never Meant to Know About November 1975 – the Palace Connection.

‘It is now more than 40 years since the dismissal of the Whitlam government and the palace continues to treat us as the recalcitrant colonial child, not to be trusted with such a dangerous thing as knowledge of our own history.’

Gough Whitlam's award-winning biographer Jenny Hocking is pursuing the release of letters between Governor General John Kerr, the Queen, Prince Charles and the Queen’s private secretary, Martin Charteris, through Federal Court action against the National Archives of Australia. Under instructions from the Queen, these letters are embargoed. Do Australians know the full story of the dismissal of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and the extent of the Queen’s involvement?

Presented in partnership with Writers Victoria and the Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship.