2020: Arguing For, and Against, Optimism

Read Friday, 13 Feb 2015

Image: The panel. — From left to right: Eva Cox, Simon Overland, George Megalogenis, Marita Cheng, Gregory Phillips and Annabel Crabb.

This past Monday, we started our year with the first event of our GALAs 2015 series – In Five. A Gala Debate on 2020.

Eva Cox, George Megalogenis, Marita Cheng, Gregory Phillips and Simon Overland each offered optimistic – then pessimistic – views of life in Australia in five years, in a two-sided debate with just one team.

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After the panellists were done delivering their arguments to the audience, host Annabel Crabb summed them up in one speedy, surreal minute.

You can watch the whole debate below.

You’ll hear Marita Cheng discuss robots and drones, Eva Cox on progressive politics and activism, George Megalogenis on our economic prospects, Simon Overland on global cooperation on terrorism and climate change, and Gregory Phillips on the relationship between people and the land.

If that’s whet your palate, there’s more to come from our fifth birthday GALAs 2015. Tomorrow night, we’ll hear from twelve of Australia’s finest storytellers at On Five. A Gala Night of Storytelling. And next week, children’s book author Julia Donaldson – creator of The Gruffalo – joins us in Melbourne and Geelong.

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