Announcing my live event series
A Live Podcast Series on Australia's Most Urgent or Underrated Policy Problems
[Apologies if you're receiving this email as a non-Australian. I'm unable to filter my mailing list by country.]
In early 2025, I’ll be hosting a series of live podcast conversations in Sydney and Melbourne, each focusing on an important or underrated policy issue.
I thought carefully about the perfect guest for each topic—ranging from immigration and housing to inequality and defence—and I’m lucky that every person I invited said yes!
But this series is more than just a set of events. It's an opportunity to bring together a community of thoughtful, curious people—to meet my listeners, and to give them the chance to meet each other, in person.
That’s why, after each event, we’ll wrap up with a casual meet-and-greet—a chance to keep the conversation going.
I’ll be hosting two events in Melbourne and four in Sydney, with availability strictly limited to around 100 tickets per event.
Tickets are available at the links below, with an early bird sale for the first 50 tickets per event until January 1.
Because this is about building a thoughtful community, I’d be thrilled if the same group of engaged people came to every session. If you’d like to attend multiple events in your city, email me at joe@jnwpod.com with your city name, and I'll send you a special discount code.
I can’t wait to see you there!
Schedule
Get tickets or find out more at the links below.
Abul Rizvi on immigration [Melbourne]
23rd January 2025 | Get tickets
As it was for the US and UK in 2024, so it will be for Canada and Australia in 2025: immigration has become the most politically charged issue across the Anglosphere.
Abul Rizvi, former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Immigration, managed Australia's migration program from 1995 to 2007. He was instrumental in reshaping the system to focus on skilled migration, including significantly expanding the intake of overseas students.
Join me for a live podcast with one of the architects of modern Australian immigration policy, to unpack its past, present and future.
Andrew Leigh MP on inequality [Sydney]
29th January 2025 | Get tickets
Dr. Andrew Leigh MP is Australia’s Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities, and Treasury, and Assistant Minister for Employment. An economist by training, he was previously Professor of Economics at the Australian National University and earned his PhD from Harvard.
He is widely regarded as Australia’s leading authority on inequality. (On a personal note, I had the privilege of interning for Andrew several years ago—one of my most formative experiences!)
In this live conversation, I’ll be asking Andrew a fresh set of questions about the link between housing and inequality, as well as how economic inequality intersects with cultural egalitarianism.
Richard Holden & Steven Hamilton On state capacity [Sydney]
5th February 2025 | Get tickets
Richard Holden, Professor of Economics at UNSW and President of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, and Steven Hamilton, Assistant Professor of Economics at George Washington University, are two of Australia’s leading public policy economists.
Together, they’ve coauthored Australia’s Pandemic Exceptionalism, a book that, while ostensibly about Australia's policy responses to the pandemic, offers one of the most incisive explorations of Australian state capacity in recent years.
This live podcast will explore what makes the Australian administrative state peculiarly effective—and how the pandemic exposed its unusual strengths and weaknesses.
Peter Tulip on the housing crisis [Sydney]
12th February 2025 | Get tickets
Housing is the defining social policy failure of our time, and few people have worked as patiently to educate the public about its causes as Peter Tulip.
Currently Chief Economist at the Centre for Independent Studies, Peter previously held senior roles at the Reserve Bank of Australia and the US Federal Reserve. I learned more about Peter’s work through our email exchanges during his time at the RBA, and his insights have shaped my understanding of the housing crisis ever since (we catch up every year or so, and I learn some more each time).
This live conversation is the latest installment in our catch-ups. I’ll pepper Peter with my latest set of questions about why the crisis remains unresolved and what policies could actually fix it—this time with an audience of 100 people watching.
Sam Roggeveen on defence [Sydney]
26th February 2025 | Get tickets
Sam Roggeveen’s The Echidna Strategy is one of the most independent and thought-provoking books on Australian defence and foreign policy in recent years. Inspired in part by Taiwan’s "porcupine strategy", it advocates for an approach that deters aggression by making any attack prohibitively costly.
Sam is the Director of the Lowy Institute’s International Security Program and was previously a senior strategic analyst at the Office of National Assessments, Australia’s peak intelligence agency.
This live podcast will examine the critical questions of how much longer Australia can rely on its alliance with the US and what it will take to turn Australia into a military echidna.
Judith Brett on political culture & compulsory voting [Melbourne]
6th March 2025 | Get tickets
Judith Brett, emeritus Professor of Politics at La Trobe University, is one of Australia’s foremost public intellectuals and political historians.
Her latest book, From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage, is much more than a definitive history of compulsory voting in Australia—it’s a deep exploration of the country’s unique political culture.
With a federal election around the corner, this live podcast with Judith promises to be especially timely, offering original insights into how Australia’s voting system has been shaped by, and has shaped, our society.