Michael Wesley

In this thought-provoking and timely examination, academic and writer Michael Wesley asks what Australians really think and how they feel about our universities, and where to next? In 1964, Donald Horne wrote in his classic The Lucky Country that, in a sense, 'Australia does not have a mind. Intellectual life exists but . . . has no established relation to...

In 2003, Australia conceived, financed and led a Pacific-wide intervention into Solomon Islands to prevent the collapse of that state. The Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) was to remain there for fourteen years, costing over $2 billion and involving thousands of soldiers, police and public servants from Australia and across the Pacific. It was remarkably successful in an...

For the first time in history, Australia will be uncomfortably close to the designs and demarches of competing great powers. In the years ahead, we will no longer be too small to make a difference. In his book, There Goes the Neighbourhood, Wesley points to the key economic and political issues that we need to be considering right now, as...

Australia has forgotten what keeps it safe. So argues Michael Wesley in this sharp and compelling essay about our place in the world. Southeast Asia is the key to our national security and prosperity. If China dominates the region, as it plans to, Australia will be very vulnerable. So why are we following an American strategy that isolates and alienates...