Australian Election Analysis

Now that the dust has settled on the 2025 federal election, get the political analysis with an independent twist from commentator and past candidate Jane Caro, Climate 200's Simon Holmes à Court and Quarterly Essayist George Megalogenis (Minority Report). With Misha Ketchell.

Supported by The Conversation

Stopping Family Violence

What will it take to stop gendered violence? Australian governments promised to end violence against women and children in a single generation. Instead, it is escalating. What went wrong? And what can we all do to turn it around? Jess Hill (Losing It: Quarterly Essay, See What You Made Me Do) is one of Australia’s most respected thinkers on gendered violence. Hear her in discussion with The Guardian’s Lucy Clark.

Green Solutions

What will it take to heal our planet – and how can each of us play a meaningful role? This inspiring panel explores the intersection of education, philanthropy, and community action in the fight against climate change and the practical things you can do to decarbonise, boost biodiversity, and green our world. Featuring Amy Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles, Judy Friedlander, Saul Griffith and Kate Saunders. With Courtney Miller.

Supported by Australian Ethical

Australians are keen to electrify their homes and vehicles and save on energy bills, but how can we ensure this happens fairer and faster?

Join Saul Griffith, engineer and Chief Scientist at Rewiring Australia, as he discusses his latest book Plug In: The Electrification Handbook, which provides practical advice for everyday Australians on upgrading their homes and cars. You will also hear from community groups about the local action happening in your neighbourhoods. 

Join us for an enlightening event on how Australia can race towards all-electric homes and communities. 

Australians are keen to electrify their homes and vehicles and save on energy bills, but how can we ensure this happens fairer and faster?

Join Saul Griffith, engineer and Chief Scientist at Rewiring Australia, as he discusses his latest book Plug In: The Electrification Handbook, which provides practical advice for everyday Australians on upgrading their homes and cars. You will also hear from community groups about the local action happening in your neighbourhoods. 

Join us for an enlightening event on how Australia can race towards all-electric homes and communities. 

Join author Moreno Giovannoni and Belinda Harrison from Edgars Books & News as they discuss Moreno's new book The Immigrants.

In the Victorian town of Mitrefò, tobacco is grown, an Italian cinema and café open, and people travel back and forth from Italy. A boy fishes, wanders the countryside and watches a community form, with its joys, scandals and shared understandings. Interspersed are the ‘grotesques’ – indelible and terrible events that sit alongside the better future they all seek.

Copies of The Immigrants are available from Edgars Books & News and the Myrtleford Newsagency now or at the event.

Limited copies of Moreno's first book The Fireflies of Autumn will also be available to buy at the event.

Following the talk, Moreno will sign copies of his books.

Australians are keen to electrify their homes and vehicles and save on energy bills, but how can we ensure this happens fairer and faster?

Join Saul Griffith, engineer and Chief Scientist at Rewiring Australia, as he discusses his latest book Plug In: The Electrification Handbook, which provides practical advice for everyday Australians on upgrading their homes and cars. You will also hear from community groups about the local action happening in your neighbourhoods. 

Join us for an enlightening event on how Australia can race towards all-electric homes and communities. 

Join Lucy Sussex co-author of Outrageous Fortunes: The Adventures of Mary Fortune, Crime Writer, and Her Criminal Son as she explains the research and fascinating history behind the woman who was writing crime while her son was committing it. Crime fiction meets true crime in this non-fiction book, when Melbourne's literary bohemia consort with the criminal underworld.

Join Lucy Sussex co-author of Outrageous Fortunes:The Adventures of Mary Fortune, Crime Writer, and Her Criminal Son as she explains the research and fascinating history behind the woman who was writing crime while her son was committing it. Crime fiction meets true crime in this non-fiction book, when Melbourne's literary bohemia consort with the criminal underworld.

Join author Moreno Giovannoni and Belinda Harrison from Edgars Books & News as they discuss Moreno's new book The Immigrants.

In the Victorian town of Mitrefò, tobacco is grown, an Italian cinema and café open, and people travel back and forth from Italy. A boy fishes, wanders the countryside and watches a community form, with its joys, scandals and shared understandings. Interspersed are the ‘grotesques’ – indelible and terrible events that sit alongside the better future they all seek.

Copies of The Immigrants are available from Edgars Books & News now or at the event.

Limited copies of Moreno's first book The Fireflies of Autumn will also be available to buy at the event.

Following the talk, Moreno will sign copies of his books.

Disappearances. Secrets. Escapes. Flights of fancy. Hidden histories and historical mysteries. 

Through fact and fiction, three authors bring us a spectacular cast of spirited women. In Miss Caroline Bingley, Private Detective, Kelly Gardiner (with co-author Sharmini Kumar) re-imagines Jane Austen’s heroine as a sharp-minded sleuth seeking out a missing maid. Lucy Sussex (with co-author Megan Brown) gives us the hitherto little-known story of Australia’s first female crime writer, Mary Fortune, and her career-criminal son in Outrageous Fortunes. Novelist Tara Calaby weaves a speculative romance amid the concealed cabinets and slippery sceances in 19th century Melbourne in The Spirit Circle.  With host, La Trobe University’s, Stephanie Downes.

Stella Award-winning journalist Jess Hill has exposed the devastating impact of domestic abuse through her books, television programs and podcasts.  Her latest Quarterly Essay, Losing it, investigates why violence against women is escalating. In her chilling memoir, Groomed, novelist Sonia Orchard confronts the personal, cultural and legal consequences of child sexual assault.  

These extraordinary writers and thinkers ask the questions: how have we allowed this crisis to happen? And what will it take to fix it?  With host, La Trobe criminologist, Kirsty Duncanson. 

In a seemingly fact-free world, what is the value of evidence?  Is there advantage in uncertainty?  How to weigh up the argument: on data or opinion? Intellect or intuition? And by what authority is vested the algorithm? 

In Prove It, biochemist Elizabeth Finkel describes how the time-tested scientific method plays out in contemporary controversies where politics and prejudice lead debate. In Blindspotting, leadership expert Kirstin Ferguson asks the question: what if the biggest obstacle to your success is something you can’t even see? And Artificial Intelligence researcher Toby Walsh, in his latest book The Shortest History of AI, traces the evolution of AI from “a speculative idea to a transformative force”.  With host, La Trobe University’s Andrea Carson. 

What is the role and function of the scientific method in a post-truth era? Join award-winning science journalist and former Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow, Elizabeth Finkel, to discuss her latest book, Prove It (La Trobe University Press) a remarkable journey through science’s big breakthroughs which investigates the significance of evidence-based theories for our legal, academic and political institutions and public conversations.  Does democracy itself rely on not only thinking and saying it, but also proving it? In conversation with science educator, La Trobe’s Douglas Bair.  Hosted by Professor of Public Engagement, Clare Wright.

Bookseller, author signings and light refreshments provided.  

Join Linda Jaivin who will be in conversation with Steve Minon about her book Bombard the Headquarters!

Please note: THIS IS A RESCHEDULED EVENT DATE - Original event was advertised for 17 July 2025

ABOUT THE BOOK

A riveting account of a turbulent period in Chinese history.

In 1966, with the words 'Bombard the Headquarters!' Mao Zedong unleashed the full, violent force of a movement that he called the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. By the time he died ten years later, millions had perished, China's cultural heritage was in ruins, its economic state was perilous, its institutions of government were damaged and its society was bitterly divided.

In this fascinating account, Linda Jaivin focuses on the eventful start of the Cultural Revolution. She sheds light on the ideological quarrels that underpinned it and profiles the personalities involved.

Discussion of the Cultural Revolution is heavily censored in the People's Republic, and many young Chinese people know almost nothing about it. Even so, it continues to cast a shadow over life in China. Current president Xi Jinping's assumption of a third term in 2022, his elimination of rival factions from the leadership and attempts to build a personality cult around himself discomfit many within and outside of the Chinese Communist Party. Bombard the Headquarters! helps us to understand why.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Linda Jaivin has been studying Chinese politics, language and culture for more than forty years. She has been a foreign correspondent in China, and is co-editor of the China Story Yearbook, an associate of the Australian Centre on China in the World at the Australian National University and the author of twelve books.

Kate Grenville is no stranger to the past. Her success and fame as a writer exploded when she published The Secret River in 2005, a bestseller based on the story of her convict ancestor, an early settler on the Hawkesbury River.

More than two decades on, and following the defeat of the Voice referendum, Grenville is still grappling with what it means to descend from people who were, as she puts it, “on the sharp edge of the moving blade that was colonisation”.

So she decides to go on a kind of pilgrimage, back through the places her family stories happened, and put the stories and the First People back into the same frame, on the same country, to try to think about those questions. This gripping book is the result of that journey.

Event produced by Bookoccino

Join us to hear Marian Wilkinson in conversation with Michael Williams about Quarterly Essay 99: Woodside Vs. the Planet.

This is a story of power and influence, pollution and protest. The world may have committed to curbing fossil-fuel use in the 2030s, but Australia's fossil-fuel giants have doubled down. They have plans for increased production into the 2070s. Support from the major parties is locked in, so something has to give.

In this ground-breaking essay, Marian Wilkinson reveals the ways of corporate power and investigates the new face of protest and disruption. The stakes could not be higher.

Free, but bookings are essential.

Join us for a special in-conversation event with ‘Rewiring Australia’s Dr Saul Griffith’ , award-winning engineer, inventor and bestselling author of The Big Switch, as he launches his powerful new handbook: Plug In!: The Electrification Handbook. With wit, clarity and data-backed solutions, Saul will take us through five key decisions every household can make to transition away from fossil fuels – and why this movement is more urgent and empowering than ever. 

From solar to EVs, induction cooktops to heat pumps, Plug In! is your go-to guide to electrifying your life. Saul will share practical tips, visionary ideas and insights from his work as founder of Rewiring America and Rewiring Australia, where he champions large-scale policy and grassroots action to accelerate our clean energy future. 

In conversation with local sustainability advocate Pam Townsend, this is a must-attend for anyone curious about energy, climate and how everyday choices can drive national change. Whether you’re a renter, homeowner, tradie, or just electrification-curious, this event will leave you fired up and ready to plug in. 

Join us for a conversation with Marian Wilkinson about her Quarterly Essay Woodside Vs. the Planet.
 
A story of power and influence, pollution and protest. The world may have committed to curbing fossil-fuel use in the 2030s, but Australia's fossil-fuel giants have doubled down. They have plans for increased production into the 2070s. Support from the major parties is locked in, so something has to give.

In this groundbreaking essay, Marian Wilkinson reveals the ways of corporate power and investigates the new face of protest and disruption. The stakes could not be higher.

The former leader of the Greens shares stories of courage, conviction and the power of community from a life on the environmental frontlines.

For half a century, Bob Brown has been standing up to powerful interest groups that have put profit before planet. 

To celebrate the launch of his new book Defiance, he sits down to reflect on the people and places that have shaped him and shares what motivates him to keep fighting. He considers the challenges facing those who are dedicated to safeguarding life on Earth - from dealing with hostile corporate lobbyists, to press propaganda, to the powerful pull of consumerism - and shows how courage, persistence and community can defeat them all. 

Drawing on decades of experience and told with his trademark warmth and humour, these stories will galvanise, uplift and inspire a new wave of individual and collective action. With host Jeff Sparrow.  

Former leader of the Australian Greens, Bob Brown, has been standing up to those who would put profit before planet for half a century.

In his new book, Defiance, he draws on his experience in the environment movement from his time as director of the Wilderness Society, protesting the Franklin Dam to his distinguished political career advocating for the environment. To inspire a new generation of individual and collective action, he considers the challenges facing nature’s defenders, from industry lobbyists to rising consumerism, and reflects on the motivations to keep fighting for our planet.

Be galvanised by Bob’s warmth and humour in this timely conversation. 

Presented by Sydney Writers' Festival.