How the World Sees Australia - Nick Bryant 21/09/2011

Mr Nick Bryant, the BBC’s foreign correspondent in Australia Wednesday 21 September, 2011 5.30pm – 7pm Dyason House 124 Jolimont Road, East Melbourne How does the world see Australia? Do we live up to our self-image as the sun-blessed, relaxed, friendly and confident country, or does the world see us in an altogether different light?  Are we, as portrayed a decade ago by the American author Bill Bryson, an inconsequential country, or are we seen as a major component of the global economic shift from the Atlantic to the Indian and Pacific oceans? Australia is now a member of the world’s top economic body, the G20, a competitor for a seat on the UN Security Council, a committed partner to our allies, a vital supplier to China and other fast-growing countries and was the only OECD economy to avoid a recession during the GFC.  But are we still just the lucky country, our good fortune a consequence of geography more than policy?  And if we are a fast-growing, positive country, why do Australians often seem so sensitive to what others think of us? At the conclusion of his five year assignment as the BBC’s correspondent in Australia, the Institute is pleased to have Nick Bryant give us his perspective on Australia’s standing in the world. Nick Bryant has served as a BBC correspondent in Washington and South Asia, studied history at Cambridge and has a doctorate in American politics from Oxford.  He is the author of ‘The Bystander: John F. Kennedy and the Struggle for Black Equality’ and he has just published a book chronicling his experiences as a foreign correspondent, ‘Adventures in Correspondentland.’