Hello Rioters,
Tonight the annual Henry Parkes Oration is on at the National Library, 6.30pm, and it’s free: http://www.parkesfoundation.org.au/
The importance of public education as a fundamental building block of a sustainable democracy is the theme of the Oration, to be delivered by Associate Professor Lyndsay Connors. She will argue that Henry Parkes’ vision for public education is of even more lasting significance to our future as a democracy than the structural arrangements that brought us into a Federal system.
The oration will be introduced by Professor Ian Chubb, Vice-Chancellor, Australian National University.
The Henry Parkes Foundation is a charitable trust established in 1998 with the aim of promoting public understanding of Australia’s constitutional structures and political systems.
The Orations are held each year around the anniversary of Parkes’ famous Tenterfield Address in October 1889, which played a key role in setting the Federation movement in motion.
Speakers in previous years have included former Governor of NSW Gordon Samuels (2001), Hawke and Keating Government Minister Dr Neal Blewett (2004), Senator John Faulkner (2005), constitutional law expert Dr Helen Irving (2006), and former WA Premier Dr Geoff Gallop (2007), NSW Government Minister Linda Burney (2008) and Dr John Bannon (2009).