Sean Kelly: On belief in politics
Event details
Thursday 4 December 2025, 6pm - 7pm, ACDT
Online & Allan Scott Auditorium, Hawke Building,
UniSA City West Campus, 55 North Terrace Adelaide
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04 December 2005
sEAN KELLY
ON BELIEF IN POLITICS
sean kelly
in-conversation with
Misha Ketchell, Editor,
the conversation
Award-winning journalist Sean Kelly joins Misha Ketchell, Editor of The Conversation, to discuss the state of the nation and the prospects for change and renewal.
In Quarterly Essay 100, Kelly captures the strange transitional moment we find ourselves in: sick of neoliberalism yet afraid of what might replace it. We are obsessed with work but resentful of it; desperate for community but stuck inside our phones; protective of our way of life while wanting to change everything.
Amid this uncertainty about who we are, what we believe and what we want, it seems harder than ever to make out where our politicians want to take us. The Liberal Party is in crisis. Labor, meanwhile, as it leaves old ideologies behind, insists it is both bold and incrementalist, committed to progressive values but middle of the road.
With vividness and insight, Kelly diagnoses the state of the nation and the prospects for change and renewal. He argues that the end of ideology may yet offer hope for a new politics. As the prime minister promotes a new nationalism, could Australia show other countries the way forward?
Imprints Booksellers will be selling copies of Sean Kelly's Quarterly Essay 100: On belief in politics by in the Auditorium foyer on the night of the event.
Presented by The Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre
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Presented by
The Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre
While the views presented by speakers within The Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre public program are their own and are not necessarily those of either the University of South Australia, or The Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre, they are presented in the interest of open debate and discussion in the community and reflect our themes of: Strengthening our Democracy - Valuing our Diversity - Building our Future. The Hawke Centre reserves the right to change their program at any time without notice.
