Warrane Lecture

2026 Warrane Lecture with Parnell Palme McGuinness

Generation Trapped: How real choice might restore the promise of democracy for young Australians.

Wednesday, 1st July 2026

The Warrane Lecture is an annual public lecture delivered by an eminent person from public life or academia. Its aim is to contribute to the understanding of important issues and current challenges facing society, in line with the overall aims of the College. The Warrane Lecture is the highlight of the College’s academic program.

Parnell Palme McGuinness is an insights and advocacy strategist for policy change campaigns and a senior fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies. She has worked on policy and communications for political parties in Germany and Australia, and run influential campaigns on topics ranging from school choice through to productivity reform. She is a non-executive director and chair of the risk and compliance committee for an educational institution and serves on the advisory board of Australians for Prosperity. She writes a weekly column for the Sun-Herald and the Sunday Age on politics, policy and culture.

This year's Warrane Lecture is titled: Generation Trapped: How real choice might restore the promise of democracy for young Australians.

Australia has, historically, been one of the greatest liberal democracies in the world, where anyone could sign up to the liberal democratic formula of success.

But - have we begun to forget the recipe?

Our vulnerability is now revealing itself in the declining well-being of young Australians, and over time, policies have robbed the people who should have most belief in what lies ahead of their sense of agency.

Parnell Palme McGuinness has carried out extensive research into young Australians and sorted them into tribes. Many of the tribes, though distinct, share a common trait - a crushing sense of being abandoned by short-term and short-sighted policy choices.

It's not all doom and gloom - Parnell will set out what needs to change so that young Australians can once again have real choice and own their future - the way democracy was meant to work.

Following the Lecture, a recorded version will be available to watch on Warrane’s YouTube page.

 

The following list outlines previous Warrane Lectures:

2025 Joseph Pearce: Power, Corruption and the Triumph of the Human Spirit: Can the West still learn from Solzhenitsyn Vs Big Brother?

2024 Professor Tyler J. VanderWeele: From Wellbeing to Human Flourishing – Hope in the Anxious Century

2023  Dr Anthony Dillon & Associate Professor Sean Brennan: A Discussion on Indigenous Affairs in the Context of the Voice Referendum

2022 John Anderson AC, Former Deputy Prime Minister:The Role of Authentic Masculinity in a Flourishing Society.

2021 General the Honourable Sir Peter Cosgrove AK CVO MC (Retd), Former Governor-General of Australia and Chief of the Defence Force: Australia’s Emerging Leadership Role in the Evolving World Order.

2020  Nyunggai Warren Mundine AO, Australian Indigenous Leader: Advance Australia Fair: Towards a Prosperous Nation for All

2019 Nicholas Moore, former CEO of Macquarie Group: Management in Uncertain Times

2018 Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP: In Saecula Saeculorum: Secularism and Religious Freedom

2017 Mr Michael L’Estrange AO, Deputy Chancellor of the University of Notre Dame Australia: Individual Rights, National Security and the Role of government in the Global Era

2016 Professor John Haldane, Philosopher: Have Universities Lost Their Way

2015 The Honourable Kevin Andrews MP, former Minister for Defence: The Building Blocks of Western Civilisation: Reflections on Marriage and the Family

2014 The Honourable John Howard OM AC, Prime Minister of Australia (1996 – 2007): Economic and Political Challenges for Australia

2013 Mr Neville Roach AO: Australian Multiculturalism in the Asian Century

2012 The Honourable Thomas Bathurst QC, Chief Justice of New South Wales, Lieutenant-Governor of New South Wales: Social media: The end of civilisation?”

2011 Professor Margaret Somerville AM FRSC, Samuel Gale Professor of Law, Professor in the Faculty of Medicine, and Founding Director of the Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill University, Canada: Should religion be evicted from the public square? (published as Warrane College Monograph No. 22)

2010 Professor Gordon Parker AO, Scientia Professor of Psychiatry, The University of New South Wales; and Executive Director Black Dog Institute, Prince of Wales Hospital: Colours and Sizes of the Black Dog

2009 Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir AC CVO, Governor of New South Wales: The Legacy of Lachlan Macquarie, 5th Governor of New South Wales: His Contribution to the Maturation of Australia (published as Warrane College Monograph No. 22)

2008 Professor Larissa Behrendt, Professor of Law & Director of Research, Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning, University of Technology, Sydney: Achieving Social Justice for Aboriginal People in a Civil Society (published as Warrane College Monograph No. 17)

2007 Mr David Gonski AC, Chancellor, The University of New South Wales: The Place of Ethics in a Life of Business (published as Warrane College Monograph No. 15)

2006 The Honourable Justice James Spigelman AC, Chief Justice of New South Wales: Shanghai and the West: First Contact (published as Warrane College Monograph no. 13)

2005 The Honourable Justice Dyson Heydon AC, Justice of the High Court of Australia: The Gaining and Losing of National Independence (published as Warrane College Monograph No. 12)

2004 The Honourable Jacinta Collins, Australian Senator: Integrity in Political Life

2003 Mr Malcolm Turnbull, Lawyer & Merchant Banker: Is the West Dying Out: Family, Fertility and Survival (published as Warrane College Monograph No. 9)

2002 The Honourable Tim Fischer AC, former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia & Leader of the National Party: Bounceback in the Outback

2001 The Honourable Justice Brian Sully QC, Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales: Drifting towards Upheaval: Current Agitation for Constitutional Change (published as Warrane College Monograph No. 10)

2000 Professor Ken Moores, Vice Chancellor, Bond University: Entrepreneurship in Education

1999 Mr Roderick West, former Headmaster, Trinity Grammar School, Sydney; and Chair, Commonwealth Review of Higher Education Financing & Policy: Towards Utopia

1998 The Right Honourable Sir Zelman Cowen AK GCMG GCVO QC PC, former Governor General of Australia: Retrospect and Prospect

1996 Bishop George Pell, Professor Jerzy Zubrzycki & Dr Susan Moore: Symposium on “The Culture of Life”

1995 The Honourable Richard Alston, Australian Senator: Media Ownership: Where Does the Public Interest Lie?

1994 His Eminence Cardinal Edward Cassidy AC, President, Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity: Christian Unity

1993 Dr John Fleming, Director, Southern Cross Bioethics Institute: The Public Policy Implications of Human Rights for Bioethics

1992 Monsignor Cormac Burke, Judge of the Roman Rota, Vatican City: Secular and Christian: The Freedom and Responsibility of the Lay Person

1991 Sir Eric Neal, Chairman, Westpac Banking Corporation: Ethical Responsibility in Corporate and Public Life

1990 Mr Les Murray AO, Poet: Hiding the Face of Poetry

1989 The Honourable Deirdre Grusovin, Deputy Leader of the Opposition, New South Wales Legislative Council: The Rights of the Family and the Rights of the Child

1988 Professor John Ward, Vice-Chancellor, The University of Sydney: Higher Education and the Nation

1987 The Honourable Fred Chaney, Australian Senator: Government and the Family

1986 Professor Michael Birt, Vice-Chancellor, The University of New South Wales: The Idea of a University

1985 Sir Hermann Black, Chancellor, The University of Sydney: Jerusalem

1983 Emeritus Professor Bill Walker, Principal, The Australian Administrative Staff College, Mt Eliza: Quality in Education: Looking to 2000AD

1982 Sir Bede Callaghan, Chancellor, The University of Newcastle: Whither Australia?

1981 Professor John Williams, Professor of Biochemistry, Australian National University: Rights & Responsibilities – An Uneasy Balance

1980 Professor Dame Leonie Kramer DBE, Professor of Australian Literature, The University of Sydney: The Kind of Education our Society Needs Today

1978 Professor Jerome Lejeune, Professor of Genetics, The University of Paris: Evolution and Human Culture

1977 Dr Frank Sheed, Author, Theologian and Publisher: How High is Higher Education?

1973 Professor Colin Clark, Director, Institute of Economic Progress, The University of Oxford: Australian Population

1971 Sir Roden Cutler VC KCMG KCVO CBE, Governor of New South Wales: Official Opening of the College