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The Avoidable War

Sat 7 May 2022

Kevin Rudd + Steve Austin

slq Auditorium 1, level 2, State Library

Main Festival

#Performances

#About the event

Duration: 60 minutes

As the world watches the unfolding travesty of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, it is easy to forget the tinder box geopolitical tensions in our own Indo-Pacific region. Kevin Rudd, former Australian Prime Minister and life-long student of Chinese culture and politics, discusses with Steve Austin the complex relationship between two of the biggest superpowers in the world, China and the US, in his latest book The Avoidable War.

Kevin Rudd in conversation with Steve Austin

#Artists

Kevin Rudd

Kevin Rudd is the global president and CEO of Asia Society and has been president of the Asia Society Policy Institute since January 2015. He served as Australia's twenty-sixth prime minister from 2010 and then as its foreign minister from 2010 to 2012 before returning as prime minister in 2013. Rudd graduated from the Australian National University with honours in Chinese studies and is fluent in Mandarin. He also studied at the National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei.

Steve Austin

Steve has presented programs for ABC Radio & Television for thirty years. He has focused primarily on public affairs with a political bent. An interest in Art and what it says about the artist and the audience he believes that Brisbane writer Melissa Lukashenko got it right when she wrote “the audience gives us their trust & we give them new eyes”. Steve aims to approach public affairs from a different angle and draw out the unexpected from guests. He has interviewed every Australian Prime Minister from John Howard to the Present day. He declines to interview celebrities as they tend to be predictable whilst the interesting stories come from unexpected people.