Australian Strategic Policy Institute invites you to their event
About this event
ASPI is delighted to invite you to attend our upcoming webinar to discuss the recently released book, Law, politics and intelligence: A life of Robert Hope. The book’s author, Dr Peter Edwards AM, will be joined by the Hon. Margaret Stone AO, former Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, in a conversation moderated by ASPI's Michael Shoebridge.
Justice Robert Marsden Hope presided over two landmark royal commissions into Australia’s intelligence and security agencies in the 1970s and 1980s. Since then, there has been considerable comment on issues surrounding these agencies, including the powers they have been granted under more than 70 new pieces of national security legislation; the scope of the new Department of Home Affairs; police raids on the ABC offices and a News Corp journalist’s home; the role of the parliamentary committee on intelligence and security; and the prosecutions of ‘Witness K’ and his lawyer. These and other issues all come back to the age-old question: how does a society strike the right balance between national security and civil liberties?
Peter Edwards’ book, Law, politics and intelligence: A life of Robert Hope, offers a historian’s perspective. Hope was commissioned by prime ministers Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser and Bob Hawke to conduct three major inquiries, two of which were royal commissions, that transformed the structure, legislation, roles and doctrines of the intelligence agencies, establishing the framework within which they operated, with bi-partisan support, until 2017. Edwards argues that it is only by examining the principles and structures that Hope laid down that we can understand what is currently at stake.
Peter Edwards has published extensively, mostly on Australian foreign, defence and strategic policies and policymaking. His other books include Australia and the Vietnam War and Arthur Tange: Last of the Mandarins. His books have won several awards.
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The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) is an independent, non-partisan think tank that produces expert and timely advice for Australia’s strategic and defence leaders. ASPI generates new ideas for government, allowing them to make better-info...
