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Australia and democracy in the Pacific Islands

Wednesday 11 September 2024, 11:00 am – 12:00 pm (AEST)
Parliament House Theatre, Parliament House and live streamed

The Pacific is a strongly democratic region. Most Pacific countries have unbroken track records of scheduled elections and peaceful power transfers. Despite this, there are challenges to democratic resilience in the region, including the protection of political rights and civil liberties, issues of electoral integrity, and under-representation of women and marginalised groups.

Australia has asserted the importance of promoting shared democratic values in its foreign policy and invested significantly in democracy in the Pacific. In the Pacific region’s complex and competitive geostrategic environment, democratic norms and practices may increasingly come under pressure.

This seminar will examine how democracy manifests in the region and explore the challenges and opportunities of democracy support.

Book Online

Presenter: 
Dr Kerryn Baker is a political scientist and Fellow in the Department of Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University. Kerryn’s publications include issues on political participation, elections and electoral reform, and women’s political representation. She is the author of Pacific Women in Politics: Gender Quota Campaigns in the Pacific Islands (University of Hawai’i Press, 2019), and the winner of the Carole Pateman Gender and Politics Book Prize, 2021.

This free lecture will be held in the in the Parliament House Theatre, Parliament House. Senators, Members, their staff and the public are welcome to attend in person.

This lecture will also be live streamed and recorded. You can access the live stream on the day at Watch, Read, Listen and the Australian Parliament House Streaming Portal on Youtube.

For further information, or if you have any accessibility requirements, call or email Nicholas Cumming on 02 6277 2610.

Sponsorship recipients announcement

The APLAP Executive Committee are delighted to announce the following recipients of the APLAP sponsorship for the IFLA Information Futures Summit 2024, to be held in Brisbane, Australia from September 30 to October 3, 2024:

  • Boniface Supa – National Parliament of Solomon Islands
  • Asha Kumar – Parliament of the Republic of Fiji
  • Eugene Jose Espinoza – Senate of the Phillippines

Thank you to everyone who sumitted an applicatoin for this award. The Executive Committee were impressed by the high calibre of applications from across our membership. Congratulations to our three recipients and we wish you all the best for the upcoming IFLA event.

Call for nominations for APLAP sponsorship to International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) Information Futures Summit (IIFS) 2024

The APLAP Executive Committee is pleased to announce that APLAP will sponsor four institutional members to attend the IFLA Information Future Summit 2024. The event will be held in Brisbane, Australia from 30 September to 3 October 2024. Sponsorship of up to $6,000NZD is being offered to contribute towards the cost of flights, accommodation, conference registration, and incidentals. Nominations must be received by the APLAP Executive Committee on or before 14 July 2024.

For more information about sponsorships, including eligibility, application process, and selectin criteria, please visit https://bit.ly/APLAPIIFS2024 or the APLAP Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/aplap. For more information about the IFLA Information Futures Summit, visit https://2024.ifla.org/.