2026 Warrane Lecture with Parnell Palme McGuinness

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.