The John Bonython Lecture series, established in 1984 to honour the founding Chairman of the Board of Trustees, has fostered debate and introduced fresh ideas into public policy discourse with past speakers including Thomas Sowell, Daniel Hannan, and Deirdre McCloskey. This annual flagship event brings together CIS supporters, members and friends to celebrate our commitment to the core principles that define our mission.

Join us in Sydney on Tuesday, 14 October for an event featuring our 2025 John Bonython Lecturer, Andrew Neil. Andrew will be joined by CIS Executive Director, Michael Stutchbury for a discussion on the West’s future amid rising autocracies and shifting alliances.

The world in 2025 is a very dangerous place because the alliance of the bad guys is growing closer, stronger, more intimidating — just as the alliances that bind together the good guys are in disarray and threatening to unravel.

Above all, we face an increasingly united evil at the very moment that doubts are growing about the commitment of the most important democracy of all — America — to the various democratic alliances that have kept us free since the fall of Hitler’s regime eight decades ago.

The Western world is at a watershed, facing some historic choices. Do we proceed on the basis that, despite all President Trump’s bluster, America will remain the essential ally as we confront united and re-energised autocrats? Or must we realise that we have to adjust existing alliances and build new ones without America’s central involvement?

Andrew Neil has been one of Britain’s most distinguished print and broadcast journalists for nearly 50 years. He’s been a former editor of The Sunday Times, chairman of Sky News UK and The Spectator magazine and lead political interviewer at the BBC where he presented various political programmes. He writes a weekly column in the UK Daily Mail and hosts a broadcast for Times Radio.