Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Tuesday 04 October
6:30 PM - 11:00 PM
The Di Gribble Argument returns for a third year, pushing us into constructive disagreement in efforts to break a conversational deadlock. This year we’re taking on one of the most intractable conversations in Australian public life: stopping the boats.
We are – proudly – a flourishing multicultural society. Most of us carry family histories of migration, seeking safety and prosperity in this vast and varied continent. But something is broken. We spend billions imprisoning asylum seekers on remote Pacific Islands. Whenever this offshore regime hits the headlines, we reach a dead end before we even start. The solution is not ideal, chorus politicians and pundits, but there simply is no other way.
Only a country that hides from its migrant past and present could accept such a fiction – but that is Australia today. From Pauline Hanson’s return to 457 visas, we continue to leave immigration policy and practice to fear-mongering politicians and disingenuous shock-jocks.
It’s time for a proper argument. One that lays out the stunning changes to our social contract on immigration that quietly took place behind the mantra of Stop The Boats. One that looks at the system in its entirety, that replaces publicity-snatching catchphrases with a broader, deeper perspective. And an argument that actually proposes solutions. As she did in her work on the No Business in Abuse and #LetThemStay campaigns, human rights campaigner Shen Narayanasamy will bring together business, government and social threads to detonate the dead end nature of this debate. #argument16
Featuring
Shen Narayanasamy
Shen Narayanasamy is GetUp!'s Human Rights Campaign Director. She founded the No Business in Abuse project, targeting corporate involvement in offshore detention of asylum seekers, and led #LetThemStay, which prevented the deportation of hundreds of asylum seekers to Nauru.
Recently, she led GetUp's response to the Federal Government's attempts to change the Racial Discrimination Act, and ongoing attempts to change citizenship requirements. Shen's background is as a human rights lawyer and advocate, working in Australia and across the Asia Pacific on issues of economic justice and land rights.
Dave Noonan
Dave Noonan is the National Secretary of Australia’s largest construction union, the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), Construction and General Division.
Dave has worked for the union for over 25 years. Prior to becoming National Secretary in 2006, he was an organiser and industrial advocate with the CFMEU Victorian Branch and its antecedent, the Building Workers’ Industrial Union (BWIU). Prior to becoming a union official, Dave was a construction worker.
Dave is a trustee director of CBus, the pension fund for Australia’s construction workers. The fund grew from an industrial campaign nearly 30 years ago and has 655,000 members and $30 billion in Australian funds under management. He is also a director of CBus Property, which invests in Australia’s building and construction industry, and also serves on Cbus’s Investment Committee.
Allan Fels
Allan Fels is an economist, lawyer and public servant, best known for his eight year tenure as the inaugural chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).
One of Australia's most prominent and influential economic and regulatory figures of modern times, Fels remains an active board member, educator, administrator and adviser for a diverse range of businesses and organisations – across governance and political science, mental health, transport and economics. He was made an officer of the Order of Australia in 2001.
George Megalogenis
George Megalogenis has thirty years’ experience in the media, including over a decade in the federal parliamentary press gallery. His book The Australian Moment won the 2013 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Non-fiction ...
Anna Burke
Anna Burke was the elected representative for the Victorian electoral division of Chisholm in the Australian Parliament from 1998 until 2016; she served as the Speaker of the House of Representatives during the 43rd Parliament from 2012 to 2103.
Prior to becoming Speaker, Anna served as Deputy Speaker in the both the 42nd and 43rd Parliaments as well as on a number of Parliamentary Committees including Climate Change, Environment and the Arts, Petitions, and Privileges.
Anna saw her role as the local representative as paramount and was well known throughout her local community and was successfully been re-elected six times.
Many Australians from across the country know Anna not only for her role in the Speaker’s Chair, but for her highly successful campaign to protect people from unwanted telemarketing calls. In 2005, she moved a Private Member’s Bill in Federal Parliament to create a national ‘Do Not Call’ list, which led to the former Government adopting her policy.
Anna was born in 1966 in Melbourne. She and her four siblings were raised in Ashwood, part of the electorate Anna represented.
Anna has a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree from Monash University and a Master of Commerce (Honours) from the University of Melbourne.
Prior to entering Federal Parliament, Anna worked as a national industrial officer for the Finance Sector Union, where she represented the workers in the banking, finance and insurance industries.
Michael Williams
Michael Williams is the editor of The Monthly. He was previously the Artistic Director of Sydney Writers’ Festival. He has spent the past decade at the Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas in Melbourne as its ...