Boyer Lectures - Fast, Smart And Connected: What Is It To Be Human, And Australian, In A Digital World?

He's spent a lifetime puzzling over national security and in his first lecture, General Peter Cosgrove makes mention of all the wars we've been involved in since WW2 and talks about their place in the Australian psyche. They might have been considered other people's wars, but we knew intuitively they were ours as well.

The Oxford of Rupert Murdoch's youth was one of the most privileged places on earth. But freedom and information have changed the order of things. On a global scale more people than ever are taking advantage of the revolution. And that's how it should be.

Rupert Murdoch's recent trips to China and India have convinced him of one thing: there is no alternative to economic growth as a remedy for poverty. Caste and communism have condemned hundreds of millions to wretched lives.

An important theme of the lectures is the pressing need for Australia to develop human capital. But to do this successfully our schools need serious reform, otherwise the global bar will seem set far beyond our reach.

Rupert Murdoch at heart is a traditional newspaperman. But he sees the wood for the trees. Newspapers will thrive in the 21st century if proprietors fully comprehend what it means to be alive in the era of information.

Technology has helped transform the world. Some say it has turned it upside down. Rupert Murdoch argues that we must not be prisoners of the past - modern day Luddites - if we are to succeed in the golden era.

In his first lecture Rupert Murdoch scans the future and beholds a golden era. But will we be part of it? The Australia he sees simply is not prepared for the challenges ahead. A classic Russell Drysdale painting provides inspiration.

In his final lecture, Professor Clark describes the unfolding possibilities of the new discipline of medical bionics. The hope of bionic nerve and spinal repair, a bionic eye, bionic epilepsy control, bionic drug delivery, bionic tissue repair, bionic muscles, organs and implantable sensors are only some of the magnificent achievements which this field may deliver for the benefit of humanity.

Professor Clark describes the realisation of his passionate desire to use the bionic ear to develop spoken language in children and the confrontation that this provoked with sections of the deaf community. He comments, 'It was ironical that I was now confronted by the very people whom I wanted to help hear. The criticisms affected all members of the team, and weighed heavily on us.'

'It is no exaggeration to say I was gambling my whole professional career on this day.' After twelve years of research Professor Clark describes the unbearable suspense of waiting to discover if the bionic ear would not only work but be commercially viable. Included are remarkable and moving recordings from the first test sessions of the bionic ear.

Loss of Contact is a detailed investigation of exactly what it means to lose a sense or senses including hearing, vision or touch. Clark, quoting the leprosy surgeon Paul Brand, describes how even to lose our sense of pain, 'the gift that nobody wants', can be catastrophic.

Professor Clark expresses his wonder, and inspires ours, at the complexity and continuing mystery of the operation of our senses.

The evolution of demand management policies, particularly monetary policy, over the past 30 years has largely been an exercise in overcoming conflict between short-term incentive and long-term stability.

The 1990 recession returned Australia to low inflation and paved the way for the sort of stability—15 years and counting—that earlier recessions had failed to achieve. Through the 1990s sustained economic growth re-emerged, and a new approach to monetary policy based on inflation targeting and central bank independence was put in place.

Finance excess saw boom turn to bust, and Australia experience its third recession in a quarter of a century. Then-treasurer Paul Keating would infamously observe it was 'the recession we had to have.' Perhaps it was—or was it caused by overly tight monetary policy?

By the 1970s the world's developed economies were stuck in the worst position they had been in since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

For the world's developed economies, the end of the second world war was the trigger for almost 30 years of sustained growth.

The end of the second world war ushered in an era of incomparable economic growth. In the era of post-war reconstruction the world's developed countries would enjoy a 'golden age' of low inflation and full employment. Guided by the theories of John Maynard Keynes, governments became increasingly confident in how to apply macroeconomic policy.

Owen Harries summarises the four traditions of American foreign policy as identified by Walter Russell Mead, and conducts a similar overview of Australia's foreign policy traditions. Against this background, he looks at the policy of the Howard government over the last year and a half – the policy of unhesitating, unqualified and conspicuous support for the United States in its wars against terrorism and against Iraq.

Throughout history, hegemons have been challenged. What challengers is the United States likely to face in coming decades? Owen Harries assesses the prospects of the two most likely sources of challenge to American dominance, China and a united Europe. He looks at military, economic and political capabilities, and at the effects that demographic changes will have on them as well as on America itself. But will America's biggest potential threat be America itself?