Annual Dinner | The Sydney Institute

The Sydney Institute’s Annual Dinner has become the leading intellectual event of its kind in Australia. Beginning in 1990, a year after the Institute was formally opened by NSW Premier Nick Greiner and then NSW Opposition leader Bob Carr, the Dinner celebrated its twentieth year in 2009.

The Sydney Institute Annual Dinner is an occasion for a prominent personality to present a serious lecture to an audience of some 900 paying guests after they have enjoyed dinner and over an hour of networking.

The Annual Dinner’s presentation is the highlight of the evening. Guests look forward to the hush and silence of a packed room of colleagues and business professionals taking in the thoughts and experience of a figure of stature and international recognition.

In the recent past, writers and intellectuals Simon Sharma, Kate Jennings, Clive James, William Shawcross and Tom Friedman have given the Annual Dinner address, as well as Australian prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard and Governor-General Quentin Bryce. Across the years, Sydney Institute Annual Dinner guests have also heard from prominent Australians such as Shirley Hazzard, George Miller, David Malouf, Peter Doherty, Andy Thomas, Helen Garner, Simone Young, Richard Tognetti and Jill Ker Conway.

In 2012, the Annual Dinner lecture will be given by Lord Bragg of Wigton – otherwise known as British media presenter and writer Melvyn Bragg

THE SPEAKER FOR THE 2012 SYDNEY INSTITUTE ANNUAL DINNER WILL BE MELVYN BRAGG

Download a Booking Form to purchase tickets to the Sydney Institute’s 2012 Annual Dinner with Melvyn Bragg.

CHECK OUT SOME OF THE YouTubes

Download a Booking Form for the Sydney Institute’s 2012 Annual Dinner with Melvyn Bragg.

The Sydney Institute is in the forefront of public discussions and public debate.
- Julia Gillard
It’s not every day that I’m invited by such a prestigious organisation as The Sydney Institute to talk about Australians and their behaviour. So I sincerely thank the Institutefor this irresistible opportunity.
- Ita Buttose
The Sydney Institute consistently attracts Sydney's most thoughtful and engaged audiences.
- Hugh Mackay
Australia's pre-eminent forum for public debate is The Sydney Institute; nowhere else comes close.
- David Gruen
The Sydney Institute is the greatest political forum since the Forum.
- Clive James
The Sydney Institute gives a depth of understanding of public life in Australia not usually found in the Australian or UK media.
- Dorothy Rowe
The Sydney Institute has a well-deserved reputation for addressing cutting edge topics and hosting important government leaders, astute political observers, and other foreign dignitaries.
- Patricia a. Mcnerney
The Sydney Institute's broad range of commentators on politics, history and culture offer discernment and expertise in the dissemination of views to the wider community.
- Sue Butler
The Sydney Institute provides a forum for ideas, a place where theories can be tested and questions asked of those who profess to have answers. It is friendly rather than stuffy but deadly serious in its commitment to open debate. We need it."
- Jana Wendt
It's a great privilege to be at The Sydney Institute - an ideas think tank. I am very honoured to be amongst you.
- Sophie York
Addressing The Sydney Institute provides an opportunity to speak in depth about public policy. It’s rare to find the time to reflect on the whole picture, the structures -andframeworks which underpin policy and implementation.
- Jenny Macklin
The Sydney Institute - where ideas matter.
- David Day
In an era of infinite platforms and forums to express opinions, the Sydney Institute remains one of the country's premier venues.
- Tanveer Ahmed
The Sydney Institute is an important gatherer of people and ideas; an agent for discussion about the things we care about; a forum for thinking aloud; and a chance to catch up with friends and colleagues at the end of long working days.
- Quentin Bryce
The Sydney Institute fulfils a necessary function in Australian public life. The city - and the nation - would be intellectually poorer without it. Thank God for such a provocative and stimulating forum.
- Nikki Gemmell
Thank you Sydney Institute for giving me a platform on topics from Tiananmen Square to advocating a humanitarian approach to asylum seekers.
- Linda Jaivin
The Sydney Institute has been an influential participant in the Australian debate about bills of rights.
- Hillary Charlesworth
I congratulate Gerard and Anne Henderson on the 20th anniversary of the Institute. In this time it has made a genuine contribution to our intellectual life and the diversity of speakers appearing at the Institute has been striking.
- Paul Kelly
The Sydney Institute does get large audiences … it's The Institute that has attracted the crowd rather than the speaker this evening.
- Tony Abbott
The Sydney Institute provides such an important current affairs forum for ideas and debate.
- Ida Lichter
The Institute is a civilised and pluralist island of ideas and conversation in a sea of spin and obfuscation. It's one of the few attributes that gives this Melburnian genuine Sydney envy.
- Sam Lipski
The Sydney Institute - a no-nonsense, downtown venue for all credible points of view on Australian politics, history and culture. It leaves ideology at the door, and its podcasts guarantee a hearing the length and breadth of the country.
- Frank Brennan
I love my Sydney Institute. It informs, irritates, upsets and stimulates me. Remarkably enough, often at precisely the same time.
- Michael Kirby
The Sydney Institute is, perhaps, the most exciting and challenging place to launch a book, or open a public debate on an important issue. One really has to be on top of one's game to address the Institute.
- Alan Gold
The Sydney Institute is Australia's finest and most consistent platform for debate and the discussion of ideas that matter.
- Ross Fitzgerald
It is a great pleasure to be speaking at The Sydney Institute. I am a great admirer of its work and of its founders Gerard and Anne Henderson.
- Paul Fletcher
The Sydney Institute is - and has long been - an unwavering oasis for civil debate and disagreement from every point-of-view. Congratulations.
- Babette Smith
The Sydney Institute is an important forum for the serious discussion and debate of public policy and policy reform.
- Stephen Conroy
The Sydney Institute - a no-nonsense, downtown venue for all credible points of view on Australian politics, history and culture. It leaves ideology at the door, and its podcasts guarantee a hearing the length and breadth of the country.
- Frank Brennan
With so many communication channels on offer these days, there's nothing quite like getting a group of people together in a room for a focused discussion - what the Sydney Institute provides.
- Kathy Bail
The Sydney Institute - an essential go to place with all sides of the debate from real experts and real players.
- Cathy Harris
The Sydney Institute provides both a depth and diversity of knowledge through its wide ranging presentations and debates - an efficient and much needed buz for Sydney and indirectly the nation - long may it continue.
- Tim Fischer
The Sydney Institute is one of this city's shining lights, providing a never-ending, valued thought fest to keep the brain cells ticking over.
- Bettina Arndt
Thank you very much for the invitation and, above all, for being here; because if you weren't it would be very lonely here up at the front this evening. I'm very pleased to have the opportunity of addressing the Institute.
- David Blunkett
The Sydney Institute plays a very valuable role in stimulating and contributing to the public debate about which policy settings best serve Australia's national interest.
- Stephen Smith
When in Australia, The Sydney Institute is an essential port of call. When not, I follow online - an essential, clear headed guidance to everything that is happening. Invaluable!
- William Shawcross
I always go prepared to the Sydney Institute; the audience keeps you on your toes.
- Caroline Overington
The Sydney Institute makes a wonderful contribution to the public debate in Australia on a broad array of relevant and interesting issues.
- Simon Crean
The thinking person's front bar, the nation's cerebrum, the theatre of ideas, look who's talking, the only focus group that matters.
- Kate Legge
The Sydney Institute is never afraid to take a risk, explore new ideas, stand alone and dare to be right.
- Pru Goward
The Sydney Institute is a "must go to" place to launch ideas and books. I attend frequently, both as a speaker and a listener.
- Anne Summers
I pay tribute to The Sydney Institute for the role it plays in promoting intellectualism in this country and the contest of ideas which is vital for our future world being.
- Craig Emerson
I do not know anyone in Australia who would refuse an invitation to speak at the Sydney Institute.
- Frank Moorhouse
Since 1989, The Sydney Institute has been a platform for public policy debate on Australia's future. The nation should always embrace such debate - with genuine intellectual passion and with genuine intellectual rigour.
- Kevin Rudd
In an era of infinite platforms and forums to express opinions, the Sydney Institute remains one of the country's premier venues.
- Tanveer Ahmed
The Sydney Institute has been an important forum for ideas and for debate in Australia.
- Colin Barnett
In the marketplace for ideas "there's no other store like the Sydney Institute!
- Fred Hilmer
The Sydney Institute brings top Australian talent in all fields to stimulate thinking and encourage vigorous debate.
- Kathryn Greiner
One of the joys of life in Sydney is the lively exchange that is promoted by the efforts of Anne and Gerard. The intellectual life of a city matters and the Institute plays a vital role in sustaining that.
- Maxine McKew
The Institute is so important - it is one of the few objective and policy driven outlets for debate in the country.
- Christopher Pyne
The Sydney Institute - an important dialogue taking place in Sydney.
- Sol Lebovic
The best place in town to exercise your conscience as well as your mind!
- Gladys Berejiklian