LOWY INSTITUTE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR MICHAEL WESLEY WINS JOHN BUTTON PRIZE — 11.10.2011
Michael Wesley, director of the foreign policy think tank, the Lowy Institute, has won the third John Button Prize for writing on public policy.
Dr Wesley won the $20,000 award for his book, There Goes the Neighbourhood: Australia and the Rise of Asia.
There Goes the Neighbourhood argues that the benign and comfortable world that has allowed Australia to be safe and prosperous is changing quickly. Asia’s big, dynamic economies have reshaped Australia’s, and their ambitions and fears are bringing greater uncertainty to regional relations. Armed stand-offs in the waters through which Australia’s trade flows are increasingly common. The book argues that Australia’s choices – even minor choices such as over foreign investment or trade deals – will assume great importance to mutually jealous powers in the region.
The judges of the John Button Prize praised There Goes the Neighbourhood as an important and timely book that “presents a sophisticated view of Asia as multi-centred, diverse and fluid.”
“The book shows that we in Australia are complacent about our place in the world at our peril,” said the chair of the panel, Morag Fraser. `In four or five years time, someone will read There Goes the Neighbourhood and say,He got it right.‘’'
The judges particularly noted the book’s attention to the role played by history and culture in explaining the thinking of four leading Asian countries.
The John Button Foundation seeks to lift the quality of writing and thinking about politics and public policy in Australia. It is bipartisan, relies on public donation, and was created in memory of the late Victorian Senator, Federal Industry Minister and writer, John Button.
In receiving the prize, Dr Wesley said, “I’m surprised and delighted to have won. My growing concern is that two decades of Australian prosperity have convinced Australians that we don’t need to engage much with the wider world. Yet it is more important than ever before that Australia does”. “At the heart of our purpose at the Lowy Institute is to increase the quality of ideas and debate about Australia and its role in the world”, Wesley added. “Through policy research and fresh ideas on Australian public policy, we can rightly honour the vision of John Button”.
There Goes the Neighbourhood: Australia and the rise of Asia, Michael Wesley, May 2011, is published by New South Books.