For more than two hundred years, the Enlightenment vision and the values it sanctions have provided the standard by which all societies have been judged in the civilised world. It has shaped virtually every new idea of what is desirable. In his biography of Arthur Phillip,
Michael Pembroke said: ‘The establishment of a settlement in New South Wales was a social experiment and a manifestation of the optimism that marked the Enlightenment – an age that was energised by the possibilities for improvement of the human condition. Phillip thought that the colony would one day be the ‘empire of the East’ and ‘the most valuable acquisition Great Britain ever made’.

Looking back, how does that description for the history of Australia stand up? The Hon. Dr David Kemp, former academic and senior politician will lead the discussion on this important idea in Australian history.