The Sydney Institute

The Sydney Institute, founded in 1989, is a privately funded, Australian current affairs forum. The institute took over the resources of the Sydney Institute of Public Affairs which ceased activity in the late 1980s. It receives support from the Australian business community.

The institute was opened on 23 August 1989 by then New South Wales Premier Nick Greiner with supporting remarks from Bob Carr (then NSW Opposition Leader).

Columnist and writer Gerard Henderson is the executive director of the institute. His wife, Anne Henderson, who is also an author, is the deputy director.

The institute holds weekly forums and an annual dinner at which a lecture is given by a person who has been deemed to have made an important contribution in a particular field at either an international or national level. From time to time the institute organises and hosts international conferences; addresses to the institute are published in The Sydney Papers. The institute also publishes The Sydney Institute Quarterly.

Gerard Henderson writes a regular weekly column for The Sydney Morning Herald and The West Australian. Henderson also comments on public radio and appears occasionally on the ABC TV Insiders programs.

Speakers at the Sydney Institute have included Australian Treasurer Joe Hockey, former Prime Ministers Kevin Rudd, John Howard and Malcolm Turnbull, former Opposition Leader Kim Beazley, Nobel Prize recipient Peter C. Doherty, General Peter Cosgrove, former Reserve Bank Governor Ian Macfarlane, former Chief Justice Murray Gleeson and writer David Malouf.