Welcome to our highly anticipated 'War in the Sand Pit' conference series of videos. The conference was held in Brisbane on 12-13 May 2017, and was sponsored by Military History & Heritage Victoria, the Australian National University, and the Returned & Services League of Australia, Queensland Branch. We hope you enjoy all the presentations which the speakers have generously agreed to share with us.

The presentations represent the speakers personal views based on their own experiences, and the context relevant to them and their individual role at the time. This presentation is the Keynote address from the conference and is delivered by Professor Robert Hill, AC the former Australian Minister for Defence.

Professor Robert Hill, AC was the Minister for Defence from 2001-2006 and was Chancellor of the University of Adelaide from 2010-2014. He is currently an Adjunct Professor in Sustainability and Co-Director of the Alliance 21 project at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney.