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 on Australian National Policy is delivered by Ric Smith, AO, PSM the former Secretary of the Department of Defence.
Ric Smith, AO, PSM was the Secretary of the Department of Defence from 2002-2006. He is a former senior Australian public servant and diplomat. He served as the Australian Ambassador to China and Australian Ambassador to Indonesia during the time of the 2002 Bali bombings (2001-2002). He was Australia's Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2009-2013. He is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy, an Adjunct Professor at Griffith University and co-Chair of the Australian arm of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific.
