Launched in 2024, the Menzies Early Career Network is designed to identify, nurture and build a new generation of future leaders with a keen understanding of Australia’s national story, which they can take to all their future endeavours.
Led by the Institute Fellow Dr Damien Freeman, the program invites professors, parliamentarians and supporters of the Institute to nominate a current or recent university graduate with curiosity for Australia’s past and ambition for its future.
Under the mentorship of Dr Freeman and Dr Zac Gorman (the Institute’s Historian and Research Manager), the scholars dive into a specific aspect of Menzies’s government and its impact on Australia’s economic, social and pollical life. Damien and Zac support them to convert their research findings into a publishable essay.
All essays are published in a collection that is launched at the Parliament House. The participants also get the opportunity to discuss their research with Georgina Downer on the Institute’s political history podcast Afternoon Light.
The essays by the 2024 MECN scholars were published in a collection entitled Finding Menzies. The foreword to the collection was written by former Prime Minister The Hon Tony Abbott AC.
MECN 2025
Participants
Schedule
Programme
Our participants will access a programme from August 2025 – February 2026 including:
- August: One-day workshop in Sydney
- September: Three two-hour online seminars
- October: Finalising paper
- November: Masterclass in Melbourne combined with RMI two day conference on 27/28 November 2025
- December: Podcast recordings for Afternoon Light
- February: Launch of the MECN book at Parliament House, Canberra.
Opportunities
Jeparit Press publication
The sixteen papers are to be revised and then edited for publication in a book to be released by the Jeparit Press in early 2026.
Parliament House launch
Launch at Parliament House, Canberra, in February 2026.
Afternoon Light Podcast
Podcasts with contributors about their chapters to be released in the Afternoon Light series to coincide with launch.
MECN 2024
Participants
Publication
The publication: Finding Menzies is the product of research undertaken by members of the Menzies Early Career Network, an initiative of the Robert Menzies Institute, which aims to nurture an appreciation of the enduring legacy of Menzies and his government in the next generation of Australian scholars as they embark on careers in history, law, and public life.
Contributors engage with Menzies’s understanding of Australia’s war aims and post-war relations with the UK, USA, and USSR; his approach to changes in families, housing, and education; and his attitude to liberalism, tolerance, aspiration, and Catholicism.
The collection addresses topics in Australian political history ranging from defence and foreign policy through to the rule of law and social and economic policy, as well as topics in the history of political thought and at the intersection of politics and religion.
Participant Podcasts
Search via Spotify, Apple Music, PodBean, via our website for the Afternoon Light Podcasts.
The available podcasts are by participants: Aaron Marston-Pattison, Abby Smith, Orlando Throsby, Jacob Carson, Nick Warren, Georgia Lowden, Josh Woodward, Jesse Seeberg-Gordon, Maya Khurana, Patrick Irwin, Priscilla Spalding, Samuel Chamberlain, and Scarlett Wakelin.
Finding Menzies - Launch Event
Finding Menzies: A new generation’s inspiration for foreign affairs, social policy and political thought was launched at Parliament House, Canberra in 2025.
Participants attended with their guests.
Senator James Paterson delivered this speech to the attendees.Read Speech Here
Photos of the event are attached below.
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