Interview: Misinformation and the Origins of COVID-19

Few events in recent history have generated as much confusion, controversy, and misinformation as the COVID-19 pandemic. Five years on, the origins of COVID remain contested, and the lessons of how that debate played out carry hard implications for global health security for years to come. Guest: Elizabeth Finkel. (Science journalist, Co-founder of Cosmos Magazine, and Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at La Trobe University,) Prove It: A Scientific Guide for the Post-Truth Era, ;published by La Trobe University Press Recorded on 29th June, 2026.

The Indian Ocean Region (IOR) is fast becoming one of the world's most contested global commons. Home to critical sea lanes, energy and trade corridors, and a growing contest for influence among major and middle powers, traditional security challenges are growing and competing. The region is especially vulnerable to cascading effects of a changing climate, warming oceans and increasing frequency of natural events that are colliding with traditional security parameters. As Australia deepens and attempts to diversify cooperation with partners including United States, Japan, Indonesia and India amongst others across the region, understanding the strategic importance of the region has never been more crucial. The effects are beyond notions of traditional security and have an impact on economic resilience, food security and future growth. How does this play out for Australia's security and its future within the IOR? How do regional powers particularly US, China and India view and act within the IOR and how do these actions affect Australia? PANEL: Professor Peter Dean (Senior Adviser for Defence Strategy, United States Studies Centre; Professor of Strategic Studies, Australian National University) Dr Arzan Tarapore (Research Scholar, Stanford University) Ambika Vishwanath (Principal Research Fellow, La Trobe Centre for Global Security, La Trobe University) Professor Bec Strating (Director, La Trobe Centre for Global Security, La Trobe University)(Chair) Recorded on 3rd September, 2026.

Security policy has traditionally been built around the state: its borders, its military capability, its ability to deter external threats. Gender-based violence rarely features, despite being one of the most persistent and predictable forms of harm in the world, in peacetime and exacerbated during conflict. Treating gender-based violence solely as a private, social, health or humanitarian issue without recognition of it as a security one has consequences: it shapes what gets funded, what gets measured, and whose safety counts as a matter of state responsibility. When it comes to policy, prevention and intervention, the gap between that recognition and practice remains stark, and the impact through violence, displacement and death, notably femicide, continues to rise alongside global military spending. By comparison, funding to address gender-based violence remains miniscule. This event asks what it would mean to take that gap seriously: why gender-based violence functions as both a cause and a consequence of insecurity, and what a security framework would look like if it were built around who is actually being harmed. This event is a collaboration between La Trobe Centre for Global Security and Reducing Gender Based Violence Network (ReGEN). Speakers: Professor Elizabeth Miller (Deputy Director (Strategic Planning and Coordination), Integrated Center for Women's Health) Desireé LaGrappe (Lecturer, School of Nursing and Midwifery, La Trobe University and Chair, ReGEN) Dr Jessica Ison (Deputy Director, Reducing Gender-Based Violence Research Group (ReGEN), La Trobe Rural Health School) Dr Natasha Singh Raghuvanshi (Politics and International Relations, La Trobe University) Professor Bec Strating (Director, La Trobe Centre for Global Security) Emeritus Professor Dennis Altman (Vice-Chancellor's Fellow, La Trobe University) Recorded on 1st September, 2026. A content warning that this discussion includes topics of violence and abuse. We recognise that these experiences are common in Australia and globally, and that these issues may have affected members of our audience personally or through someone they know. Please take care of yourself during and after the session in whatever way feels right for you. If anything raised during the conversation is difficult or distressing, we encourage you to speak with someone you trust or seek additional support. For more information and resources, please consult: https://www.latrobe.edu.au/research/violetmarshman/regennetwork/resources-and-support

China is ageing faster than almost any other country in history. Decades of the one-child policy, rising life expectancy, and rapid urbanisation have produced a demographic shift of enormous scale — and with it, a growing burden of age-related conditions that health systems were not designed to manage. Among the most significant is dementia, and its precursor, Mild Cognitive Impairment. Guest: Professor George Liu (Professor and Associate Dean of International Partnerships, School of Psychology and Public Health, La Trobe University) Recorded 13 July, 2026

For Pacific Island communities, climate change is not a future threat, but a present reality. Intensifying El Niño events, displacement, and compounding security challenges are reshaping the region, even as global attention has been diverted by energy crises and fossil fuel disruption. Climate mobility - the movement of people in response to climate impacts - is emerging as both a critical challenge and an opportunity to reframe how external partners engage with the Pacific. What does a genuine model of climate, peace, and security partnership that centres mobility look like? And how can outside partners align their support with Pacific-led priorities rather than imposing solutions? This Melbourne Climate Talk is hosted by the German Embassy in Canberra in partnership with the La Trobe Centre for Global Security. It brings together Pacific and regional experts to explore mobility as a pathway to stronger, more equitable climate partnerships, and to build momentum ahead of UNFCCC Pre-COP discussions in Fiji and Tuvalu. Speakers: Ms Beate Grzeski (Ambassador of Germany to Australia) Dr Aiden Craney (Research Fellow, Centre for Human Security and Social Change, La Trobe University) Dr Jason Titifanue (Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Melbourne) Dr Lauren Nishimura (Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne) Ms Bateteba Aselu (PhD candidate, School of Geography, University of Melbourne) Dr Sara Gosper, (Manager, International Partnerships and Engagement, RMIT)(Chair) Professor Nick Bisley (Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research), La Trobe University) Recorded on 26th August, 2026

Southeast Asia is one of the fastest-growing digital regions in the world, with an economy projected to exceed $300 billion in gross merchandise value and over 200 million internet users. But that digital growth is outpacing the legal frameworks, institutional capacity, and cybersecurity architecture needed to govern it. And with the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence accelerating both the sophistication of cyber threats and the difficulty of holding anyone accountable the stakes have never been higher. Guest: Dr Mark Manantan (Research Fellow at the La Trobe Centre for Global Security) Report: Fostering Cyber Accountability in Southeast Asia (The Stimson Center, 2026) Recorded on 15th July, 2026.

"The seabed is becoming a battlefield," Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles warned at the Shangri-La Dialogue in May, and "we have been slow – collectively slow – to recognise [submarine cables] as the strategic targets they have become." Some 16 privately operated submarine cables carry around 99 per cent of Australia's international data – the financial transactions, government communications and cloud services on which the country's economy and security depend. Recent incidents in the Baltic Sea and around Taiwan suggest that state actors are actively probing this infrastructure, and history suggests Australia's cables would be among the first targets in any regional conflict. Yet submarine cables barely rate a mention in Australia's key strategic documents, responsibilities are fragmented across Commonwealth agencies, and these agencies have no means of ensuring priority repairs even in a national emergency. What must Australia do to secure its submarine cable network? And how can it seize the opportunity to become an Indo-Pacific preferred cable hub? A La Trobe Centre for Global Security event, co-hosted with AIIA Victoria and the Australia India Institute. The Melbourne launch of Connected & Protected: Building Australia's Submarine Cable Resilience, the most comprehensive assessment of Australia's submarine cable network to date, and Dr Bashfield's newly published short book Submarine Cables (Cambridge University Press, 2026) Speakers: Dr David Brewster (ANU National Security College) Dr Samuel Bashfield (La Trobe Centre for Global Security) Recorded on 10th August, 2026.

South Asian cinema shapes how millions of people around the world encounter the region’s cultures, languages, and identities. For many, film provides a gateway to South Asian languages and literature, and to cultural conversations that cross national, regional, and diasporic borders. But what does South Asian cinema say about the societies it represents? Beneath the spectacle, song, and romance, filmmakers across the region - including those working within Bollywood - have long grappled with questions of gender, caste, ethnicity, class, beauty, and skin colour. How do these tensions sit alongside cinema’s power to foster cross-cultural empathy and identification? And what can film reveal about the complexity and diversity within South Asian cultures themselves? Co-presented by La Trobe Asia and the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne, this event brings together researchers and practitioners to explore South Asian cinema as both a cultural bridge and a critical lens. Panel: Dr Ian Woolford (Hindi Studies, La Trobe University) Dr Divya Rama Gopalakrishnan (History, La Trobe University) Dr Phebyn Joseph (Hindi Studies, La Trobe University) MJ Bently (Partnerships Manager, Indian Film Festival in Melbourne) Matt Smith (La Trobe Asia) Recorded on 7th August, 2026.

From digital regulation and political pressure to economic influence and self-censorship, media freedom in Asia is being shaped by a range of subtle and evolving constraints. Rather than outright bans on reporting, many observers point to a process of "creeping censorship"—the gradual narrowing of space for independent journalism and public debate. How are these pressures playing out across Asia? What do they mean for journalists and media organisations? How are the changing political, technological, and economic realities reshaping the region's information environment? Panel: Dr Lupita Wijaya (Research Fellow, La Trobe Centre for Global Security) Dr Nasya Bahfen (Senior Lecturer, Journalism, La Trobe University) Phebyn Joseph (Hindi Lecturer, Language Studies, La Trobe University) Recorded on 30th July, 2026

Almost every email you send, every video you stream, and every financial transaction you make travels not through satellites, but through a vast network of cables lying on the ocean floor. Submarine cables are the invisible capillaries of the global internet — and increasingly, they are at the centre of great power competition in the Indo-Pacific. Guest: Dr Samuel Bashfield (Research Fellow at the La Trobe Centre for Global Security) COME TO OUR EVENT: Is the Seabed a ‘Battlefield’? Australia’s Submarine Cable Challenge Monday 10th August, 6:00 - 7:00PM AEST 356 Collins St, Melbourne Register on the AIIA Vic website Recorded on 17th June, 2026.