Centre for Independent Studies

Michael Stutchbury interviews Brett Stevenson about his new CIS paper The Discipline of Profit, which tests the claim that Woolworths and Coles have been raking in megaprofits at the expense of shoppers, suppliers and staff. Stevenson goes to the only place the argument can actually be settled: the companies’ own audited accounts. 👉 Support CIS Research: 🔹 Become a member:  https://www.cis.org.a...

This is the audio version of Wrong Way – Go Back: How Australia’s Workplace Relations System is Holding Back Growth, Wages and Opportunity, a Centre for Independent Studies paper by former Fair Work Commission vice-president Graeme Watson. For the full paper, go to: https://www.cis.org.au/publication/wrong-way-go-back-how-australias-workplace-relations-system-is-holding-back-growth-wages-and-oppor...

Watch here: https://youtu.be/8PZDxDVb1_o Michael Stutchbury interviews CIS Education Director Blaise Joseph about his new paper: Classrooms in Crisis: Australian teacher views on student behaviour.  A national survey of more than 370 teachers finds classroom disruption is costing students an average of 12 weeks of learning a year — roughly one-third of instructional time 👉 Support CIS Research:...

Michael Stutchbury interviews the Hon Graeme Watson, former Vice President of the Fair Work Commission, about how Australia’s workplace relations system is holding back productivity, real wages, investment and business growth. 👉 Support CIS Research: 🔹 Become a member:  https://www.cis.org.au/membership-2-s...  🔹 Make a donation: https://www.cis.org.au/support/donate...  🔹 Learn more: https://...

Has Australia’s experiment with multiculturalism reached a breaking point? In this episode of Liberalism in Question, economist and public intellectual Henry Ergas AO joins the conversation to examine one of the most sensitive and consequential questions facing classical liberalism in Australia today: how a free and open society can sustain social cohesion amid rapid demographic change, cultural f...

In this episode of Liberalism in Question, Joseph Healy examines what Adam Smith would make of modern Australia. Drawing on both The Wealth of Nations and The Theory of Moral Sentiments, he diagnoses today’s economic and social challenges and outlines a more balanced path forward. 👉 Support CIS Research: 🔹 Become a member:  https://www.cis.org.au/membership-2-step-1/  🔹 Make a donation: https:/...

Michael Stutchbury interviews Dr Peter Tulip about new NSW data showing development applications and lodgements rising sharply, with building approvals expected to climb but still falling short of the federal housing target. The conversation explains recent NSW reforms like transport‑oriented development and low/mid‑rise housing, and why supply constraints from local councils matter for affordabil...

Watch here: https://youtu.be/n_l-fl2w6Z0 From de Tocqueville to Lord Acton and beyond, the idea of Democracy has developed, not always ideally, and signs of its demise are evident in Australia, making its defence a priority. Rachael Kohn AO FRSN is an author, commentator, and award-winning producer and broadcaster, best known for her long tenure at the ABC. She has written three books, edited a fo...

👉 Key points:  🔹Civic decline and identity-based education have fuelled the rise of antisemitism in Australia. 🔹Antisemitism grows when Australians stop seeing each other first as equal citizens with shared civic obligations. 🔹Rebuilding civic knowledge and a common national identity strengthens resistance to antisemitism and social division. 👉 Support CIS Research: 🔹 Become a member:  https...

👉 Watch Part 1: https://youtu.be/zhxJXyavYzI Is Islam compatible with liberalism? In this episode of Liberalism in Question, Dr Mark Durie joins the Centre for Independent Studies to examine the fundamental tensions between Islamic theology, sharia, and core liberal principles such as individual freedom, equality, and freedom of religion. Mark Durie is a pastor and academic. He writes and speaks...

👉Watch part 2 here: https://youtu.be/rIWyypaLy5k Is Islam Compatible with Classical Liberalism? | Dr. Samir Mahmoud What is the relationship between Islam and Classical Liberalism? Is there an incompatibility, or just a misunderstanding between manifestations of Islam on the margins?  Dr. Samir Mahmoud is the Education Advisor to the Office of the Special Envoy to Combat Islamophobia. He has a BA...

Banana Republic Redux: How Australia is surrendering gains of the reform era | Alex Sanchez Read here: https://www.cis.org.au/publication/banana-republic-redux-how-australia-is-surrendering-gains-of-the-reform-era/ Key points • Australia is losing the economic gains achieved during the Hawke-Keating reform era of the mid-1980s after the Banana Republic shock comment. • High taxes and regulations a...

At the Centre for Independent Studies' annual Liberty and Society student conference, 38 students from Australia and New Zealand explored classical liberal philosophy, free markets and social cohesion through talks and debates led by leading scholars and former officials. Speakers traced the historical shift from Keynesian to pro-market ideas, discussed free speech and the rule of law, and challen...

Watch here: https://youtu.be/pfX-nzrgFPM "[Dahrendorf] had protected an idea: that intellectual work and practical engagement could combine without abandoning intellectual standards, that boundaries could be crossed with integrity intact." Join Dr Oliver Hartwich for a conversation about Dahrendorf, Trump and the multitudes of intellectuals who have abandoned their principles. .  👉 Support CIS Re...

In this Stutch Sessions episode Parnell Palm McGuinness, author of the CIS report Generation Trapped, explains how young Australians (18–34) split into six distinct 'tribes' all still aspire to homeownership, family, meaningful work and financial security, but feel blocked by high housing costs and limited agency. The conversation covers the political fallout from recent tax changes (capital gains...

What classical liberals get wrong about the rest of the World | Alexandre Lefebvre Professor of Politics and Philosophy at the University of Sydney and author of Liberalism as a Way of Life, Alexandre Lefebvre explores how classical liberalism shapes not just politics, but our everyday values, ethics, and way of life. 👉 Support CIS Research: 🔹 Become a member:  https://www.cis.org.au/membership-...

As Treasurer Jim Chalmers prepares to hand down his fifth federal budget on 12 May 2026, four of Australia's leading economists gather at the Centre for Independent Studies to ask: is this budget up to the challenge? Hosted by CIS Executive Director Michael Stutchbury, this roundtable brings together Robert Carling (CIS Senior Fellow, former Treasury and IMF official), Professor Richard Holden (UN...

People have a lot of opinions and a lot of anecdotes that may not necessarily be true. Politicians deal with feelings. Economists and analysts should deal with facts. We have looked at the data and things are becoming cheaper, more affordable, more abundant in Australia...  👉 Read more:  🔹 Humankind and the infinite resource base: https://www.cis.org.au/publication/humankind-and-the-infinite-res...

As much as anything, the Centre for Independent Studies’ first 50 years has been dedicated to restraining the growth in the size, reach and financing of government to provide room for private enterprise and individual choice.  Now, as in the mid-1970s, the size of government has been ratcheted up. And politicians are increasing taxes to pay for it.   This week, CIS senior fellow Robert Carling has...

Grim reality of the NDIS leviathan “It will start big and get bigger and grow to become the new leviathan of the Australian welfare state,” CIS scholar Andrew Baker further predicted of Labor’s National Disability Insurance Scheme in his  2012 policy monograph. Even the Productivity Commission failed to pick the looming NDIS fiscal disaster from the worthy goal of providing support to permanently...

The hard lesson of Australia’s protectionist past is that propping up uncompetitive and high cost industries invariably poses a burden on other sectors, including on the mining, gas and farm exporters that actually support our prosperity.   👉 Join CIS: 🔹 Become a member: https://www.cis.org.au/membership-2-step-1/ 🔹 Make a donation: https://www.cis.org.au/support/donate/today/ 🔹 Learn more: ht...

Over the past several decades, Australian society has undergone profound economic, social, and cultural change. Education pathways have lengthened, housing costs have far outpaced wages, family formation has been delayed or disrupted, and government intervention has expanded across nearly every stage of life. Public policy has attempted to keep pace with these changes. But there is a growing misma...

Donald Trump’s threats to destroy the ‘whole civilisation’ of Iran this week jarringly contrasted with the out-of-this world American achievement of sending a four-member crew as far from Earth as any humans had gone.    👉 Join CIS: 🔹 Become a member: https://www.cis.org.au/membership-2-step-1/ 🔹 Make a donation: https://www.cis.org.au/support/donate/today/ 🔹 Learn more: https://www.cis.org.au...

Australia’s new economic decline is colliding with the breakdown of the liberal rules-based orders for global trade and security. The post-pandemic and oil shock push for more sovereign capability and supply-chain self-reliance will eat into national income just as living standards are under pressure. Resolving this tension will require more, not less, of the pro-market —or neo-liberal — policy ag...

I was in Canberra this week, in part to hear International Energy Agency head Fatih Birol warn that today’s oil price shock will rival the twin Middle East energy shocks of the 1970s.  The 1973 and 1979 shocks promoted using smaller and more fuel-efficient vehicles. And it prompted a wave of nuclear energy development in Japan, Europe and North America. Today’s oil price shock will have comparable...