Centre for Independent Studies

If there is one thing that almost everyone agrees on, it is that not everything is super with Superannuation. Some call for greater flexibility in the super system, and others say that the system is being rorted by the rich and the rules need to be tightened. Yet the problems and solutions on each side of the debate seem radically different. One side says that we need more super, the other side sa...

The debate over cancel culture and the culture wars continues to rage. CIS welcomes back former guest Dave Rubin. Policy analyst, Monica Wilkie, turned the microphone on Dave to get his take on cancel culture, liberalism, free speech and, of course, the upcoming US presidential election. Dave is the host of the incredibly popular YouTube show The Rubin Report. A self-described classical liberal, D...

On Liberty returns, for season 2, with Janet Albrechtsen. In her latest column for The Australian, she warns us to be on our guard against "a new generation of self-appointed cultural dietitians" who are determined to tell us what cultural fare we can and can't consume. Albrechtsen writes that "intolerance delivers a triple whammy. First, it hinders our ability to sift the good ideas from the bad...

Lionel Shriver and Brendan O'Neill sit down with CIS fellow Monica Wilkie for The Woke Inquisition, an online discussion on the recent race crisis, protests in the UK, the BLM movement and cancel culture. Everything from The Golden Girls to brown rice is now ‘problematic’ as activists seek to erase anything ‘offensive.’ Is this akin to past censorious movements when books were burnt, and statues t...

On Liberty, host Salvatore Babones speaks with Glenn Fahey. Glenn is Research Fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies, working across economics and education programs. In his recent article at The Spectator Australia, he warns that the government’s centrepiece JobSeeker and JobKeeper packages risk becoming RecoveryPreventers. Government can’t prop up the country indefinitely nor can it spend...

In the battle of ideas, the Centre for Independent Studies is like a munitions factory, churning out the material to push the trench line a few kilometres forward. The spiritual reward for researchers, analysts and scholars is a chance to see their policy ideas put into policy practice. Another payoff for producing successful ideas is often access and influence. At the beginning of the year, we in...

Earlier this year, Prime Minister Scott Morrison was under fire for his handling of the bushfires, floods and sports funding scandals. Yet, on the eve of the federal Eden-Monaro by-election, he enjoys high approval ratings while the Coalition edges narrowly ahead in national approval. So the question is, how has the Morrison Government managed this pandemic-endued crisis and will it lead us back t...

"It is becoming clear that cancel culture knows no limits. Old, incredibly valuable pieties at the heart of liberalism are being eroded."James Allan On the show this week Salvatore Babones hosts James Allan, Garrick professor of law at the University of Queensland. In his recent article in The Australian, Allan notes how online twitter mobs don't argue against an opinion or view, rather argue agai...

We are pleased to have Dr Jennifer Buckingham to On Liberty. Jennifer is director of strategy and senior research fellow at MultiLit, and the founder and director of the Five from Five project. As a former senior research fellow, now CIS board member, Jennifer has been a integral part of the CIS Education program. Launched five years ago, the Five from Five project was developed with the objective...

New South Wales Treasurer Dominic Perrottet joins CIS research director Simon Cowan to discuss the aftermath of the global Covid-19 pandemic. The treasurer discusses the New South Wales response to the pandemic, particularly from an economic perspective. Most importantly he details the plan for recovery, emphasising the need for businesses to lead the growth and the importance of generating jobs....

This week, On Liberty, host Salvatore Babones speaks with Lindsay Shepherd. Lindsay has been covering the anti-lockdown protests and is an Investigative Journalism Fellow with True North News in Canada. As the pandemic started to grip the western world in March, governments of all persuasions around the world didn’t take long to embrace their newfound powers. Suppressing our liberties and freedoms...

A leading intellectual figure in the conservative movement for the best part of half a century, George F. Will is an optimist about America’s capacity to change and renew itself. But he remains a fierce critic of Donald Trump. Presidents seeking re-election bask in chants of “Four more years!” However, as George points out, in November most Americans might flinch: “Four more years of this? The tas...

This week, Salvatore Babones is joined by Professor Matt Trau, Professor of Chemistry at The University of Queensland and Deputy Director and co-founder of the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology. Trau and his team at the Australian Institute for Bio-engineering and Nanotechnology are at the forefront of The University of Queensland's research into Covid. Having flattened th...

The world's governments have picked 169 well-meaning targets, promising everything to everyone. But too many targets mean no priorities. The Copenhagen Consensus Centre has looked into the data and found the targets that would do the most good. While participants at the World Economic Forum just voted the top global risk to be extreme weather, most of the rest of the world wants us to concentrate...

This week, Salvatore Babones is joined by Robert Forsyth, Senior Fellow at CIS and previous Anglican Bishop of South Sydney. Rob is co-editor of the new book for CIS on religious liberty: Forgotten Freedom No More. Rob will talk to Salvatore about the vulnerability of freedom of religion in Australia and why it is now the freedom that is forgotten no more. We'll take a look at the importance of re...

On the show this week, Salvatore Babones will be joined by Blaise Joseph, Research Fellow in education and a former secondary school teacher. Blaise has written research papers on school funding, evidence-based education policy, and national testing in Australia. The current haphazard school arrangements are harming children’s education, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Given the m...

The downhill slide in relations between China and the US is a dangerous development. The friction does not just reflect a bullying Communist regime’s opacity concerning the outbreak of Covid-19. Nor is it the result of a chaotic Trump administration trying to distract attention from its own failures in curbing the virus. Something much deeper and much worse is at stake: a potential clash between w...

At a time when tensions are running high, CIS Executive Director Tom Switzer asked Has China Won? Our debate between John Mearsheimer and Kishore Mahbubani, two of the world’s leading foreign policy intellectuals. Covid-19 has greatly raised tensions between China and the West. Washington and its allies express outrage at the Communist regime’s opacity concerning the outbreak of the coronavirus. M...

On the show this week, Salvatore Babones was joined by April Palmerlee, CEO of the AmCham, the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia. AmCham includes around 500 company members representing hundreds of thousands of employees operating throughout Australia. The United States is the biggest investor in Australia, full stop. No one else comes close, not even China. More than 100,000 people in Aus...

Salvatore Babones speaks with Jacinta Price, Director of the Indigenous Program at the Centre for Independent Studies. Jacinta joins us live from Alice Springs, where she serves as a Town Councillor, to discuss how lockdown compares in remote communities. They discussed what 'social distancing' means in the wide-open spaces of remote Australia, where local quarantines and 'biosecurity zones' are a...

Our weekly live-stream hosted by Salvatore Babones, featuring discussions on how Australian society has been impacted by Covid-19. For your chance to question CIS researchers and other guests join us live on YouTube and Facebook each week. On the show this week, Salvatore Babones speaks with James McBrayer, CEO of the listed medical technology company Cyclopharm and CIS Member. James's company is...

On the show this week, Salvatore Babones speaks with CIS Policy Analyst Monica Wilkie. Monica writes on free speech, freedom of religion and identity politics. She is passionate about defending the principles of individual liberty and small government to ensure all Australians can live their lives as they see fit. This pandemic has forced the majority of our society into self isolation, and we are...

On the show this week, Salvatore Babones spoke with Alexander Downer, Australia's longest-serving foreign minister and chairman of The UK Policy Exchange In London, about how to "manage the aftermath" of the coronavirus pandemic. Writing in the Australian Financial Review, Alexander Downer recently argued "The federal government now has to start thinking about its exit plan and sell this through t...

Host Salvatore Babones spoke with Peter Kurti, who directs the Culture, Prosperity & Civil Society program at the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS). Peter discussed the morality of Australia’s response to coronavirus pandemic: hoarding, profiteering, and toilet paper. Beginning the series with a discussion and Q&A session, we’ll look at the community and societal responses to the crisis...

On the show this week, Salvatore Babones speaks with Judith Sloan, contributing economics editor at The Australian. They'll focus on repairing the economic damage that has been done and what strategic economic policies should be pursued by the government. Could we have had lower economic costs and still managed the virus well? Does the situation in other countries attest to the health and economic...