I have developed a seminar to explain libertarian philosophy to a lay audience. The course draws on the work of Locke, Smith, Mises, Hayek, Nozick, Rothbard, et al. and themes from my book The Fragility of Freedom. Our wonderful, free and prosperous society is being threatened by ideologies, from within and without, that compromise the reasons for its success. If we are to succeed in our battle with competing ideologies, then we need to acquire an appreciation of the legac

I think we should give credit to GetUp! for having the courage to withdraw its support from the petition seeking the deregistration of Dr Pansy Lai for her views on same sex marriage. The issue at stake here is tolerance in a pluralist society. I am confident that our society will be able tolerate loving relationships between homosexuals being called marriage. At the same time, we must respect the rights of those who hold a traditional view of marriage. It would be intoler

Imagine you are the Vice Chancellor of an Australian University, an extremely demanding job. You are approached by the Australian Human...

On a recent visit to Dubrovnik, Jill and I chanced upon a fish restaurant in the Old Port area – Riblji Restoran Proto. It was a serendipitous experience. Established in 1886, it is now owned by Mato Durovic, who has been a major influence in the hospitality business in Dubrovnik for fifty years. I have always admired well-run businesses. There is something exciting and satisfying about people working together to achieve the best they can. Proto was a fine example of this,

There are views that used to be widely held, or even law, that today would be considered inappropriate. As John Stuart Mill remarked - “every age having held opinions that are now recognised as absurd”. There are scientific views (for example: the world is flat; the sun travels around the earth; synthetic chemicals will cause a cancer epidemic; acid rain will destroy all the German forests; global famine is inevitable due to the population explosion). There are social norms

I challenge the mainstream narrative on human-induced global warming, questioning the role of CO2 emissions in climate change.

The objective to provide reliable, low cost, low emission energy is fraught. We must choose our priorities. All three cannot be optimised simultaneously. Only coal and nuclear can provide the base load necessary to supply our electricity needs for households and businesses. Our government policies must permit this to happen. There is increasing evidence that the dangers of global warming have been exaggerated. The public is starting to understand this and is concerned that

We hear, ad nauseam, of the need to prevent Muslim youth in Western societies from being radicalised. Too little effort is made to...

President Trump has announced that the US will withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement. Relax. Do not slit your wrists. There is...

The party of Menzies died last week. It had been a party built on the bourgeois values of responsibility, love, hope, charity, prudence, justice, fortitude, thrift, diligence, industriousness, reliability, trustworthiness, courage, civility, generosity, hospitality, duty and honour. It no longer holds these beliefs. All organisations cohere around an identity. They identify their beliefs, their values and their aspirations. These are the things that attract adherents and gui

An open letter to Dr Michael Spence, Vice Chancellor, Sydney University. Yesterday’s report that students at your University have been...

Dear Gillian I am sorry it has taken me a few days to respond to your request. Last week was a bit busy, what with the book launch and my...