No Books, No Wisdom, No Future
The ancient story is told of Tarquinius, the last of the seven legendary Kings of Rome. When the pagan goddess Sibyl offered to sell Tarquinius the nine books containing all the world’s wisdom for a high price, Tarquinius refused. Sibyl then promptly burnt three of the books in front of Tarquinius and offered to sell the remaining six books for the...
Enemy of the state
The clothes we wear may change, but the virtues and vices of mankind do not. As a historian of ancient Rome, I am in awe of the vast and rich sourcebook of knowledge it offers to guide us on what to heed and what to avoid. Yet it appears that those we elect, rule over us with no regard for...
What is at Stake in Religious Freedom
Religious freedom is poorly understood in Australia. This has a lot to do with the fact that it is not really a freedom per se, so much as a collection of more fundamental individual freedoms with which people are much more familiar: freedom of conscience, freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom of assembly. What makes...
How much should we pay our pollies?
Among the many criticisms of politicians that I heard during my time as a Senator, the accusation that they are only in it for the pay and perks, looking after themselves rather than the country and voters, was one of the most common. Sometimes this arose from dissatisfaction with certain politicians, but more often it reflected disdain for them all....
We are Family
The family unit is a core tenet of a functioning free society. A strong, stable family environment provides a much-needed buffer against the encroachment of government dependence – a difficult bond to break. As mainstream media finally begins to report on the potential impact of falling birth rates around the world, the blame is laid squarely at cost of living...
Use a VPN, but don’t stop there
The socialist government of Anthony Albanese is, once again, proposing legislation to de-anonymise, monitor and censor the Internet. From across the Tasman Sea in New Zealand I can smell the American eKaren Julie Inman Grant’s enthusiasm for this sort of authoritarian crackdown. As always the justification amounts to “Please! Won’t Someone Think of The Children!”, along with misdirections concerning child...
Why We Should Oppose Government Efforts to Age Restrict Social Media
There are increasing efforts to mandate age restrictions for social media. These efforts have occurred at federal level with a proposed minimum age of 16, and in Victoria with a proposed minimum age of 14 with parental consent for 14- and 15-year-olds. My home state of South Australia is also considering something similar. This legislation is motivated by concerns about...
Whose Ethics make it Ethical
When I started my business 35 years ago, very few investment funds were describing themselves as ethical investors. Some years later I joined an organisation of CEOs, business owners and senior executives that meets to share and discuss their challenges. I enjoyed our meetings right up until my group was required to listen to a speaker on ethics. When I...
The Unholy Union
Conceptually, worker unions are quite compatible with libertarian ideology. Workers voluntarily leveraging their collective bargaining power is a perfectly acceptable free-market response to what can oftentimes be an unbalanced relationship between employers and employees. All libertarians would prefer to see these kinds of voluntary associations dealing with some of the natural consequences that markets create, rather than the coercive...
Resisting centralist power – Part 3
In a speech entitled, Rebuilding the Federation, Richard Court, then Premier of Western Australia, described the tide of centralism as follows: “All the things that the States do best are under attack from the empire builders in Canberra. The bureaucracy running the Federal education system, as you know, is large but it doesn’t teach any students. There is an equally...
