Since the middle of 2020, while everyone was busy with pandemic matters, the ACT, Queensland, and Victorian governments passed laws to ban the practice of “conversion therapy”. Victoria’s Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act 2021[1] is the most comprehensive of these. These laws have been lauded as important steps in protecting the freedom of LGBTQI+ Australians. Other states will inevitably follow suit and national legislation is already on the agenda.
In the Orwellian dystopia in which we find ourselves, it’s important to clarify what “conversion therapy” means. “Conversion therapy” is anything that goes against the affirmation of someone’s sexual orientation or, crucially, their subjective gender identity. It can include – we are told – forms of abuse like beatings, electrocution, forced medication, castration, lobotomy and clitoridectomy.
Freedom from torture, inhumane or degrading treatment is protected in human rights legislation across Australia. So why was new legislation really needed? On the website dedicated to the CSPP Act, the Victorian government has kindly provided a section “For families and friends”. It informs us that “it is against the law to try to change or suppress someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity”. There is a handy list of examples of prohibited practices, of which the first two are:
a parent denying their child access to any health care services that would affirm their child’s gender identity.
a parent refusing to support their child’s request for medical treatment that willprevent physical changes from puberty.
In another section we are informed that criminalised conversion practices also include “people receiving subtle and repeated messages, that with faith and effort, they can change or hide their sexual orientation or gender identity.”
It goes as far as listing what can be said in prayer and what cannot.
Until very recently “psychotherapy involved helping the child to feel more comfortable in their own body with the belief that gender is quite malleable at a young age and gender dysphoria will likely resolve itself over time”[2]. This has now become a criminal offence.
More disturbingly, the same people that condemn prayer, psychotherapy, and genuine parental concern, are more than happy to promote radically dangerous practices when they are performed on children in the name of gender affirmation.
So-called affirmation treatments include:
Puberty suppression drugs, administered by intramuscular injection every 3 months, even though no drugs have been approved by the TGA for treatment of gender dysphoria.
A lifetime of dependence on cross-sex hormones to develop secondary characteristics of the opposite sex (e.g., testosterone to cause a girl’s voice to deepen).
Surgery. Options for males include facial feminization (nose reshaping, tracheal shave, cheek implants, etc), body feminization (trunk liposuction, buttocks augmentation), breast implants and “penile inversion”, where the penis is turned inside out to form the inner walls of a “neo vagina”. Options for females include double mastectomies and phalloplasty, a procedure that involves taking skin, fat, nerves and arteries from an arm or leg to create a penis.
Like many other issues of our time, we are supposed to believe the science is settled: gender affirmative interventions are always, unquestionably, in the best interest of the child.
Nothing is further from the truth. A 2023 study from The Children’s Hospital at Westmead, NSW, concluded that “the evidence-base pertaining to the gender-affirming medical pathway is sparse and, for the young people who may regret their choice of pathway at a future point in time, the risks for potential harm are significant.”[3]
Osteoporosis is a known risk of puberty suppression, but very little is known about the long-term effects of stopping the natural process of growth. Cross-sex hormones are associated with cardiovascular disease and blood clots. Their impact on fertility and sexual function is still not well understood. Not surprisingly, there can be significant complications with major surgical interventions offered as gender-affirming “care”. Finland, Sweden, Norway, France, and the UK have placed severe restrictions or banned these practices on minors altogether.
It’s hard to image how anyone could support such barbarism. Yet the perversely misleading “conversion ban” laws promote these discredited radical interventions. Such laws are not based on the best available science but reflect the influence of Queer Theory[4] ideologues, convinced beyond any doubt that children can (and should) bypass the perils of puberty and mould their bodies into whatever shape they want, in an impossible quest to become something that they are not. Like all irrational crusaders, they use state coercion to impose their views.
As the hubristic celebrations of Pride Month come to an end, we can only pray for our political leaders to find the humility to change course.
Lionel is an IT engineer with more than 20 years’ experience developing enterprise applications in the private and public sectors. He completed his computer science degree in Venezuela in 2001. Then in 2002, Lionel moved to Australia after obtaining an international internship in Canberra. He became an Australian citizen in 2008.
Virtually all political persuasions agree on the need for police. For libertarians, maintaining a criminal justice system, of which the police are a major component, is viewed as one of the few legitimate roles of government.
The first modern and professional police force was the London Metropolitan Police Service, established in 1829. At the time there was substantial public opposition to a large and possibly armed police force, based on fears it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule. The example of France, which had secret police at the time, was significant.
The Met was established by Robert Peel, Britain’s Home Secretary, who set out to address these concerns via his nine principles of policing. These principles are now famous and remain the gold standard for police everywhere.
Peel believed that the power of the police was dependent on public approval and derived from public cooperation rather than fear. Also known as policing by consent, his key principle was that “the police are the public and the public are the police”.
Corrupt and thuggish police must be rooted out and the selective enforcement of laws based on political allegiances prohibited
He ensured police uniforms were different from the military, avoided military ranks, and only armed officers with a wooden truncheon and rattle (later a whistle) to signal the need for assistance. Every officer was issued a warrant card with a unique identification number to assure accountability for his actions, and Londoners were expected to give assistance, including loaning their revolvers to officers in pursuit of armed felons. Many did exactly that.
Peel was also clear about the primary role of the police – to prevent crime. Police effectiveness is not measured by the number of arrests, he said, but by the absence of crime and disorder.
Almost two hundred years later, police in many locations could benefit from a reminder of Peel’s principles.
One issue is the steady militarisation of the police. This ranges from references to the public as civilians and assertions that the police place their lives on the line every day (which is obvious garbage) to black uniforms, military assault rifles and ex-military equipment such as armoured personnel carriers.
When they see themselves as soldiers in a war, it is not surprising that some police have no regard for public welfare. The result is the abuse of civil rights and the unnecessary use of tasers and firearms, with deaths in police custody.
Peel’s principles also stipulate that police should only use physical force when persuasion, advice and warning are insufficient, to use only the minimum force necessary, and that the cooperation of the public diminishes proportionately with the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion.
For libertarians, maintaining a criminal justice system, of which the police are a major component, is viewed as one of the few legitimate roles of government.
Yet how often do we see police resort to violence when making an arrest? People are tackled, forced to the ground with knees on their back and neck amid blows, kicks and the vindictive use of Tasers, simply to apply handcuffs. Being ‘non-compliant’ or raising verbal objections is enough to prompt this.
Moreover, such rough handling amounts to a form of punishment. That is also in conflict with Peel’s Principles, which require the police to avoid usurping the powers of the judiciary by authoritatively judging guilt and punishing the guilty.
Enforcement of the Covid rules, including the authoritarian decrees and fines imposed by state premiers, provided multiple examples of poor policing: the petty closing of cafes, prosecutions for reading in a park, chasing individuals along a closed beach, stopping fishing from a pier the day after 10,000 gathered in a demonstration, and even a Police Commissioner who denounces the cruise industry as criminal, are among them.
We now see the police routinely looking the other way when demonstrators spew their hateful antisemitism and calls for genocide against the Jews, even arresting a solitary Jewish observer. The Australian public are never likely to accept the police as one of them while those sorts of things occur.
Change is necessary. Corrupt and thuggish police must be rooted out and the selective enforcement of laws based on political allegiances prohibited. Victimless crimes should never be given priority and arresting people should be the last resort for problems that originate in drug use, alcoholism, mental illness and poverty.
The fundamental responsibility of governments is to protect life, liberty and property. If the police were to focus on these while upholding Peel’s Principles, Australians might even respect them enough to come to their aid. As it stands, many would refuse.
David Leyonhjelm was an Australian Senator from 2014 to 2019 representing New South Wales for the Liberal Democratic Party. Notable for his libertarian consistency, David’s work in Senate Estimates attracted acclaim worldwide for its forensic examination of government
waste. Professionally, he is a veterinarian and agribusiness consultant.
In short, and especially for our subscribers outside Australia, the Voice proposal is for a consultative body – let’s be blunter and say it’s a representative body – to which all federal government policies and legislation impacting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders will be referred for consideration.
The battle for and against is now formally engaged.
Here are 14 reasons Australians should vote against the proposal.
1. Systemic Racism
Libertarians are Australia’s leaders against racism. We reject collectivism of any kind and judge individuals on the content of their character, not the colour of their skin or any other group attribute. Labor and the Greens are seeking to introduce a procedural body into the legislative process based on race, hints of Caucasian rule in Rhodesia or South Africa. The Left’s much hackneyed phrase of ‘systemic racism’ applies. If it’s part of the system and it’s based on race, guess what? It’s systemic racism.
Libertarians say Vote No.
And frankly, that’s sufficient reason.
But I have 13 more reasons …
2. Fractious Treaties
Supporters of the proposal have said the next step after a Voice are formal treaties. It’s a slippery slope. Freedom House says there are only 17 genuinely free nations in a world of 197 countries and that Australia is one of them. As a libertarian, I’d like to keep it as free as possible. That’s not compatible with negotiating treaties with 500 ethno-state ‘First Nations’, as woke activists now strategically call this part of our citizenry.
3. Communist Mastermind
The author of the Voice To Parliament is Thomas Mayo. He is a communist, a supporter of an ideology which has thus far killed 100 million people.
Don’t believe that he’s a communist?
Here he is in his own words …
4. Preferential Rents
Ethno-nationalists Senator Lidia Thorpe and Mr Mayo are openly calling for freehold title holders to pay rent to indigenous leadership groups. Will Australian mortgagees and tenants be required to add an indigenous rent?
5. Economic Drag
With the ambiguity on not knowing what the Voice To Parliament will recommend to the Government, will there be new permits required for economic activity.? What grifting black tape will be placed on a business sector already constrained by green and red tape?
6. Impossible Reversal
If the Voice To Parliament, enshrined in the Constitution, became a corrupt rabble like ATSIC, we would not be able to remove it from the Constitution except through another referendum. We’d be stuck with the constitutional vandalism.
7. Ambiguous Scope
As much as we’ve asked, we still have no understanding of the scope of the Voice To Parliament. Will its recommendations be binding on Parliament? What are matters affecting indigenous people? Remote communities? Native title property portfolios? Aboriginal-only businesses? United Nations treaty implications? Australians need to know the scope of this body before voting. We ask. We get no answers.
8. Undefined Structure
How many people will sit on the Voice To Parliament? 5? 18? Will there be one per tribe, so 500 of them? None of us know. Who will be eligible to serve on the Voice? Certainly not all Australians. Again, this is systemic racism in action. How is aboriginality defined? DNA? Statutory declaration? Tribal declaration? Still, no answers.
9. Uncosted
From a standing start, the NDIS now spends more of our hard-earned tax dollars than Medicare and Defence! With form like this and the same people pushing this new proposal, can you imagine the cost of the Voice To Parliament? We’ve asked for a budget. No dice!
10. Ignored Communities
It’s not as if most aboriginal communities on the ground were consulted or were yearning for a Voice To Parliament. Videos are emerging of everyday indigenous citizens explaining that they’ve never heard of a Voice To Parliament.
11. Elitist Gravy Train
The proposal is being pushed by Canberra-based, virtue-signalling, snouts-in-the-trough, activists. Decades of collectivist molly-coddling by Labor has created a gravy-train of the most bloated kind. Woke identitarian activists trying to create an indigenous industry, with all the non-productivity of the old-world European aristocracies.
12. Partisan
This is a Labor and Green project. A weepy-eyed, spend-what-may socialist wet dream. A one-sided wank job.
13. Referendum Funding
To drive home the point, Government is funding the yes campaign while struggling citizens under cost-of-living pressure are expected to fund the no campaign. Equity? Shhhhhh.
14. Ends Reconciliation
The Reconciliation Movement had noble ideals when started. After 20 years, we now see clearly where it is heading. An elite land grab, the fracturing of Australia into ethno-microstates and the distribution of a lot of money for a non-productive industry.
But as I say, none of this matters. It is sufficient reason to Vote No that they are proposing a race-based system.
The moment freedom lovers regain power, a priority must be to repeal s51(xxvi) of the Constitution to end this race-baiting once and for all.
An entrepreneur who has employed 1,470+ people, Kenelm was admitted to the BRW Fast 100 three times with businesses in Australia, NZ, Singapore and New York, where he lived for 12 years. Kenelm’s investment firm performs mid-market leveraged roll-ups. He was a regular columnist for the Australian Financial Review. Kenelm is the Founder of Liberty Itch.
One of the main safeguards to the rule of law is an independent judiciary. Courts should have the authority to decide cases related to the exercise of emergency powers and remove measures that violate laws or fundamental rights. Judicial review acts as a check of executive power and helps maintain the rule of law.
This point was established long ago during World War II. Liversidge v. Anderson was a case that related to the involuntary detainment of a man at the discretion of the Home Secretary, without trial. The majority judgement upheld the detainment. However, Lord Atkin’s dissenting judgement went on to be regarded as a landmark contribution to the jurisprudence surrounding the tension between executive powers and individual rights in times of crisis. Lord Atkin’s commitment to upholding fundamental legal principles, despite the political climate, has been widely respected and influenced subsequent legal thinking.
Lord Atkin. Leading Australian-born British judge.
In more recent times in Australia, Deputy President of the Fair Work Commission, Lyndall Dean, delivered a powerful, well-reasoned, rational, and factual dissenting judgement that also went against the prevailing political climate. The judgement related to the case of Jennifer Kimber v Sapphire Coast Community Aged Care Ltd [2021] FWCFB 6015. Ms. Kimber, a receptionist at an aged care facility, was dismissed by her employer for refusing to take an influenza vaccine. A majority 2-1 full bench of the Commission affirmed the dismissal, emphasising the significance of Public Health Orders and the obligation of employers to comply.
Ms Dean believed that the majority decision in Ms Kimber’s case was unjust, as it denied her workplace law protections based on a suspicion of anti-vaccination views. Ms Dean argued that even those with anti-vaccination views should be afforded legal protections and highlighted the importance of consent in medical treatments. She criticised coercion, stating that threatening dismissal and the withdrawal of societal participation for refusing a vaccine is incompatible with consent and a breach of fundamental human rights. She opposed the censorship of differing opinions, condemned vaccine mandates as coercive, undemocratic, and unethical, and urged Australians to question current policies and preserve the freedom to engage in scientific inquiry.
Lyndall Dean. Deputy President. Fair Work Commission.
Nothing about Ms Dean’s judgement was inaccurate, sensational, or controversial. Her judgement was sound, rational, and well-reasoned. Where Ms Dean fell foul was that she exercised her judicial independence instead of going along with the narrative. Her voice, just like many others, would have to be silenced; and that is indeed what happened.
Lyndall Dean was ordered to undertake professional conduct training and “disqualified herself” from workplace vaccination cases on the grounds of bias.
Removing Ms Dean from hearing vaccine workplace cases because she did not hold the majority view sends a message that only certain perspectives are acceptable, potentially compromising the fairness and integrity of the judicial process
In a law based, democratic society it is essential that judges must be able to render their decisions based on their interpretation of the law and their assessment of the facts, free from external pressure or political considerations. By removing Ms Dean for her dissenting opinions, judicial independence was compromised, eroding public trust in the judiciary and the rule of law.
In Liversidge v. Anderson, the majority of the House of Lords upheld the detention powers granted to the Home Secretary under the Defence Regulations, even if the Secretary’s decision was based on subjective and unreviewable grounds. This decision was seen as a departure from the rule of law, which emphasises the critical importance of legal certainty and due process.
Lord Atkin’s judgement, like Lyndall Dean’s, underscored the importance of upholding fundamental rights and the rule of law even in times of crisis. It emphasised that the executive’s exercise of emergency powers must be subject to legal constraints and judicial review. It reinforced the notion that even in times of crisis, governments must respect fundamental rights and ensure that emergency measures are proportionate, necessary, subject to meaningful oversight, safeguard the rule of law and protect individual liberties.
Both Lyndall Dean’s and Lord Atkin’s dissenting judgements were viewed as controversial during their respective times, given the prevailing political climate. Lord Atkin’s judgement has since gained significant recognition and praise for its principled stance on the rule of law.
One would hope that, just like Lord Atkin’s, Lyndall Dean’s dissenting judgement will be viewed in the future as a potent reminder of the importance of upholding the rule of law and protecting individual rights during a time of crisis.
Lord Atkin famously stated …
“In this country, amid the clash of arms, the laws are not silent. They may be changed, but they speak the same language in war as in peace.”
Jaimie Stevenson JD (Monash) is a legal consultant for Australian-based SMEs, specialising in technology, data, privacy and IP law. She is passionate about the rule of law, as opposed to arbitrary rules, and minimal government encroachment on the inherent rights of the
individual including freedom, autonomy and dignity.
So is the propaganda and freedom-busting laws which have accompanied it.
Thankfully now, the hysteria seems to be dissipating and we should all feel more comfortable pushing back. The laws which are eroding our civil liberties? Removing them will take years.
In light of Pfizer executive Janine Small’s admission to the the European Parliament that their covid vaccine does not stop transmission, government policies around the world which sought to deny the vaccine-hesitant their basic human rights are now discredited.
The media, which relentlessly proselytised ‘the vaccine stops the spread’ and ‘you are selfish if you don’t take the vaccine’ in order to retain their broadcasting licences, revealed just how inadequate they are as a bulwark against government overreach.
So much for our Fourth Estate!
Both government and media co-opted celebrity too in their efforts to control. Sometimes the mouthpieces were celebrities who even previously held high office.
Take this clip doing the rounds on social media …
“The only way we prevent this is to get vaccinated” was wrong, says Pfizer itself.
And the “Screw your freedom!”, from a former Republican no less, is chilling.
Sometimes it takes years before the present catches up to history, proving past events and decisions wrong.
In Arnold Schwarzenegger’s case, mere months.
Well may the Terminator have said “I’ll be back.”
Given Mr. Schwarzenegger’s visceral “screw your freedom” remark, let’s hope at least he never again returns to the public square, especially when mouthing government and media propaganda now discredited by the very manufacturer of covid vaccines.
An entrepreneur who has employed 1,470+ people, Kenelm was admitted to the BRW Fast 100 three times with businesses in Australia, NZ, Singapore and New York, where he lived for 12 years. Kenelm’s investment firm performs mid-market leveraged roll-ups. He was a regular columnist for the Australian Financial Review. Kenelm is the Founder of Liberty Itch.
Federation University’s Verity Archer discovered a letter written in 1975 by Sir Donald Bradman, the greatest cricket batsman ever to play with an unparalleled average of 99.94, to newly elected Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser.
The 1975 federal election was undoubtedly a fiercely contested battle. Emotions were high. As any citizen was and is entitled to do, Bradman took a side and wrote:
“A marvellous victory in which your personal conduct and dignity stood out against the background of arrogance and propaganda indulged in by your opponents.”
Bradman next makes a prediction, which you would have to say history shows to be prescient:
“Now you may have to travel a long and difficult road along which your enemies will seek to destroy you.”
Cricket was a sport for amateurs in The Don’s day. Big money had not yet influenced the sport. Players therefore had to develop a career independent their sporting masters. They were tough men on long, self-funded tours, most unlike some knee-bending virtue-signalers and sandpaper betting-agency grubs you are more familiar with from more recent periods. In Sir Donald’s case, he was an accomplished and successful stockbroker in his own right with an advanced understanding of the regulatory framework of his time. Writing about regulations on capital, Bradman consequently wrote:
“What the people need are clearly defined rules which they can read and understand so that they can get on with their affairs.”
Seems fair enough. Sounds like Financial Disclosure Statement (FDS) rules decades later. He then adds:
“The public must be re-educated to believe that private enterprise is entitled to rewards as long as it obeys fair and reasonable rules laid down by government. Maybe you can influence leaders of the press to a better understanding of this necessity of presentation.”
There are four points in that paragraph:
Belief in private enterprise. This is straightforward enough of an idea. It’s the basis of our Western, capitalist liberal democracy;
Gaining the rewards of its initiative. Yes. Private enterprise offers goods and services to the public in return for a profit. This is basic economics. Got it;
Some fair and reasonable rules. Well, let’s not have any rules if possible but, if we must, light-touch and easy-the-understand, sure;
Explain this to the media. Not a bad idea for a government to share with the press the direction it would like to take the country. All good.
What’s to disagree with here?
Yet, out come the socialists and 1975 ancient historians with an axe to grind:
Broadcaster Phillip Adams wrote, “Sad. Lost letter from Bradman to Fraser after Whitlam’s dismissal reveals ‘the Don’ to be a RWNJ.”
Unaccustomed to shorthand slurs from journalists, I had to find what RWNJ meant: right-wing nut-job, apparently.
To some boomer-era, battle-axe activists-come-journalists, supporting free-enterprise, light-touch regulation and transparency with the media is radical. Apparently these positions are extreme, wild enough to be branded a right-wing nut-job!
At what point in Australian progress did free enterprise become a dirty word?
Or can we say Mr. Adams is the radical one for slandering a long-deceased Australian sporting icon because he believed in free enterprise.
Or …
… maybe, just maybe, Mr. Adams has another axe to grind. Perhaps he just hates supporters of Malcolm Fraser over the Political Crisis of 1975.
All Liberty Itch says in response is:
Mr. Fraser won in a record landslide still not bettered today. Mr. Adams is surely not saying the vast majority of Australians including Sir Donald were RWNJs, is he?
Mr. Fraser’s successor, Bob Hawke, thought highly enough of Mr. Fraser to appoint him to the Eminent Persons Group to tackle racism in Apartheid-era South Africa. Mr. Adams is surely not saying Bob Hawke was a right-wing nut-job as well for supporting Mr. Fraser, is he?
Like you, dear reader, I was taught never to speak ill of the dead.
It seems Mr. Adams wasn’t.
Long after Mr. Adams meets the Lord, free enterprise and Western liberal democracy will prevail.
I do hope though that the practice of throwing mud at men long dead and unable to defend their reputations will cease, for Mr. Adams’ sake you understand, dear reader.
An entrepreneur who has employed 1,470+ people, Kenelm was admitted to the BRW Fast 100 three times with businesses in Australia, NZ, Singapore and New York, where he lived for 12 years. Kenelm’s investment firm performs mid-market leveraged roll-ups. He was a regular columnist for the Australian Financial Review. Kenelm is the Founder of Liberty Itch.
Are moral norms compatible with individual freedoms? The answer should be an obvious “yes”, yet in Western liberal democracies like Australia there appears to be growing doubt, confusion and uncertainty. A society that permits individual freedoms necessarily results in moral pluralism. Moral pluralism, in turn, manifests in the existence of diverse moral norms, which is to say moral speech and practices that not only diverge, but conflict. Add migration and a policy of multiculturalism to individual freedoms, and a society characterised by a high degree of normative moral pluralism is assured. This is precisely what has occurred in Australia.
Until recently, this kind of moral diversity (cloaked in the language of cultural diversity) was a cause for celebration, at least by Australia’s urbane, educated elite. Today, that same elite increasingly regards moral diversity as something threatening and harmful. Individuals and groups that find moral criticism, which is to say moral diversity, confronting, challenging and offensive, now demand protection from the “harmful” moral speech and practices of others. That is, they demand the state involve itself in matters of moral conflict amongst citizens.
The clamour for state intervention in the arbitration, policing and implementation of moral norms is particularly evident in the culture war. Progressive and conservative protagonists in this putative “war” appear to agree on at least one thing: moral differences are political problems that ultimately can only be resolved via the “social apparatus of coercion and compulsion,” to use Ludwig von Mises’s description of the state.
To treat the state as the arbiter of the conflicting moral beliefs found amongst its citizens is to turn moral difference into political conflict.
Once the state is deemed to be the appropriate apparatus for arbitrating moral disputes between citizens, it becomes a political prize worth fighting for among those engaged in moral dispute precisely for the fact that it promises to place immense coercive powers in the hands of its victor. In this way the state becomes a tool for implementing a unitary moral vision through the prohibition and suppression of alternative moral norms deemed unpalatable.
If gaining control of the social apparatus that is the state proves unattainable, its organs can always be lobbied and pressured to further the culture warrior’s moral agenda through legislation, litigation, appointments and funding decisions. Failing that, those seeking to vanquish their moral enemies can employ what John Stuart Mill termed “social tyranny” to hound, harass, troll and ultimately cancel moral heretics.
The tragedy of the culture wars is how little is at stake in the issues at the centre of the conflict versus how much is at stake in the statist aims and ambitions of the warring parties. Instead of enlisting the state and its courts to sue a Christian baker who refuses to bake an LGBTQ-themed cake for a same-sex couple, the couple could simply procure their desired cake from another business and move on with their lives.
Similarly, instead of hyperventilating about drag queen story hour in cities thousands of miles away from their home and clamouring for the state to intervene to ban them, offended conservatives could simply exercise their freedom to not attend such events and, again, move on with their lives. In fact, there is nothing to prevent either party from publicly expressing their respective displeasure at the other with as much vim and vigour as they see fit. There is wide scope for spleens to be vented in a free society.
But increasingly, people seem to be incapable of living comfortably in a society containing individuals who adhere to moral norms that clash or conflict with their own, particularly the young people we have managed to transform into nervous wrecks, in no small part because we do not instil in them the resilience that is required to live in the midst of pluralism, along with the inevitable conflict and criticism that comes with the territory. What’s worse, growing numbers seem to be affronted by the very idea that society would even permit individuals the freedom to articulate and practice moral norms they deem to be objectionable.
The problem, of course, as stated earlier, is that individual freedom unavoidably leads to moral pluralism, which guarantees that free citizens will have to tolerate moral difference, divergence and sometimes offense if they genuinely want to live in a free world. The alternative is moral authoritarianism, cloaked in the language of social justice, natural law or Biblical virtue.
This brings us to libertarianism. Libertarianism has its own normative moral vision just like any other ideology. What distinguishes it, however, is that its moral vision is limited and aims specifically at fostering pluralism, not mitigating or eliminating it. “The libertarian creed rests upon one central axiom,” Murray Rothbard wrote in For a New Liberty, “that no man or group of men may aggress against the person or property of anyone else.”
Moral pluralism, in turn, manifests in the existence of diverse moral norms, which is to say moral speech and practices that not only diverge, but conflict.
While more can be, and has been, said (and debated) about this central axiom, one encounters consensus among libertarians that the nonaggression principle is at the epicentre of libertarian moral norms. The limiting principle of nonaggression does two things in relation to morality. Firstly, it limits moral freedom to acts and practices that do not constitute aggression against other individuals. Secondly, it rules out any effort to impose, prohibit or suppress moral speech, acts or practices by using either violence or coercion, provided the speech, act or practice in question itself observes the nonaggression principle.
Note that the libertarian nonaggression principle does not necessitate moral neutrality, agnosticism or relativism on the part of citizens. Well-defined and articulate moral norms—entire moral codes, for that matter—can be held and adhered to with as much passion and dogmatism as each citizen feels compelled to. They must simply respect the right of others to dissent, and then commit to not using violence or coercion to impose their moral dogma on others. Advocating, propagating, arguing, debating, persuading, cajoling, urging, pleading: none of these activities constitute violations of the nonaggression principle.
Moral relativism is possible within a libertarian moral order. However, it is not demanded by it. Moral norms are compatible with the exercise of individual freedoms within the governing principle of nonaggression. The state, on the other hand, ought to adopt a disposition of neutrality and agnosticism in relation to moral questions and disputes that do not involve violations of the nonaggression principle. The moral role of the state is to protect citizens from aggression (this function is performed by protective associations in the private law society of anarcho-capitalism). The definition and boundaries of nonaggression are necessarily questions that the state must form a view about, for obvious reasons. What pronouns someone uses, what books children can read at school and what people are allowed to say publicly about the institution of marriage are not.
To treat the state as the arbiter of the conflicting moral beliefs found amongst its citizens is to turn moral difference into political conflict. This is both unnecessary and undesirable. And it is libertarians who should be sounding the alarm. All other political ideologies operate according to normative moral systems that are to be implemented for the common good, for the sake of divine injunction, to comply with the natural law or to bring into being some promised utopia. The liberation moral vision, in contrast, is designed to foster a free society that respects and protects moral diversity. A society that can tolerate diverse and even conflicting moral norms can afford to limit the scope of the state. A society that cannot tolerate moral diversity needs a large, powerful, interventionist state to sort out all its moral differences.
Jonathan Cole is a libertarian political philosopher and co-host of The Political Animals podcast: “Two political philosophers, one a right-wing radical, the other a left-wing heretic, come together to discuss the social, political and cultural issues of our day.”
Two hours ago, Elon Musk’s long-anticipated acquisition of Twitter was completed.
Hopes now run high that at least one social media platform can operate for all and free speech restored.
Time will tell.
As an avid user of the platform, I believe the following needs addressing:
1. Bots. The system is fouled by fake accounts created by algorithm. The platform must be cleansed on this problem.
2. Bad-Faith Actors. I’m not talking about typical anonymous accounts, but rather accounts run by nation-state troll farms at call centre scale. I’m constantly inundated with this scourge. They used to be easy to spot: low follower numbers, homogeneity of digital assets in the profile feed, short sentences in broken English. They are now becoming harder and harder to spot. They sit like sleeper agents in good citizens’ follower list for what sinister purpose or misinformation we are yet to learn. Get rid of them.
3. Safety & Integrity. It almost goes without saying that the previous management, the CEO, CFO, Corporate Counsel and Policy Officer now unceremoniously terminated by Musk, actively pursued centre-right users with the Safety & Integrity Department. It used a pincer movement to suppress centre-right users. The first was the dreaded algorithm which flagged people and then spurted automatic double-speak messages to put people in a procedural cul-de-sac. Then it referred a select few of the targeted users to an inadequately small Safety & Integrity Department of actual humans who them mercilessly cancelled many honest users with unfavoured political views. Ending this double-pincer is huge priority to restore the platform.
4. Advertising. As a B2B businessman, I have no need to advertise on Twitter. It’s a B2C platform. Even if I were wishing to advertise to the retail or B2C markets, I wouldn’t use Twitter. How can targeting occur when most handles are anonymous. It’s a very low-value, hit and miss way to reach new customers.
5. Caves and Common. A ‘cave’ is a place in an online community where a person can retreat or pursue more focused relationships. A ‘common’ is where you’re in the flow of action, in the bright shiny lights of the site. Because Twitter is all common, is feels like a brutal fight club. There’s little respite, little joy, little reprieve. Twitter groups or rooms would be a fantastic innovation.
6. Anonymous Handles. Of course, most people tweet with the protection of anonymity. But for the advertising issue, I think that’s OK. However, the site would be far better if people declared their identity. It would temper the fight club feel of the platform and users would be more likely to self-moderate. As there are advantages to anonymity, like speaking truth to power and whistleblowing, I think a hybrid model would work well. So users could still have an anonymous handle, but with limited reach or features. Upgrading to full user identification would allow greater reach and features.
Whatever changes are made by Mr Musk, one thing is certain. The property is now in the hands of a man who knows how to make things happen.
It will be interesting to watch.
It will be even more interesting being a Twitter user.
An entrepreneur who has employed 1,470+ people, Kenelm was admitted to the BRW Fast 100 three times with businesses in Australia, NZ, Singapore and New York, where he lived for 12 years. Kenelm’s investment firm performs mid-market leveraged roll-ups. He was a regular columnist for the Australian Financial Review. Kenelm is the Founder of Liberty Itch.
You could be forgiven for feeling despair at the state of Australian politics right now.
Ditto for the West as a whole.
Unfortunately, despair doesn’t take us where we need to go.
There are four forces pulling us in the wrong direction at the moment. The quick summary is that the Liberty-Authority war is raging but Liberty is losing too many battles, our politicians don’t know how ‘mixed’ our mixed-economy should be and so are preferencing Authority in that war, there’s a kind of matrix hanging over us which makes things hard to change, and we aren’t giving our parliamentarians the right incentives to stop.
What we urgently need is clear-thinking on these four forces, an action plan to counter them and a lot of good people like you to follow the plan.
This article will give you the clear-thinking and the action plan.
Read what follows then decide whether you’ll join the fight.
LIBERTY-AUTHORITY WAR
First, the Liberty-Authority war is raging but Liberty is losing too many battles.
There are two extremes in government: 100% Liberty and 100% Authority.
Total Liberty is a utopia, which can only fleetingly exist before Authority is needed to stabilise it. At 95% Liberty and 5% Authority, stability is possible. Imagine 1880s London or 1980s Hong Kong. In this light-touch government, the enterprising individual flourishes to produce a dynamic, Liberty-loving productive society. Individual independence, live and let live lifestyle, free-trade, creativity, flair, ambition, initiative, vision, self-reliance, energy, innovation and self-actualisation abound. The society throbs with entrepreneurial instinct.
Total Authority is a dystopia, which inevitably collapses from the murder, starvation or flight of millions. It is frequently reformed out of necessity. At 95% Authority and 5% Liberty, the Liberty manifests as a barely-tolerated, hardscrabble barter just to ward-off widespread starvation. Imagine 2020s North Korea or 2020s Eritrea. The economy is small and centrally controlled. Basic needs are unmet. In this despotic, heavy-handed government, enterprise is crushed, initiative regarded with suspicion and people cower in fear and repression, forced into a life of misery. There is no spark in its people, no verve, no passion, no striving, no vivacity.
Australia sits nowhere near these two ends of the spectrum, of course. It would be feeble-thinking however to surmise that we are exempt from the Liberty-Authority war. All societies are subject to it, Australia included, and Liberty is losing.
Consider Authority’s recent wins:
Border closures
Vaccine mandates
Emergency power legislation enshrined and ready for reactivation
Job terminations over mandates
QR codes to track your movements and bar entry
Elected politicians denied entry into parliament
Peaceful citizens shot in the back with rubber bullets
Home detention of the population
Laws requiring employers to gather private medical data
Secrecy over vaccine purchase terms
Door-to-door visits for covid vaccine rollout
Opaque health information about vaccine injuries
Construction of covid detention camps.
Think that’s the end of it?
First, none of these powers has been removed as covid wanes.
Second, at the time of writing, there were 122 bills before Capital Hill, Canberra. This figure obviously changes but you can review the list at anytime yourself here.
I want you to think of the Commonwealth Parliament as a school of ravenous piranha. Every time a new law is passed, your personal and financial Liberty is being thrown in the legislative pond for thirty seconds. You scramble out with razor cuts all over your bloodied body. Then you’re pushed back in by errant leaders and the populist mob for another gasping swim. Again and again, the body politic is attacked, your Liberty weakened with every new law passed.
During my frantic attempts to call MPs during the covid overreach, part of my epiphany that the Liberal Party – far from being an agent for small government – is complicit in this process was a question I posed to an MP. I asked this person to find out from the Parliamentary Library how many Commonwealth statutes are active. The experts couldn’t come up with a number. We are suffocated with so many laws, we don’t know how many there are!
We’ve fought 121 years in Australia over whether we need more economic and personal Liberty on the one side, and whether we need more Authority and protection on the other.
Authority is winning.
One of the issues is that our fellow citizens are increasingly expecting government to be an end-to-end solution to every risk we face in life. What we demand of our governments is that they increasingly manage the risks of life which we have handled privately in the past. Fear is a powerful motivator.
We have to make our politicians understand that we don’t expect them to carry all the risks in our lives.
As Lord Jonathan Sumption said in a recent trip to Australia:
“If we hold governments responsible for everything that goes wrong, they will take away our autonomy so that nothing can go wrong.”
I think he’s being optimistic about ‘nothing can go wrong’ but you see his point.
MIXED ECONOMY
Second, our politicians don’t know how ‘mixed’ our mixed-economy should be and so are preferencing Authority in that war.
Throughout time immemorial, we have sought to balance these competing but innate needs. On one side, creative, independent, self-actualising Liberty and, on the other side, risk-avoiding, dependent, protective Authority.
Democracy, coupled with its ‘mixed-economy’, tries to navigate between the two. That is, there is constant tension within a mixed-economy democracy to balance Liberty and Authority.
How are each enabled?
The general rule of thumb is that the bigger a government’s budget, the greater the means by which our leaders can impose Authority.
Big government budget means more Authority and less Liberty.
Small government budget means more Liberty and less Authority.
So, what’s the trendline in Australia.
If we use government expenditure as a percentage of GDP as the litmus test since Federation in 1901, we see an obvious trend. I’m going to use cut-offs at the end of each Liberal government (or its predecessor equivalents) since centre-right Liberals are reputationally supposed to be the small government, pro Liberty advocates.
Here’s what we discover:
Deakin (third government): 5%
Menzies (second government): 17%
Fraser: 26%
Howard: 37%
Morrison: 45%.
The trend is clearly from Liberty to Authority.
We need to jettison this old Keynesian term ‘mixed economy’. It’s an umbrella phrase which masks intent. An economy set at 90% Liberty and 10% Authority is a mixed-economy of a sort. So is 10% Liberty and 90% Authority. Even comparing Alfred Deakin’s 5% government economy versus Scott Morrison’s 45% government economy, the two look nothing like each other.
Using the term ‘mixed-economy’ gives licence to the Authority-lovers to execute socialism-creep.
During our lives, government is becoming ever larger and the piranha are being fed. Government has the growing means to intervene, coerce and limit our Liberty by a thousand imperceptible cuts over time.
And the truth is that the Liberal Party has been completely unsuccessful over 121 years in reversing the trend.
Why?
TOCQUEVILLE’S MATRIX
Well, third, there’s a kind of matrix hanging over us which makes things hard to change. I call it the Tocqueville Matrix.
The answer is that we’re in a system bigger than ourselves. We can laugh at analogies with the film The Matrix all we like. However, the reality of our predicament today was well uncovered, not by the hacker Neo in that movie but, 187 years ago by the classical liberal philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville in his celebrated essay “Democracy In America”, the result of a fact-finding mission for France.
Alexis de Tocqueville. 1805-1859. Classical liberal.
Though published in 1835 on the other side of the planet, it was highly relevant to Australia at the time. The free-settled Province of South Australia was just one year from proclamation. A mere fifty-four years later, Sir Henry Parkes delivered his famous Federation-rallying Tenterfield Oration in which he said “Surely what the Americans have done by war, Australians can bring about in peace.”
Here’s what Tocqueville witnessed of the new American republic, at this point only two generations old. As you read his words, pay attention to the creaking tension between Liberty and Authority, and the ongoing, overall impact of democracy on its people:
“The protecting power of the state extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate to rise above the crowd. The will of Man is not shattered but it is softened, bent and guided. Men are seldom forced to act but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy but it prevents existence. It does not tyrannise but it compresses, enervates and extinguishes. It stupefies a people until each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals to which the government is the shepherd.”
Dare tell me this is not Australia in 2022.
I’ve shown you our legislative losses. I’ve revealed the legislative agenda in progress. I’ve shared that we don’t even know how many laws are on the books. This is Tocqueville’s ‘complicated rules, minute and uniform.’
Further, who are our ‘most original minds and the most energetic characters’? We may not be shattered as a people. But who will deny we are ‘softened, bent and guided’?
The word ‘enervates’ means ‘to make a person drained of energy or vitality.’ If this is how you feel right now about politics, it’s the Tocqueville Matrix of democracy working you over! Resist it. Let your innate self-reliance and self-actualisation radiate.
I could have sworn Tocqueville was in Australia from 2020-2022 when writing that last sentence.
If you feel that your fellow citizens exhibit foggy thinking, if you believe they make terrible electoral choices, then take heart. We know why …
Australia, like all Western liberal democracies, has placed an apparatus over its citizens. This apparatus of uncountable statutes and a million regulatory miscellany soften, bend and guide us. Initiative, vigour and swashbuckling verve are all discouraged as is self-reliance. Our innate creativity, independence and self-actualising Liberty has been dampened. We are less Errol Flynn, Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and Sir Douglas Mawson, and now more a half-thwarted version of our true selves.
Sir Douglas Mawson OBE FRS. 1882-1958. First to climb Mount Erebus and reach South Magnetic Pole.
Authority has taken over Liberty as the primary force in Australia. We accommodate too much. We fund too much. We have power-hungry, entrenched legislators. Our fellow Australians are too prone to expect government to manage all the risks of the world.
PARLIAMENTARY INCENTIVES
Fourth, we aren’t giving our parliamentarians the right incentives to stop.
Our politicians, specifically the ones housed in the seat-holding incumbency parties of Labour, Greens, Liberals and Nationals, often spend ten to twenty years working towards preselection. They aren’t going to rock-the-boat once in power after that investment of time.
We need term limits. We also need the hard work within party preselection processes to turnover long-time incumbents.
Another issue is that we, as a people, are simply unpractised to tell a politician ‘no’! We advocate for spending on our pet projects and our politicians say ‘yes’ to everyone. It’s unsustainable. And when we argue for cuts, we are vulnerable to the ‘what government program are you going to end?’ We need a coherent, well-practised push-back to this. Citizens can’t keep acting like toddlers asking for more and politicians need to be disciplined in saying ‘no’.
We are terrible at applying constant pressure on our representatives between elections. They rarely hear from us after a poll. We need to visit them, form relationships with them, lobby them, guide them and, yes if necessary, threaten them with electoral backlash.
In fifty-four years, I’ve not seen one protest outside an electorate office by citizens angry about the MPs big spending tendencies. Not one.
We aren’t giving them the right incentives to correct.
AN URGENT ACTION PLAN
So, here’s what you need to do.
For Liberal and National members:
Action 1: Gather fellow members and advocate for a three-term limit. Make clear to an MP in his or her third term that this is it. Say it’s not personal, it’s a systemic position about renewal. Encourage challenges if the MP won’t budge.
Action 2: Make clear at State Council that you demand budget reductions in government. Educate MPs on the importance of reducing budgets. Ask for their game plan to achieve this. Embarrass elected officials who lack the courage to reduce the size of government. Normalise talk of smaller government. As a group or faction, make clear you will be targeting MPs who don’t work towards this.
Action 3: Gather fellow members and internally advocate for policy not tactical preferencing. Discourage tricky tactics which ultimately splinter the centre-right. Shame and seek the removal of any state director or parliamentary leader who supports tactical preferencing to Labor or the Greens ahead of the more Liberty-friendly emerging parties.
For members of the Liberal Democrats, the United Australia Party, One Nation, the Nationals outside coalition, the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers and the Democratic Labor Party:
Action 4: Write to the local MP. Meet and lobby the MP. Educate the MP. Make clear that you want the next budget to be less than the current one. Make clear you want government expenditure as a percentage of GDP to be 40%, then 35%, then 30% and so forth year by year
Action 5: Advocate for a formal coalition and joint tickets. Joint tickets are important. They plug the preference leaking so prevalent on the centre-right. Work towards agreement that each emerging party gets to lead one upper house race. This is a near-guaranteed strategy for a bloc of six senators.
Action 6: Organise in vulnerable Labor lower-house seats to perform what I call the Purple Flip. This is Teal but in reverse. Identify and draft well-known local leaders to run as independents, perhaps tradies or sports figures, who project their working-class background but, due to their success, lean centre-right for its aspirational, social mobility message. Publicly appeal to aspirational voters in these Labor electorates, say they’ve been forgotten by Labor, and privately convince the die-hard but never electorally successful Liberals and Nationals in the seat to vote tactically for the independent.
The simple truth is that, if you don’t take these actions in concert with like-minded centre-right people, that big government trendline will continue to 50%, 57%, 63% and so on.
In democracy, you have to fight for the right balance between Liberty and Authority. Liberty is losing the battle for dominance. We are fast heading to an Authoritarian Australia. Covid overreach surely taught us that. Looming issues of digital passports, facial recognition systems and digital currency are facing Liberty-lovers right now.
You must act. The alternative is that you live, as Tocqueville pointedly wrote, as a ‘timid and industrious animal’ or we just continue to scratch-around in the political wilderness.
We can do better. Let’s steel ourselves now for the battle ahead.
An entrepreneur who has employed 1,470+ people, Kenelm was admitted to the BRW Fast 100 three times with businesses in Australia, NZ, Singapore and New York, where he lived for 12 years. Kenelm’s investment firm performs mid-market leveraged roll-ups. He was a regular columnist for the Australian Financial Review. Kenelm is the Founder of Liberty Itch.
This month, six members of Australia’s federal parliament, composed of both Labor and Coalition members, visited Taiwan. This diplomatic excursion was organised by Liberal politician Scott Buchholz and involved former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, as well as Labor MPs Meryl Swanson and Libby Coker.
Under intense pressure from the Chinese Communist Party and no doubt advised by the Department of Foreign Affairs, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese downplayed the significance of the trip, noting that it isn’t uncommon for politicians to go to Taiwan.
“There have been backbench visits to Taiwan for a long time. This is another one”, he said.
He further qualified that this “isn’t a government visit” and that the bipartisan position when it comes to China and Taiwan remains the same.
The Australian delegation in Taiwan is being careful not to make too much fuss about it, due to the sensitive nature of the issue. Nevertheless, it believes the visit is important for Australia to maintain a close relationship with both mainland China and Taiwan, and support the principles of democracy.
Beijing has long viewed these visits as an unacceptable endorsement of Taiwan’s separation from the mainland, claiming that such visits are a “serious breach of the One China principle.”
In response, the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda mouthpiece Global Times lashed out with predictable broken-English sabre-rattling:
The Prime Minister should keep doing his handshakes. Heavens knows diplomacy seems to be a constant requirement for a twitchy Chinese Communist Party.
However, if democratic Taiwan wishes to invite a bipartisan Australian parliamentary delegation for a visit, it will be up to that delegation to accept or decline.
Fiona is a higher education professional based in South Australia. Following the collapse of Hong Kong freedom, Fiona became deeply concerned about the threats imposed by China within Australia. Her research covers a range of topics, including China’s soft power, influence, infiltration, interference and human rights abuses.
