Personal Liberty
The Missing Ingredient – Assimilation
When Al Grassby was Immigration Minister in the Whitlam government in the early 1970s, he announced that multiculturalism was to be Australia’s future policy. Assimilation was over. There was a time when Australia actively promoted assimilation. It was the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and applied to Aborigines, varied by state and location, involved the removal of vulnerable children...
Forum Shopping for Native Title rights
The Rolling Stones were wrong: you can always get what you want if you are patient and the taxpayer foots the bill. And if you forum shop. So it was with a recent native title ‘victory’ at the High Court of Australia. The Court overturned a decision of the full court of the Federal Court of Australia. Native title holders at...
China’s Priority Next: Faith or Freedom?
In my previous article "China 2024 and Beyond", I argued that China, amid its troubles, is in desperate need of a visionary leader akin to Deng Xiaoping. Such a leader could rejuvenate China's economy through policies that prioritise freedom. The esteemed former senator, Bob Day, responded by emphasising the power of the Gospel when contemplating China's future trajectory. It's a...
Brave New World Wide Web
The reverse correlation between the internet’s growing accessibility and its diminishing freedom can only be arrested by changes in user habits Much has been made of the ACMA ‘misinformation bill’ and its potential impact on free speech online in Australia. But the internet hasn’t been a bastion of free expression for quite some time now, and like always, it ultimately...
Lawfare
“Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime” is the famous statement attributed to Lavrentiy Beria, Joseph Stalin’s secret police chief. This is an example of lawfare: the manipulation of legal processes, civil or criminal, to serve political, ideological, or personal interests rather than upholding justice. Lawfare involves the misuse of the law by various means including selective...
Utilitarianism and the Omnipotence of Government
Welcome to the Inspection House, known as the Panopticon. Jeremy Bentham, eighteenth century political thinker, was one of the earliest exponents of the principle of Utilitarianism – the greatest happiness for the greatest number, which he considered to be a fundamental principle of morality. Managing societies is no easy task, hence, as first principles go, it seems reasonable. But what of...
The Nation State
As another Australia Day passes, it gives us the opportunity to reflect on our national identity and what it truly means to be Australian with the number purporting to opt out of celebrating our national day increasing. CHANGE THE DATE 26 January 1788 marks the landing of the First Fleet and raising of the Union Jack in Sydney Harbour. While it...
Racial Friction in New Zealand
For every government in New Zealand, the year commences with a focus on Maori affairs. For historical reasons most political parties undertake a pilgrimage to the Ratana Church on the 25th of January to commemorate the birthday of the congregation’s prophet, Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana. It is a reserved affair: politicians are discouraged from grandstanding and expected to listen to...
China 2024 and Beyond: A Troubled Future
My recent discussions on Liberty Itch have painted a picture of China’s landscape as a prison-like surveillance-intensive system, and as a no-privacy technology-driven cashless society. In this article, I want to further explore the future of China as we look towards 2024 and beyond. I will examine the implications of China’s expanding surveillance state, the tightening grip of authoritarian...
University River
In William Blake’s hymn Jerusalem, the phrase ‘those dark Satanic mills’ was assumed to refer to the cotton and woollen mills of his time and their terrible working conditions. Based on the date of the hymn and Blake’s religious background, many question whether he was referring to the Dickensian factories and cotton mills at all, but rather to the universities...
