Policy Spotlight

In Gilbert and Sullivan’s opera The Mikado, the character Ko-Ko is appointed to the position of Lord High Executioner. He prepares a list of people to be executed, singing: “I’ve got a little list. They’d really not be missed.”

I’ve often thought this should be the way we deal with those responsible for Australia’s tragic response to the Covid hysteria. I have a list, and I really don’t believe those on it would be missed. The question is, is it more than a fantasy?

A Royal Commission is regularly mentioned as the best way to bring guilty politicians, bureaucrats, and other officials to account. Royal Commissions certainly have broad investigative powers, but they cannot decide guilt or innocence. They can only make recommendations.

A Royal Commission is only as good as its terms of reference, which are written by the government. There is an unwritten rule on that – only establish an inquiry when the outcome is either already known or won’t do great harm to the government.

There is also a problem with jurisdiction. A Commission established by the Commonwealth is limited to investigating federal issues. That would include international border closures, repatriating Australians, vaccine ordering, the vaccine rollout, use of troops, and the advice of the Commonwealth Health Officer and health agencies. It could also look at what the federal government failed to do, such as follow its own pandemic plan or challenge the states’ border closures.

Do the crimes perpetrated by our public health officials, politicians and others meet that standard of severity?

It would require a state-initiated Royal Commission to investigate the policies and actions of state governments. That includes the medical advice to justify state border closures, compulsory masks, curfews, lockdowns, other movement restrictions, the Covid zero fantasy, the separation of families, business closures, mandatory vaccination, and of course vaccine certificates.

Only a state Royal Commission could consider whether the loss of basic rights such as free speech, freedom of religion and the right to peaceful protest, or the suspension of parliament, were reasonable and proportionate. And unless the terms of reference were specific, the behaviour of state police would not be considered.

There is also a question of competence. Commissioners are generally retired judges; that is, elderly lawyers. A career as a barrister and judge is not necessarily a sound qualification for investigating complex non-legal issues. From my observation such people mostly don’t understand business or economics, and expecting them to come to grips with epidemiology and immunology might be optimistic. Add the possibility that they will overestimate the risk given their personal vulnerability to Covid, and an objective review is far from certain.

But let’s assume, for the sake of the fantasy, that a Royal Commission with broad terms of reference was established that is brave, competent, and thorough. Let’s even assume it is a joint federal-state commission. What might it achieve?

In my fantasy, it would name those responsible for doing so much damage to our liberal democracy, and spell out the crimes they committed. The patronising, sanctimonious, unscientific Chief Health Officers. The cynical, manipulative political leaders. The lying propagandists and political boosters. The cowardly, craven media. The senior police who sanctioned brutal repression of protests.

It would also offer a strong reminder of the fundamentals of a free society: that freedom and safety are not interchangeable; that personal responsibility should always trump government control; that avoiding deaths at any cost is not the role of the government; that executive government must be accountable to parliament. And perhaps most importantly, that those who violate these principles must pay a price.

A Royal Commission is regularly mentioned as the best way to bring guilty politicians, bureaucrats, and other officials to account.

Notwithstanding some indications to the contrary, particularly in Victoria, Australia is still subject to the rule of law. An adverse mention by a Royal Commission might end a political or bureaucratic career, but it is not a conviction. And the reality is that virtually everything inflicted on Australians in the name of controlling Covid occurred within the law. Other than a few Victorian police perhaps, none of those named would be at risk of going to jail.

Some say this calls for a special tribunal, like that used to try senior Nazis at Nuremburg. This applied the principle that some things can never be legal or right, whether or not they were within the law at the time. That same concept underpins the International Criminal Court.

Do the crimes perpetrated by our public health officials, politicians and others meet that standard of severity? No doubt they inflicted needless suffering and misery on millions of their fellow Australians, imposing irrational and arbitrary rules with heartless brutality. And while they claim to have saved deaths from Covid, they contributed to others from suicide and untreated conditions, and caused profound harm to countless careers, businesses, marriages, and childhoods.

The crimes that the International Criminal Court may consider are genocide, war crimes, crimes of aggression, and crimes against humanity. The world’s longest lockdown certainly felt like a crime against humanity to Victorians, and it would be satisfying to hear the former Premier and Chief Health Officer argue, in their defence, why family visits were prohibited but not visiting brothels; why council gardeners could work but not private gardeners; and why the Black Lives Matter protest was not a superspreader event unlike anti-lockdown protests and watching a sunset from the beach.

But that’s where the fantasy ends. A Nuremburg-style trial, even if it is warranted, would require special legislation. And a Royal Commission, even if established, is not likely to do no more than offer half-baked recommendations about preparing for the next pandemic.

Perhaps even worse, the pandemic showed that the commitment of Australians to democracy and freedom is wafer thin. They readily relinquished their rights and freedoms based on fear of a disease with a survival rate of 98 per cent, in the belief that the government would keep them safe.

This is a problem that will not be solved by a Royal Commission or Nuremburg type tribunal. Indeed, it would not be solved by making me Lord High Executioner and allowing me to deal with those on my list. It is a reflection of who we are as a nation.

David Leyonhjelm

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.

Freedom, Moral Norms and the State

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1 July 2024

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.”

Melbourne Man Charged With Foreign Interference Offence

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1 February 2023

The phrase ‘foreign interference‘ often brings to mind the covert meddling into Australian affairs by the Chinese and Russian governments, both the foes of democracy.

It’s fascinating to observe Australian politicians and the public’s attitude towards Russia and China. We are quick to reprimand Russia for its involvement in the Ukrainian conflict, yet our knees wobble when it comes to criticizing the Chinese Communist Party’s mass killing. And the wincing first-hand accounts of Uyghur concentration camp torture is altogether unsettling.

The human rights abuses continue even now on an industrial scale.

Chinese money is powerful. I hear you. What about human rights? Aren’t they important too?

Liberty Itch has now revealed a pattern of influence-peddling and unrestrained foreign interference by the Chinese Communist Party across Australia, from a violent CCP sycophant assaulting a pro-democracy former legislator in Sydney, to Labor and Coalition politicians sidling-up to Chinese Communist influence in an obsequious display in WA Liberal Leader scurries out the back exit.

Now, the spotlight is on Melbourne and a pivotal foreign interference test case.

Di Sanh “Sunny” Duong, a leader of the Chinese community, is the first individual charged under Australia’s foreign interference laws.

Former Liberal Minister Alan Tudge together with Mr Duong.

The prosecution and the Australian Federal Police claim that Mr. Duong, aged 67, contributed $37,000 in 2020 for the Royal Melbourne Hospital in an attempt to secure influence with former federal minister, Alan Tudge, which might later be used in support of Chinese interests.

Mr. Duong has, on record, written to a politician in the Liberal Party in the past and suggested that Australia should support China’s expansionist Belt and Road Initiative, a project that was subsequently terminated by the Federal Government in 2020 due to national security concerns.

Sarah Kendall, a legal researcher of foreign interference legislation at the University of Queensland, commented that this case illustrates the breadth of the laws. She pointed out how an activity which may seem harmless could be regarded as a criminal offence if the authorities can prove that the conduct had the intent of preparing for foreign interference.

The law is unusual for a liberal democracy in that it requires from the prosecution only that a defendant intends to use current influence in the future for the purposes of foreign interference.

This is a balancing act for a classical liberal.

Liberals want to protect our hard-won freedoms and an expansionary foreign power like the Chinese regime is a threat to those freedoms especially when operating inside Australia. On the other hand, liberals believe in individual freedom of movement, habeas corpus and the rule of law.

Mr. Duong was charged in November 2020 by the Australian Federal Police. He pleaded not guilty in 2022. He denied engagement in any foreign interference activity, despite that he was a leader of Chinese community associations overseen by the CCP’s United Front Work Department, about which Political Itch has written in China’s Covert Australian Ops.

Magistrate Susan Wakeling determined that there was enough evidence to proceed to trial.

This is the first time a citizen has been charged with facilitating an act of foreign interference, an offence that carries a maximum 10 year imprisonment.

Whatever the result, it will be a critical precedent.

Whether there is a conviction or not, Mr. Duong’s case will be just the first of many. Similar acts of foreign interference have happened and are still happening every day in each Australian state.

How effective are we in defending our democracy? Political Itch will be there when the judgment is handed-down.

Watch this space.

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.

Cut Taxes To 20%

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27 June 2023

It goes without saying that rules and sanctions should be clearly specified in advance so people know how they are supposed to behave and what will happen to them if they don’t. Also, importantly, rules must apply equally to everybody.

But the rules governing tax liabilities have become so tangled and complex that nobody can be sure any longer what they are or how they will apply in any given case. And behind the vast volume of laws – the actual legislation – looms an equally massive array of ATO public determinations, public rulings, bulletins, interpretative decisions, policy papers, circulars, administrative guidelines and practice statements. Some of these are supposed to be binding on ATO officers, and in general ATO staff rely on them rather than on the legislation. In practice that gives them something close to the force of law.

But the ATO no longer simply implements a known set of rules; it develops and amends the rules case by case. In effect, the ATO makes its own rules. As a consequence, we have tax laws which have lost their intelligibility, certainty and predictability. It is not real law as we’ve come to understand that term.

The resulting attitude of many taxpayers is to treat the law and the courts as irrelevant. “Forget legal advice, just give me an ATO ruling that will protect me from penalties or prosecution,” they say. Many taxpayers, of course, just surrender and pay up.

Systems which are complex in their application, debilitating in the sense that the more you earn the less of each dollar you keep, and unfair and unreasonable in the sense that people feel penalized for working, are destined to fail in the long term.

Take Australia’s cash economy, estimated at 15 percent of GDP, one of the largest in the developed world. An underground economy of that magnitude requires the involvement not only of a lot of businesses, but also of millions of consumers. As we know, laws only work when people believe in them; clearly a lot of Australians have no respect for our tax laws.

Despite what many advocating increases in tax would have us believe, the total tax take in Australia is quite high. Some say that compared with other developed economies, Australia is a ‘low tax’ country, and that workers and companies could comfortably pay more. This is ridiculous. When it comes to taxing incomes, Australia is right up there with the Europeans and way ahead of most of our neighbours in the Asia-Pacific region.

High tax rates undermine enterprise and destroy the will to work.

You don’t have to be a Laffer Curve true believer to accept that behavioural response is a reality. When you add to this the corrosive effect on the moral relationship between the state and its citizens, the case for fundamental tax reform becomes even more compelling.

There comes a point when the prospect of giving up half or more of any additional earnings leads people to decide that it is simply not worth it.

Taxation then starts to produce gross inefficiencies as people stop working as much or as hard as they used to, and governments find their taxes are not producing the revenue they expected. Politicians and bureaucrats who lack real world experience and an understanding of how an economy and markets work are drawn into a vicious spiral, jacking up tax rates to try to compensate for the falling revenues that their high tax demands have created.

Similarly, many on welfare reject opportunities to work because of the punitive effect that small earnings and high tax rates have on the security of their benefits and the value of extra work.

And people on very low incomes fare worst of all, for as they increase their earnings, higher rates of income tax combine with the loss of means-tested benefits deprive them of up to 80 cents of every extra dollar they earn.

If we are to extricate ourselves from this dysfunctional system, the goodwill of the public needs to be restored by getting tax levels back to something which most people would see as reasonable. To achieve this, we need to remove one of the most significant tax avoidance avenues and align personal tax rates with company tax rates.

There is certainly a pressing need to reduce the current company tax rate (25% for companies with turnover below $50m, 30% above that). I accept it can’t be done overnight, but the Government would do well to start cutting the rate by one percentage point in this Budget, and then announce its intention to make a similar reduction every year while in office. That would hold out the prospect of a 20 per cent company tax rate and, if it is really serious about an internationally competitive tax system, a 20% personal tax rate.

Nobody enjoys paying taxes but in the 1950s and 1960s, relatively low taxation and a comparatively simple set of tax rules meant that most people paid what was due without too much complaint. Today, however, the Government and the ATO find themselves locked into a destructive relationship of repression and resistance with ordinary taxpayers. Where people can avoid tax by exploiting loopholes, they will do so; where they can’t eg PAYG taxpayers, they become resentful at the unfairness of it all.

Bob’s contribution to the Australian community has been reflected in a wide range of appointments including National President of the Housing Industry Association, Co-Founder and Inaugural President of Independent Contractors of Australia, Director of The Centre for Independent Studies, and Senator for South Australia.

China’s Covert Australian Ops

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11 January 2023

The Chinese Communist Party’s public diplomacy programs in Australia look innocent enough.

From the delightful Wang Wang and Funi Event at the Adelaide Zoo, to the partially CCP-subsidised OzAsia Festival, from the more recent Chinese Music Performance at the Adelaide Town Hall to the ‘Chinese Singing Competition’ held at a South Australian university campus. Chinese culture is on display.

This is Adelaide alone. Such activities are rolled-out across the country and world.

These are simply ‘Chinese culture’, correct? These public diplomacy projects participated in by Chinese Government officials are permissible in a democracy such as ours, right?

Well, yes. But to a point.

It’s understandable for a foreign government to attempt to build relationships with individuals in other countries in order to cultivate a good reputation and win international backing for its ambitions.

However, multiple red lights flash when a foreign government is authoritarian, interferes with the domestic political discourse of a host country, and runs coordinated, covert operations for propagandist purposes.

The alarm bells ring.

This is especially true if the foreign government is currently engaging in aggressive expansionism, has a ‘Wolf Warrior diplomacy’ and has a notoriously shocking track-record when it comes to human rights.

Liberty Itch is gathering evidence of questionable tactics currently being used by Beijing in Australia to manipulate our political system and institutions in various sectors. Once our research is complete, we’ll share it with subscribers.

What Liberty Itch can say for certain is that much of this manipulation is managed and coordinated by an organisation called the United Front Work Department, a political body that aims to work on individuals and groups overseas to advance the CCP’s interests.

Again, instances will be revealed in future exposés on Liberty Itch. For now, we reveal themes and tactics which have emerged in their modus operandi.

In Australia, they are:

Providing financial incentives to lure Australian politicians into backing their views;
Appointing former politicians to well-paid consulting roles;
Lavishing funds on Australian university institutes that show unwavering support for the CCP’s policies;
Enticing Australian citizens and business owners with, first, useful connections and, subsequently, financial benefits;
Drawing-in influential people from Chinese diaspora groups to assist with local infiltration;
Targeting promising, younger Australian politicians whom they regard as having longer-term potential to ascend the heights of Australian political and corporate life over time;
Sending CCP-endorsed candidates to run for local councils and state parliaments;
Interfering in Australian elections by coordinating Chinese-owned Australian property investment companies and Chinese students to engage in ballot-harvesting;
Disseminating propagandist communication with the implicit threat they can muster Chinese-Australian voters to punish incumbent politicians electorally if they don’t publicly support CCP policies;
Infiltrating local Chinese community organisations or, where not possible, launching new competing groups, thereby giving the illusion of Chinese-Australian community backing; and
Intimidating Australians and their elected officials for expressing negative views on China.

Next time you attend a local Chinese community event or cultural performance (with the exception of the worthy Shen Yun), be sure to be observant, particularly if representatives from the Chinese Government are present. Your interactions, acquaintances, and relationships at the event will be studied. The United Front Work Department is interested in knowing who is connected to whom in the local community and work on relationships that can be developed and leveraged to advance the CCP infiltration agenda.

For more on how the CCP ‘study’ their own citizens, read Man Who Chanted “CCP, Step Down”, Arrested and Disappeared!

To discover how the CCP applies pressure on Hongkonger freedom-fighters living in Australia, go to the interview Life as a Political Asylum Seeker in Australia.

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.

INTERVIEW: Former Chinese Diplomat Embraces Liberty

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14 June 2023

Since a new Labor government in Australia was elected in 2022, there has been a warming trend in Australia-China relations. Our ministers are back engaging with Beijing officials and trips to China by our elected leaders are resuming.

The CCP influence whistleblower, Sydney based former Chinese diplomat Mr Yonglin Chen, who defected to Australia in 2005, issued a warning many years ago that Beijing aimed to transform Australia into ‘a stable and obedient resource supplier’ and, if we are not vigilant, we could be economically colonised into becoming a Province of China.

Mr Yonglin Chen. Former Chinese diplomat. Defected to Australia in 2005.

Chen’s chilling reminder resurfaces, as Australia-China relations begin to thaw.

Having been part of the ‘CCP body’ in the past, Chen’s ‘flip’ is invaluable in helping us understand how the Chinese Communists operate within Australia.

Despite his efforts to lead a simple life, Chen and his family receive regular threats from Beijing operatives in Sydney. But threats and coercion only make him more determined to defend universal principles and values.

Chen has agreed to an interview with Liberty Itch and has drawn from his personal experience to reveal the key functions of Chinese consulates in Australia.

In this interview, Chen asserts that these consulates engage in harassment of the Chinese diaspora and conduct activities aimed at interfering in the host country.

Unlike consulates of other countries,
Chinese consulates prioritise political interference over consular affairs,
with various offices aggressively involved in surveillance and espionage activities.

Beijing currently operates 275 diplomatic posts worldwide, surpassing the United States’ count of 267 and Australia’s count of 125, according to the Lowy Institute’s Global Diplomacy Index. These figures highlight China’s ambition to exert influence globally.

Here is the interview with Yonglin Chen.

LI: Tell us about the inner workings of Chinese Consulates in Australia.

YC: China gathers local intelligence through multiple avenues. General Staff focuses on military intelligence and high-tech innovations, while the Ministry of State Security (MSS) focuses on high-tech intelligence, counterespionage, and political interference.

The Ministry of Public Security (Police) focuses on Operation Fox Hunt, targeting individuals from the Chinese community and Chinese companies in Australia. Chinese missions also collaborate with Australian governments through Sister Cities or Sister State Relationships and oversee United Front organisations and Chinese Students & Scholars Associations (CSSA) at Australian universities.

They seek to control the majority of local Chinese language media and utilise the Confucius Institute system to influence opinions.

Beijing also promotes propaganda in mainstream local media
and attempts to bribe and lure Australian MPs for their personal gains.

Additionally, China employs the Thousand Talent Plan and similar programs to recruit scientists and experts in order to acquire top-secret intelligence, as Australia shares academic research with the US. China’s methods for gathering intelligence are extensive, aiming to collect comprehensive big data on individuals.

LI: Please tell us more about the scale and tactics of the Chinese Spy network in our country.

YC: China’s spy network in Australia operates on a significant scale, with over 1,000 professional operatives not only deployed in various Australian sectors, including government institutions, universities and laboratories, but also located in China’s state-owned enterprises, media outlets, commerce, and trade organisations in Australia.

China’s spy network in Australia operates on a significant scale,
with over 1,000 professional operatives

The CCP targets individuals within the Chinese diaspora and Australian elites, such as local, state, and federal politicians, their staffers, scientists, and academics, aiming to obtain valuable information. Confucius classrooms specifically target younger generations in Australia.

LI: We have seen an increasing number of seemingly ‘pro-CCP candidates’ running for our local councils and state parliaments. How are they ‘endorsed’ and ‘selected’? How do they interfere with Australian elections?

YC: The CCP’s United Front Work Department initiated the Chinese for Political Participation Program globally in 2005. Before that, politicians and officials of Chinese descent usually received preferential treatment, including luxurious trips to China and free accommodation and education for their children in Chinese universities.

After 2005, even more favorable treatment was provided, funded through the Ambassadorial Fund and other Special Budgets. Chinese missions may also arrange secret funds from Chinese state-owned enterprises and pro-CCP individuals in the Chinese community in Australia.

China’s media promotes election candidates through CCP mouthpieces such as China Central Television (CCTV), People’s Daily, and authorised WeChat red groups, boosting their popularity.

This increases their chances of winning elections in areas with a dense Chinese population. Chinese immigrants, who use WeChat, and Chinese language media in Australia, including Media Today Group, massively influenced by China, are utilised to disseminate CCP propaganda and influence voters.

Chinese volunteers, particularly young international students, are recruited to support ‘selected candidates’. Secret funds are also utilised in these efforts.

To protect Australia’s national interests, Chen emphasises six urgent actions:

Uphold principles when dealing with the Communist Regime and avoid appeasement, recognising that China relies on Australia’s resources and market, not the other way around.
Enforce the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Act 2018 and the Autonomous Sanctions Amendment (Magnitsky-style and Other Thematic Sanctions) Act 2021 effectively.
Reduce by half the number of PRC diplomats in Australia and expel CCP spies, removing specific operatives located within consulate’ premises.
Exercise strict oversight on funds directed towards election candidates.
Provide education on universal values and democratic principles to the mainland Chinese immigrant community and international Chinese students.
Expose spies’ activities in Australia and ensure the protection of Australian nationals.

As Beijing continues to entice our elected representatives, let’s hope that the Australian Parliament and the State MPs will consider Chen’s well-meaning advice.

Trade Minister, Don Farrell, was given a tour of the Forbidden City in Beijing in May 2023

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.

Libertarianism is an Ideology, But Not a World View

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19 August 2024

Libertarianism is an ideology, but not a world view, according to a distinction offered by Ludwig von Mises in Human Action. A world view, Mises explains, is “an interpretation of all things,” “an explanation of all phenomena.” In short, world views “interpret the universe.” Ideology, by contrast, is a narrower concept comprising “the totality of our doctrines concerning individual conduct and social relations.” Ideologies are concerned solely with human action as it manifests in social cooperation. Religions have world views, whereas political parties have ideologies.

Mises observes that world views and ideologies both share a normative outlook. They do not purport merely to describe the way things are, but offer a perspective on the way things ought to be. What distinguishes a world view from an ideology is scope. Where world views have broad and diverse, even cosmic, interests and concerns, ideologies have limited interests and concerns, specifically centred around the nature, shape and fate of society. This narrower focus on society naturally lends ideologies to political action, whether in the form of party organisation, reform, lobbying, protest or rebellion, because political power is a significant lever for affecting the shape of society.

As an ideology, libertarianism is uniquely accommodating of world view pluralism

World views, on the other hand, because of the breadth of their concern and the extent of the phenomena they purport to explain, encompass wholistic outlooks on life. They can encompass anything from stories about the creation of the universe to dietary habits, as many religions do. Their breadth of perspective is such that they can and do incorporate and integrate views about society and politics. However, this breadth does not necessitate the action-oriented social focus of ideologies. The religious ascetic is a case in point. The ascetic withdraws entirely from society as a means of dedicating themselves completely to their world view.

Because ideologies, on Mises’s account, are only concerned with human action and social cooperation, they tend to “disregard the problems of metaphysics, religious dogma, the natural sciences and the technologies derived from them.” This seems to overlook the capacity of at least some religions, namely Christianity, Islam and Judaism, to involve themselves with social and political concerns. It also overlooks, or perhaps underestimated (Mises was born in 1881 and died in 1973), the way that science has more recently proved itself capable of morphing into political ideology. Still, it is undeniable that all three Abrahamic faiths constitute world views on the Misesian definition. Each has generated traditions and practices that avoid, shun or repudiate political action, proving that they are capable of existing as non-ideological world views. In the case of libertarianism, on the other hand, the Misesian distinction between world view and ideology is helpful in clarifying that it is very much an ideology, as distinct from a world view.

Libertarianism is concerned exclusively with society, particularly the way it is organised and governed. It possesses neither a cosmogony, nor a cosmology, distinguishing it from classical, if controversial, definitions of religion. Libertarians can, of course, mirror some of the attributes of religious adherents in their zeal, proselytising and uncompromising commitment to dogma. However, this does not make libertarianism a world view per se, nor the most ardent libertarian fanatic the adherent of a libertarian world view.

The truth of the matter is that libertarianism is agnostic on the fundamental questions of existence that animate religions and philosophies, and which are therefore essential to world views. These are questions best left to the conscience of individuals, as far as libertarians are concerned. Moreover, the libertarian program does not hinge on any particular answer to them. Mises, an agnostic Jew, exemplified this principle in his own life. He thought it was futile to speculate about the given facts of the universe. Instead, he was interested in analysing and understanding human action within the given parameters of existence: the means individuals employ to attain their chosen ends. He thought there was no point evaluating the ends as these were inherently a matter of subjective choice.

Religions have world views, whereas political parties have ideologies.

Means, on the other hand, could be analysed objectively and evaluated concretely in terms of success and failure, i.e., an assessment of whether the chosen means realised the ends they were employed to attain. He thought the majority of political ideologies ultimately aspired to the same ends, including liberalism and socialism, namely human prosperity and wellbeing. Where they differed, and in very consequential ways, was means. Mises took little issue with the aspirational ends of socialism. He simply, and accurately, predicted that the means employed—common ownership over the means of production—would lead to the opposite outcome from that intended. Liberalism, on the other hand, in the 19^th century classical European sense of the term, was in Mises’s view the only objective means of attaining the ends of human prosperity and wellbeing. By liberalism, Mises meant a social organisation that maximised individual freedom to purse personally chosen ends and means, with a minimal government in the background protecting individuals from aggression, fraud and infringement against their property rights.

Mises typified the world view agnosticism that is characteristic of libertarianism today. He was as uncompromising a defender of individual freedoms, private property and free markets as anyone (famously so). But he was genuinely open and agnostic on the great existential questions that occupy the human mind and heart. The stridency of his views about social and political means was matched by a tolerance for all manner of diverse world views, at least as their teaching pertained to the origin and nature of the universe, and the myriad ends that humans are free to pursue.

The world view flexibility of libertarianism is evident today in the way that it is embraced by religious believers and atheists alike, not to mention agnostics like Mises. As an ideology, libertarianism is uniquely accommodating of world view pluralism. It is possible for individuals with clashing and mutually incompatible world views (Christians and atheists, for example) to unite around the cause of a libertarian ideology. World view pluralism is simply the by-product of the libertarian ideological commitment to a social order that permits individuals to pursue their own diverse ends. The freedoms libertarians wish to secure and safeguard for all individuals to develop their own world views is one of the unheralded virtues of their ideology.

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Section 51(xxvi). Repeal. Rescind. Delete!

By

Kenelm Tonkin

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23 February 2023

By crikey, I’m a little bothered we’re always at sea politically.

The Left is pounding us with wave after relentless policy wave.

The Liberal Party has drowned, its body face-down, bobbing and drifting. We libertarians, classical liberals and the otherwise centre-right are in danger of the rip sweeping us to sea.

Things are perilous. Just look at the eddies and currents fatiguing us:

Familiar places and landmarks being renamed in costly rebranding programs
Activists undermining joyful time spent on Australia Day
Oversized government expenditure now exceeding 50% of our entire economy
A hundred separate genders yet female athletes and prisoners forced in with biological males
Citizens now being denied access to much-loved national parks
Flag confusion
Victorian bullets in the back
Multiple treaties with multiple tribes, a native patchwork of 500 jurisdictions
Some kind of republic
Locked in your home for hundreds of days
15-Minute cities, free movement lost on the altar of climate alarmism
The Voice To Parliament.

If we continue only to oppose these ideas, as is the conservative instinct, but not counter with our own, we’ll soon lose more freedoms than is already the case.

We need bold classical liberals and pugnacious libertarians to fiercely propose striking new policies.

Take the Voice To Parliament as an example.

… classical liberals cannot support systemic racism.

But first, here’s a quick primer for our international subscribers. The Voice To Parliament is a government body proposed by referendum to be enshrined in Australia’s Constitution. It’s stated purpose is to recognise Indigenous people as the first inhabitants of Australia and to act as an advisory board for any bills coming through the Federal Parliament which impact Indigenous people. The body would be comprised exclusively of ethnically Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The motivation for the Voice To Parliament is that Indigenous people suffer poorer life chances and that this is the result of British colonial invasion and ongoing occupation. The Voice to Parliament is said to be just one step in a process of Reconciliation, the duration and shape of which is unspecified.

In short, what’s being proposed is a new third-chamber of the Australian Parliament with a racial-eligibility criterion to participate.

Yes, it’s as bad as that sounds.

Think Apartheid.

Predictably, the Labor Government along with the socialist Australian Greens will vote “Yes.”

The feckless Liberals are confused and unable to take a view. Their paralysis is painful to witness.

Their Coalition partner, The Nationals, are deeply-rooted and sure in saying “No” and have weathered the storm of a confused defector.

Primer over.

So what do we do?

First, we vote “No.” We do so because we as classical liberals cannot support systemic racism.

Good so far but now we must plan to seize the initiative.

Second, we ask ourselves, “By what power or mechanism can the Labor Government even legislate something as abhorrent as systemic racism?”

The answer is in the Australian Constitution. Like the United States Constitution, Australia’s has an enumerated list of areas in which a Commonwealth government can legislate.

It’s section 51.

Run your finger down that list and you’ll discover subsection 26 furtively trying its best not to draw attention to itself …

Section 51 (xxvi)
“The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for
the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to
the people of any race for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws”

Yes, you read that correctly. The Constitution anticipates that a Federal government may legislate on the basis of race.

I don’t know about you but I find this abhorrent. What happened to equality before the law? What happened to judging not by the colour of one’s skin but by the content of one’s character? I’m thinking of 1933 Germany, 1970 South Africa, of Rwanda at its most bleak. Why look at people from a racial perspective at all? If we must have legislation, let’s not discriminate by the amount of melanin in the skin!

So, here’s the front-foot classical liberal in me …

At the very next electoral opportunity, let’s put a referendum of our own to the people. Let’s rescind section 51(xxvi) from the Constitution!

In one fell swoop, no Commonwealth Government will ever again be allowed to make laws with respect to race.

The benefits are:

No elevating one ethnic group at the expense of the other
No targeting one ethnic group for the purpose of disadvantaging them
No costly Department of Indigenous Affairs and the countless agencies which grift off it
The Federal Government has one less legislative jurisdiction, has its wings slightly clipped
With the money saved, we can repay at least some of the suffocating debt
Indigenous communities will be treated like all others and so weaned off the teat of the state. Same opportunities. Same laws.
Indigenous communities stuck in a cycle of inter-generational welfare receipt will learn self-reliance quickly.

It has a lot to recommend it.

So rather than simply react to a Leftist proposal and not respond in kind, let’s advocate a bolder, muscular kind of original liberalism, of classical liberalism, of libertarianism.

End systemic racism. Abolish s51(xxvi)!

Then we’ll never have race-based laws again.

Kenelm Tonkin

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.

A Digital Dark Age (part 2)

By

-

23 April 2024

The only currency that matters is power – getting it and holding on to it.

Attaining power these days involves denigrating and silencing your opponents in any way possible: censoring them, branding what they say as misinformation, disinformation or malinformation, with the primary aim being to prevent them getting their message out.

As has been observed, ‘When ideas are bad, censorship will always be more attractive than debate.’

In a recent renewable energy report, Energy Infrastructure Commissioner Andrew Dyer summed up in one concise sentence why governments relish powers like the ones being proposed.

Dyer said, “Opposition is often driven by ‘misinformation’.”

That is what is called a ‘shibboleth’.

Shibboleth is a Hebrew word meaning ‘stream’. It is referred to in the Old Testament book of Judges, where Jephthah and the men of Gilead fought the Ephraimites and captured the Jordan River crossing. As people crossed the river, to distinguish who was friend from foe, they had everyone say the word ‘shibboleth’. If they couldn’t pronounce it properly, they knew they were the enemy. From this, the word shibboleth was absorbed into the English language to describe a key identifier or a dead give-away.

What we saw in the Energy Commissioner’s comment was that dead give-away.

Once this Bill is law, all the government has to do is label something ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation’ to have it shut down. Presto! Any opposition is eliminated.

Historically, the media has fought hard to maintain freedom of the press and freedom of expression.

Internationally, ‘misinformation and disinformation’ have risen to number one on the list of top 10 risks cited by the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Risks Report 2024.

Addressing the recent WEF conference, European Union President Ursula von der Leyen said: ‘Like in all democracies, our freedom comes with risks. There will always be those who try to exploit our openness, both from inside and out. There will always be attempts to put us off track – for example, with ‘misinformation and disinformation.’

The politics of fear

Fear has always been a powerful political motivator. Fear makes people accept things they wouldn’t otherwise accept.

In the 16^th Century, Niccolo Machiavelli wrote The Prince, a book that would influence political strategy and tactics for the next 500 years.

Machiavelli’s book centred on the use of fear to control the masses – ‘The best course of action for a ruler to take is to instil fear in the people’, he said.

And for people to not only fear what might happen, but that they would also ‘fear the worst’.

Minister Rowland has said misinformation and disinformation pose a threat to ‘the safety and wellbeing of Australians’ and ‘to our democracy, society and economy’.

This is the politics of fear.

And the antidote to fear is knowledge – information, facts, figures. Which is why they want the power to prevent people from receiving it.

Conflating issues also plays a useful role.

As well as the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill, Minister Rowland has also announced a review of the Online Safety Act, saying the government is committed to introducing a revised version of its ‘internet censorship laws’.

The Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) hit back:

“It is completely disingenuous for the Minister to seek to conflate the protection of Australians from predators online with the federal government’s plan to empower bureaucrats in Canberra (ACMA) with the right to determine what is truth, and to censor mainstream opinion through its ‘misinformation’ bill,” said the IPA’s John Storey.

“The federal government is cravenly using heightened concerns about current tensions in parts of our community, and the fears of parents and others about harmful online content, as a trojan horse to push forward laws that will in practice impose political censorship,” he said.

Climate Change

South Australia’s chief public health officer, Professor Nicola Spurrier, recently warned that the nation is facing a state of “permacrisis” as climate change fuels ‘back-to-back natural disasters and the emergence of new diseases’.

In her biennial report on the state of public health, Prof. Spurrier calls climate change ‘the most significant global threat to human health’, saying the planet is getting hotter and is experiencing more extreme weather events such as flooding and bushfires.

‘We need to respond to this threat today, not tomorrow or in the distant future,’ her report states. ‘These changes to the climate are caused by humans.’

Prof. Spurrier’s report says this will lead to exacerbation of chronic diseases such as heart, lung and kidney disease; damaged food crops; increased risk of food poisoning and water contamination; injuries from flooding and bushfires; and even an increase in snake bites after floods.

‘Other health impacts from climate change include poor air quality due to increased dust and pollens and the emergence of serious new communicable diseases in South Australia, such as Japanese encephalitis virus,’ she says.

Mercifully, she spared us plagues of locusts and frogs and the Murray River turning to blood.

Attaining power these days involves denigrating and silencing your opponents in any way possible

This is ‘permacrisis’ – permanent crisis – putting communities into a permanent state of climate fear.

Machiavelli would be proud.

The Voice to Parliament Referendum

When the Yes side didn’t win the Voice Referendum, they immediately blamed, you guessed it – misinformation.

Yes campaign director Dean Parkin, said the referendum result was due to ‘the single largest misinformation campaign that this country has ever seen’.

Yes campaign spokesperson Thomas Mayo blamed the ‘disgusting No campaign, a campaign that has been dishonest, that has lied to the Australian people’.

Teal MP Zali Steggell even introduced a private members’ bill with the title Stop the Lies.

Ms Steggall stated that it was clear that the information people had access to through the course of the Voice debate was ‘heavy with misleading and deceptive facts’.

Got that? ‘Misleading and deceptive facts’, the very definition of malinformation.

Governments, technology and third-party collaborators

Baptists and Bootleggers

Whenever there is money to be made, opportunities to do business with governments – that is, do the government’s bidding in exchange for special access and privileges – present themselves. Cosy relationships between businesspeople and governments are as old as regulation itself.

What can give these relationships real potency is what has been called the ‘Baptists and Bootleggers’ phenomenon. The term stems from the 1920s’ Prohibition days, when members of the US government received bribes and donations from Bootleggers – criminals and businesspeople eager to maintain a scarcity (and resulting high price) of their product (alcohol). These same Members of Congress then justified maintaining the prohibition by publicly adopting the moral cause of the Baptists.

The same applies here. A moral cause – ‘threats to the safety and wellbeing of Australians’, and financial rewards to those assisting governments in their pursuit of power.

Historically, the media has fought hard to maintain freedom of the press and freedom of expression.

However, new media have no such compunction. As more and more people source their news through Google, Facebook, X, Tik Tok, Instagram and other social media platforms, these global behemoths exert more and more power and influence. And while the old press barons took free speech seriously, big tech sees no problem at all in doing the government’s bidding – provided the government maintains their ‘platform, not publisher’ status and the advertising money keeps flowing. Al Capone may have invented bootlegging, but big tech has certainly perfected it.

Tech entrepreneur and former Google insider Tristan Harris says we are in the midst of a ‘great social upheaval’. Technology, he says, is being used to attack the very foundation of what we trust. ‘We are entering a Digital Dark Age’.

Digital IDs Drivers’ licences, proof of age cards, passports, Medicare cards, birth certificates, home addresses, MyGov IDs, tax returns, credit cards and banking details, remote-controlled smart meters on our homes, digital certificates of title for our properties. Once these are all linked – as the government ads say, ‘bringing together government and industry’, the government’s control will be complete.

Tomorrow – part 3