Centre for Independent Studies

On Liberty Ep.60 | Stephan Livera | Bitcoin Volcano

We welcome podcast host, Bitcoin maximalist and co-founder of Ministry of Nodes, Stephan Liveria. This episode will focus on cryptocurrency and decentralised finance. Bitcoin started the year at an all-time high. Then, there was controversy after Elon Musk criticised the cryptocurrency for its allegedly damaging impact on the environment. Now, El Salvador has made Bitcoin one of its official currencies.

On Liberty ep.59 | Armelle Rebuffet | Bastille Day 2021: Franco-Australian relations

We welcome French Consul (Commercial), Armelle Rebuffet. We'll discuss how BusinessFrance works to strengthen Franco-Australian relations, how covid-19 has impacted the way French companies view and engage with Australia and the main barriers and obstacles for Australian businesses looking to move. BusinessFrance works connecting French and Australian companies and how they assist Australian companies to settle and invest in France.

On Liberty Ep.57 | Peter Baldwin | A New Dark Age? Identity Politics And The Threat To Civilization

As Sydney starts another round of lockdown, we are pleased to say we will still be able to produce the weekly On Liberty -- fitting, considering it is the reason we started the show in the first place!
This week we ask, if liberalism falls will that usher in a 'new dark age'? If so, what, exactly, will go dark? Freedom of speech and the press, democratic elections, and independent judiciaries are the foundation of the contemporary civilization, not only of the West but of the whole world. But they are threatened by identity politics, which sees little of value in our post-Enlightenment civilization, to the point of disputing whether such a civilization even exists.
We talk to former ALP federal minister and serial social entrepreneur Peter Baldwin about his new online magazine: Politics & Civilization. An outgrowth of the Blackheath Philosophy Forum, Politics & Civilization publishes articles and videos that address long-term developments that are reshaping Western societies and transforming their politics. We'll be asking Peter what the suppression of speech means for the future of civilization -- and what we can do to preserve the future from the depredations of the past.

On Liberty Ep.58 | Dr Anthony Dillon | Indigenous Truth - Telling

On the show this Wednesday, we welcome CIS contributor and Australian Catholic University academic, Dr Anthony Dillon. Writing in The Herald Sun recently, Anthony says proponents for truth-telling of Australia’s past selectively advance a sanitised version and are disinterested in inconvenient truths facing Indigenous Australians today.
Anthony argues that truth-telling hasn’t extended to sensitive contemporary issues, such as the tragic rates of child abuse, violence, and suicide inflicting Indigenous communities. Instead, he warns that a loud minority seek to silence debate and distract from persistent and pervasive dysfunction faced by marginalised Australians. He cites the confected outrage generated against the late cartoonist, Bill Leak, empty charges of racism hurled where none is found to exist, and the harmful groupthink that has swallowed false narratives about Australia’s Indigenous history.
Join us, when guest host, Glenn Fahey asks how we can promote genuine truth-telling on Indigenous affairs?
Does political correctness and cancel culture silence genuine truth-tellers? How can Australia purport to be a free and open society when civil debate is unwelcome? Can evidence trump emotion in tackling policy challenges facing Indigenous Australians? Is there cause for optimism following the recent rebuke of false claims about Indigenous histories?

On Liberty Ep.56 | Bob Graham | Can Australia Succeed In Commercialising Science?

Australia does a lot of great science, but has a poor record of translating that science into benefits for society. At least, that's what the education minister has been telling us. This week we talk to an eminent Australian scientist to hear about a home-grown translational medicine success story -- and to find out what barriers still stand between basic research and commercial applications.
This week we talk to Prof Bob Graham of the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, a specialist in molecular cardiology and cardiac regeneration. He and his team have discovered a way to convert the venom of the Australian funnel-web spider into a drug that can reduce brain damage after strokes and improve heart recovery after heart attacks. An amino acid peptide derived from this venom may one day be injected into stroke and heart attack victims in the ambulance before they even reach the hospital.
How important is basic science for medical research? Why does basic science have to be done here, in Australia? Why can't we just rely on science done overseas for applications in Australia? What's the difference between commercialisation and translational medicine? Our regular host Salvatore Babones will be asking Prof Graham these questions and more as we hear the story of an incredible medical discovery and learn why basic science in the public interest.
Bob Graham is the Des Renford Professor of Medicine at UNSW and was the inaugural director of the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute. He spent a substantial portion of his career in the United States, where he rose to become the Robert C. Tarazi Chairman of the Department of Molecular Cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and a Foreign Member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters.

On Liberty Ep.55 | David Goodman | The Communist Party In Chinese Society

With the Australian and Chinese governments arguing in increasingly shrill tones, has Australia really "hurt the feelings of the Chinese people"? In China's official view of the world, the Party and the people are one. But is that really true? And how is the Party's role in society changing in the 21st century?

The State Of Our Economy | Josh Frydenberg | Tom Switzer

Since last month’s federal budget, the Centre for Independent Studies has lamented that the Coalition government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison has embraced the political left’s economic credentials as interventionists and big spenders.
Will Canberra’s historic spending blowout lead to an inflation surge, prompting higher interest rates? Will it just steal economic growth from the future in return for a temporary surge in the next year to 18 months?
Will the spending blowout in aged care, child care, NDIS rule out a balanced budget for another decade? Where are the pro-growth reforms, which seek to create the circumstances for long-term prosperity? Where are the productivity enhancing policies that would create permanent incentives to work and invest?

On Liberty ep.54 | Chris Merritt | Has ICAC gone too far?

With their sensationalist public questioning of Premier Gladys Berejiklian's private life the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) has attracted renewed attention.
Some may argue that ICAC must break a few eggs in order to obtain the proverbial, corruption-busting omelet. But has ICAC gone too far? Is the rule of law being undermined in NSW?
Join us with Chris Merritt. Chris is vice-president of the Rule of Law Institute of Australia and commentator, who writes regularly for The Australian and appears on Sky News. Chris has been one of the loudest critics of ICAC's show trials and a brilliant defender for the rule of law in Australia.
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On Liberty Ep.53 | Dr Bella D’Abrera | Australians Reject Identity Politics

On the show this Wednesday, we welcome Institute of Public Affairs’ Dr Bella d’Abrera. Speaking with The Australian recently, Bella reveals that new polling proves parents are concerned schooling has become overly politicised and out of step with mainstream values.
Bella argues that, as a fundamentally egalitarian society, divisive ideologies like critical race theory, have no place in Australian schools. She cites proposed changes to the national curriculum as evidence of a radical turn toward politically correct, and educationally flawed, schooling. Beyond the curriculum, she also warns that education bureaucracies are increasingly stepping on the toes of parents when it comes to values on which children are raised.
Join us on YouTube at 12.30pm Wednesday 2 June, when guest host, Glenn Fahey asks how our schools have become hostage to harmful ideology. Have curriculum writers gone too far in encouraging political correctness at the expense of historical facts? Has academic rigour been displaced by virtue signalling? Have parents been asleep at the wheel while schools have supplanted their role in shaping their children's values? How can schooling better reflect the values and aspirations of mainstream Australians?
Dr Bella d’Abrera is Director of the Foundations of Western Civilisation Program at the Institute of Public Affairs. She is author of multiple reports investigating the role of identity politics and politicisation of Australian education.

On Liberty Ep.52 | David M Jones | Have Postmodern Politics Launched Us On A Ship Of Fools?

Did the fall of the Soviet Union usher in the end of history for everyone, or only for a small class of comfortably well-off professionals in a few rich countries? How did big ideas replace practical politics, and what does it mean for our future now that politics have come roaring back? Was the presidency of Donald Trump an aberration, or a sign of things to come? And perhaps most importantly: is sin really such a bad thing, after all?
This week, Wednesday 26 May 2021, we talk to Prof David Martin Jones about his new book History's Fools: The Pursuit of Idealism and the Revenge of Politics. It explores the consequences of what he calls the "liberal hubris" of the progressive professional class. We'll be asking him what effective diplomacy really means, how politics should work in our post-political age, and whether the "West" really stands a chance in the brave new multicultural world of the twenty-first century?
David Martin Jones is Visiting Professor in War Studies at King’s College, London. He emerged from a British post-war grammar school the first child in his family to go to university, earning a PhD at the London School of Economics under the supervision of the Australian-British philosopher Kenneth Minogue. Jones' book History's Fools: The Pursuit of Idealism and the Revenge of Politics was published by Hurst in 2020.