Centre for Independent Studies

Leeward: A Memoir: Geoffrey Lehmann | Conversations at CIS

Join former High Court justice Michael Kirby and Geoffrey Lehmann for the launch of Leeward: A Memoir (NewSouth) at the CIS.
Geoffrey Lehmann has been one of Australia’s leading poets and tax lawyers for several decades. A partner of PwC and chairman of the Australian Tax Research Foundation, he was involved in the design of Australia’s GST and other tax legislation. He was also short-listed for the T S Eliot Prize. His poetry has appeared in the New Yorker and in 2015 his Poems 1957-2013 won the Prime Minister’s Literary Award (Poetry). His Australian Poetry Since 1788, co-edited with Robert Gray, was one of The Economist’s best books of 2011.
In his frank memoir, Geoffrey describes how he was the late child of a bookish mother and a working-class father. Much to his mother’s surprise, his father, who was a launch driver, bought three houses on the waterfront at McMahons Point and became a slum landlord in the era of rent control. As a 10-year-old child, reading the begging letters from dozens of would-be tenants, Geoffrey became an economic rationalist and an atheist.
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Women In Politics | Events at CIS

On Thursday, 31 January our panel of speakers thrashed out the issues surrounding women in politics.
Are setting affirmative-action quotas the answer to boosting female representation? Or is a merit-based system of choosing candidates a better option? Are claims of a bullying culture inside the Liberal Party true? Is Labor playing the gender card and identity politics? Who’s had better policies on improving the lives of women? Labor or the Coalition?
Ticky Fullerton (moderator), formerly with the ABC and Sky News, anchors Ticky, weeknights on Your Money.
Karina Okotel is a senior civil lawyer at Victoria Legal Aid and a federal vice president of the Liberal Party.
Eugenie Joseph is a senior policy analyst at The Centre for Independent Studies.
Kristina Keneally, a former NSW premier, is a Labor senator for NSW.
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Brendan O’Neill on political correctness and its discontents | Events at CIS

Join Brendan O’Neill, one of Britain’s quirkiest, wittiest and liveliest commentators, in conversation with Jeremy Sammut, head of research at the CIS.
The PC brigade continues to entrench itself in the western body politic. Waging war on the past is all the rage. Along with its various campus manifestations such as “safe spaces,” political correctness has become a kind of pathology that damages the capacity to argue and reason. How should we challenge PC?
Brendan O’Neill is the editor of Spiked Online and a former CIS scholar in residence. He is author of A Duty to Offend: Selected Essays by Brendan O’Neill.
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The Crisis Of Democracy | Events at CIS

For generations, we just assumed democracy is fixed and given. However, all across the world, democracies are sick and suffering from a crisis of confidence. Polls show just a third of Australians are satisfied with the way our democracy is working. Public trust in our politicians is at record lows.
So, how do we restore faith in democracy? Is there too much corporate and foreign money involved in the electoral process? Is the noisy and relentless media cycle the cause of the problem or the symptom? Is political polarization likely to get worse? How do we attract better elected representatives? How do we do democracy better?
Join us for a lively conversation with Luca Belgiorno-Nettis, of newDemocracy, and Glenn Barnes, Company director, as well as Janet Albrechtsen, columnist with The Australian and Matthew Lesh, a research fellow with the IPA and author of Democracy in a Divided Australia (Connor Court).
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Bill McMahon, an eccentric economic reformer? | Events at CIS

William McMahon was a significant, if widely derided and disliked, figure in Australian politics. Was he our worst prime minister? How did he get to the Lodge? Was he the first free-market “dry” politician to take on the orthodoxies of protectionism and economic interventionism?
The first biography of our 20th prime minister tells the story of his life and his role in the great debates over Australia’s economic direction in the 1960s and 1970s. A man whose life was coloured by tragedy, comedy, persistence, courage, farce and failure. McMahon’s story has never been told at length – until now.
Join Patrick Mullins, author of Tiberius with a Telephone: the Life and Stories of William McMahon (Scribe) with The Australian’s Editor-at-Large Paul Kelly for a conversation about one of our most intriguing prime ministers and his place in Australian political and economic history.
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A Democratic wave or Trump triumph? US Mid Terms 2018 Elections Results | Conversations at CIS

US midterm elections are usually bad for the President’s party, but amid a booming economy this year’s congressional races are more difficult to predict.
The jobless rate recently fell to 3.7 per cent (the lowest since 1969) and the stock market (shrugging off the Trump tariffs) keeps surging to new highs. Meanwhile, both Republicans and Democrats will use Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court to fuel enthusiasm and turnout for the midterms.
Watch Tom Switzer alongside panelists: Greg Sheridan is foreign editor of The Australian; Bob Carr, a former foreign minister, is director of the Australia-China Relations Institute; and April Palmerlee is chief executive officer of the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia - discussing on elections' night the results of the midterms and what they mean for American politics and foreign policy.
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Luke Foley: Values & His Vision for the Labor Party | Conversations at CIS

The NSW Opposition leader visited the CIS to set out an overview of Labor’s vision ahead of the March 2019 state election and how his values of a fair go affect public policy.
In 2010 Luke was elected to the Legislative Council of NSW. Since 2015 he has been leader of the NSW Labor Party and Shadow Minister for Western Sydney.
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Daniel Hannan - Speech to the CIS’s 2018 JBL Gala Dinner | Events at CIS

The vision of the John Bonython Lecture is to inspire Australians to advance principles that constitute a Free Society -- to promote free choice, individual liberty, defend cultural freedom, and the open exchange of ideas. This year's lecture was no different, as we welcomed Daniel Hannan to take the stage which has previously showcased Francis Fukuyama, Rupert Murdoch and Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
Daniel Hannan is a leading British writer and journalist. After 17 years as a Member of the European Parliament, campaigning for British withdrawal from the EU, he succeeded in abolishing his job in the Brexit referendum on 23 June 2016. Author of nine books, including New York Times bestseller Inventing Freedom: How the English-Speaking Peoples Made the Western World and Sunday Times bestseller Vote Leave. His latest is What Next: How to get the best from Brexit.
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Daniel Hannan - Conversation to the CIS’s 2018 JBL Gala Dinner | Events at CIS

The vision of the John Bonython Lecture is to inspire Australians to advance principles that constitute a Free Society -- to promote free choice, individual liberty, defend cultural freedom, and the open exchange of ideas. This year's lecture was no different, as we welcomed Daniel Hannan to take the stage which has previously showcased Francis Fukuyama, Rupert Murdoch and Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
Daniel Hannan is a leading British writer and journalist. After 17 years as a Member of the European Parliament, campaigning for British withdrawal from the EU, he succeeded in abolishing his job in the Brexit referendum on 23 June 2016. Author of nine books, including New York Times bestseller Inventing Freedom: How the English-Speaking Peoples Made the Western World and Sunday Times bestseller Vote Leave. His latest is What Next: How to get the best from Brexit.
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The Manchurian Campus? Threats to Free Speech in Higher Education | Rob Stokes MP | Events at CIS

Amidst the debate about Chinese influence in Australia, NSW Minister for Education, the Hon. Rob Stokes MP, sat down with CIS Executive Director, Tom Switzer to discuss a range of issues that are crucial to the future of free speech in Australian universities.
Most discussion of threats to free speech in Australian universities focuses on the impact of identity politics and political correctness.
Yet a bigger threat to free speech on Australian campuses may be the heavy reliance of the multi-billion-dollar higher education sector on fee-paying international students — especially from China.
How do universities pursue their commercial objectives without compromising academic freedom? How do we deal with an increasingly assertive Chinese Government willing to flex its economic power and international muscle?
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