Recent publications
Inside the hermit kingdom
Sometimes it's the simplest things that cause the most brilliant epiphanies. Think Newton and the apple. Despite a lifetime of propaganda and indoctrination, for many North Koreans their view of the world can change almost overnight. For one...
Does more equal really mean all better?
The criticisms of market capitalism have changed over the past two centuries. The writings of Marx and Engels in the nineteenth century emphasised that the private ownership of the means of production benefited the bourgeoisie at the expense of...
Rendering unto God
The observation that Australia's political and cultural heritage is founded on Judeo-Christian values is always sure to make an audience of Australian academics or public servants shift uncomfortably in their seats. It is puzzling that such a...
The moral value of free markets
Speech from the launch of Richard Morgan's Lessons From The Global Financial Crisis: The Relevance of Adam Smith on Morality and Free Markets. We are here today to launch Richard Morgan's book, a book that applies 18th century wisdom to current...
The underground Australian movie renaissance
There actually are good Australian movies, and they're popular, writes Dean Bertram. You're just never told about them. Almost two decades ago, a handful of young filmmakers were revitalizing American cinema. Included in their number were Quentin...
Wowserism may be different, but it's not dead
‘I'm not a wowser but...' Those words seem to have become the standard introduction for anyone proposing a new restriction on what should be matters of individual choice. The Rudd Government are masters of it. In an interview with 4BC last...
Greed is great
The message is simple. We are told that the age of ‘neo-liberalism' is over and that a new age of social democracy is dawning. Neo-liberalism has been destroyed and discredited by its greed. The state must step in and restore the balance in...
We have IDEAS!
In a democracy everyone has ideas for new public policy initiatives. But not every idea has equal merit. This is particularly the case when the ideas are solely marketed as coming from a certain group in society, as they are in a recent spate of...
The art of the forgotten people
In her essay titled ‘Human Nature: The Art of John Brack', Kirsty Grant, wrote that in Brack's work there is a ‘recurring theme of the inevitability of human nature and the idea that the mistakes made by one generation will not...
A slave obeys, a player chooses
When you escaped, not long ago, from the burning wreckage of a passenger jet crashed in the middle of the Atlantic, you entered a lonely obelisk rising from the water. Inside that obelisk, a bathysphere waited to take you down to the art...