Zachary Gorman
Dr Zachary Gorman was a Research Fellow and later an Adjunct Fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs. He is a professional historian with a PhD from the University of Wollongong where he worked as a Tutor of history and politics, and a BA with honours first class from the University of Sydney.
In 2021 he was appointed the Academic Coordinator at the Robert Menzies Institute.
Zachary's research interest is on the origins of the classical liberal tradition both within Australia and in a wider Western context. He has been published in Quadrant, History Australia, the Journal of Australian Colonial History and the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. He wrote a chapter on George Reid in Gregory Melleuish's Liberalism and Conservatism and has also appeared on ABC Radio National.
Zachary is the author of Sir Joseph Carruthers: Founder of the New South Wales Liberal Party, published by Connor Court in 2018. The book is a biographical exploration of classical liberalism's impact on the Australian party system and how the term 'liberal' came to be associated with the right in Australian politics.
As a resident Research Fellow with the IPA's Foundations of Western Civilisation program (2018-2020) he explored the antecedents and impact of Magna Carta, trying to contextualise the famous document within a wider tradition of attempts to limit the power of potentially despotic governments.
The result is Summoning Magna Carta: Freedom's Symbol Over a Millennium, published in 2021 by the IPA in conjunction with Australian Scholarly Publishing, available here.
15 January 2021
Charted Waters
This article from the Summer 2020 edition of the IPA Review is written by IPA Adjunct Fellow, Zachary Gorman. The unique circumstances of the pandemic have seen age-old questions about the rights of the individual and necessary limits on government power thrown into a new and stark relief. Controversies surrounding the American election and allegations of voter fraud have likewise
16 September 2020
Australia’s Violent Enforcement Of Lockdowns Sparks Memories of the Eureka Rebellion
This article was coauthored by Mark Hornshaw, lecturer in Economics, Entrepreneurship and Management at The University of Notre Dame Australia. It originally ran on the website for the Foundation of Economic Education. 2020 is looking eerily similar to 1854 for the people of Victoria, Australia’s second most populous state. This footage reveals a little of the current scene, with Aussies protesting
12 June 2020
Why We Erect Statues – And Should Keep Them There
Amid a world that seems hell-bent on tearing down statues in a cathartic frenzy, it is worth sparing a moment to reflect on why we erected those statues in the first place. While the left thinks that a monument’s primary purpose is to glorify great dead white men, the reality is that they were meant to be symbols of hope
4 June 2020
ScoMo’s Flawed Hawke Fantasy
As Scott Morrison eyes consensus-based industrial relations reform, he must not commit the ultimate sin for any Liberal leader and forget Sir Robert Menzies’ forgotten people. As part of his carefully branded ‘jobmaker’ plan, the prime minister has called on big business and unions to come together at the negotiating table for the sake of our shared economic future. The
9 April 2020
2020 In Historical Perspective – IPA Keeping In Touch – 9 April 2020
Dear IPA Members As a historian you tend to be highly conscious of the truism that we are always living through history. As time passes, moments crystallise into the building blocks of the narratives through which we try to comprehend our lives and our world. Time is fleeting by its nature, but it does not flow at a constant rate.
26 March 2020
How The Coronavirus Response Shows We Have Lost Our Fundamental Values
Australia’s response to the coronavirus threat reveals that we have lost our fundamental values. While our nation is faced with what is arguably the most significant peacetime threat since the great depression, it is worth reflecting on how we came together to overcome that tremendous obstacle. As supermarkets witness brawls over toiletries, the Morrison government has unveiled a $189 billion
20 December 2019
Beyond Reason
This article from the Summer 2019 edition of the IPA Review is by the IPA’s Foundations of Western Civilisation Program Researcg Fellow, Zachary Gorman. Of all the crises facing the West today, one of the most pernicious has to be the rise of a cultural and moral relativism which maintains things are neither inherently good nor bad, but rather a
19 December 2019
Closer to Home
This article from the Summer 2019 edition of the IPA Review is by Director of Research Daniel Wild and IPA Research Fellows Zachary Gorman and Andrew Bushnell. It is an edited extract from ‘Australian Values and The Enduring Importance of the Nation-State’, a research report prepared for the Senate Inquiry. If Donald Trump has achieved nothing else, he has at
6 November 2019
End The Man-Made Drought. Rip Up The Murray Darling Basin Plan
The failure of the Murray Darling Basin Plan is an example of what happens when decisions are taken out of the hands of locals and given to distant Canberra bureaucrats. By taking an extra 2000GL of water out of the agricultural sector every year since 2012 – the largest re-direction of water to the environment for any large river basin
18 October 2019
Australian Values And The Enduring Importance Of The Nation-State
The preparation of Australian values and the enduring importance of the nation-state is motivated by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee’s Inquiry into nationhood, national identity and democracy. This inquiry’s remit is broad and ranges from changing notions of nationhood, declining public trust in Australia’s major political institutions, and the impact of globalisation and economic interdependence on the nation
