Essays For Australia
Essays for Australia is a publication of The Centre for the Australian Way of Life at the Institute of Public Affairs.
The purpose of Essays for Australia is to explain and defend the values that have created the Australian way of life – democracy, egalitarianism, and freedom in all its dimensions.
Fixing Our Universities
By Christo Moskosvsky I will start with a personal anecdote. Over a game of cards, an acquaintance (being aware that I was an academic by profession) declared that universities are a pointless institution, because ‘they produce nothing’. The absurdity of the remark stunned me into momentary silence, but I soon managed to find my voice and calmly explained to [...]
Lessons From the Voice Campaign
By Sherry Sufi The lessons from the Voice referendum will be discussed for many years to come. The vote on 14 October 2023 was one of the most consequential in Australia’s history. Australians were asked to agree to overturn a fundamental principle of liberal democracy: that all citizens have equal political rights. And 60% of voters said No, [...]
The Voice and Young Australians
By Brianna McKee The outcome of the Voice referendum provides a unique insight into the attitudes and beliefs of young Australians. An analysis of how young people voted in the referendum reveals that contrary to perceptions, not all young people are ‘woke’ and ‘progressive’. The fact that nearly one-in-two young Australians voted No is evidence that the centre-right political [...]
A Future for the Centre-Right in Australia
By David Stevens In the aftermath of another poor federal election result in 2025, the centre-right in Australia, as represented by the Liberal/National Coalition, finds itself with the lowest primary vote since the Second World War. Does this mean that Australia is now permanently a left-of-centre nation? And if not, what does the future hold for the centre-right political [...]
Dutton’s Sliding Doors: What Polling Tells Us About the 2025 Election
By Graham Young During the 2025 federal election campaign, the Liberal leader Peter Dutton referred to the election as a ‘sliding doors’ moment for Australia several times. He presented the poll as a stark choice between two visions for Australia. Dutton’s comment invites an inquiry not just into how the election turned out, but also how it might have [...]
Why Australians Rejected Division
When the new Labor government took office in May 2022 it rapturously endorsed the referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. At the time, most voters were supportive of the measure. That support ebbed away, such that by the time of the referendum on 14 October 2023, the proposal was soundly defeated. We conducted our periodic survey of Australian [...]
