Posted: 1:25 pm on 4th May 2012
An article by Ben Jellis in the Sydney Morning Herald today about England going a little too safety mad reminded me of a conversation I’d had with my sister on a recent visit to the UK. Jellis recounts how he counted not one but eight security cameras on a bus while he was living there. Further proof that England is becoming more and more risk averse is the announcement this…
Posted: 8:00 am on 14th March 2012
I am in favour of legalising gay marriage. This is my personal view, not the corporate view of the CIS. It is a view which many of my colleagues do not share. Despite this conviction, I do not think Bob Katter’s anti-gay marriage ads should be censored. There are many legitimate arguments against gay marriage (including the freedom of religious ministers to choose not to perform them). Gay marriage is…
Posted: 8:00 am on 15th February 2012
Last week I commented on the ‘risk’ police think parents are taking allowing their 10-year-old children to catch public transport on their own. In a similar vein is a post by Tommy Jordan, the infamous American father who shot his 15-year-old daughter’s laptop because she posted a disrespectful comment about her parents on Facebook: ‘Modern’ parenting raises ill-prepared kids who can’t do anything and have no skills because they’re protected…
Posted: 8:40 am on 4th December 2011
In Britain and Australia, welfare rules now encourage and cajole single mums on benefits to find part-time work once their children start school. Absentee fathers are required to pay child support to help with the costs of raising their children. But one section of the population is still allowed to evade the financial responsibilities of parenting –men on benefits who father children but have no means of paying for them….
Posted: 3:45 pm on 15th November 2011
It was good to see a letter to the editor in today’s Financial Review regarding my piece on superannuation yesterday. The writer, a self-attested conservative, is correct to point out that the Australian retirement system is superior to most others overseas, where governments play an even more prominent and deleterious role in retirement provision. But I am less inclined to agree with the author when he says “there is no possibility…
