At the Centre for Independent Studies' annual Liberty and Society student conference, 38 students from Australia and New Zealand explored classical liberal philosophy, free markets and social cohesion through talks and debates led by leading scholars and former officials.

Speakers traced the historical shift from Keynesian to pro-market ideas, discussed free speech and the rule of law, and challenged students to lead a renewed classical liberal movement for their generation.

In this Stutch Sessions episode Parnell Palm McGuinness, author of the CIS report Generation Trapped, explains how young Australians (18–34) split into six distinct 'tribes' all still aspire to homeownership, family, meaningful work and financial security, but feel blocked by high housing costs and limited agency.

The conversation covers the political fallout from recent tax changes (capital gains and negative gearing), young entrepreneurs' resentment at perceived penalties on risk-taking, rising distrust in government spending, and the broader implications for policy: boosting opportunity and agency rather than punitive measures.

Watch here: https://youtu.be/NpXfg20UPWg As Treasurer Jim Chalmers prepares to hand down his fifth federal budget on 12 May 2026, four of Australia's leading economists gather at the Centre for Independent Studies to ask: is this budget up to the challenge?

Hosted by CIS Executive Director Michael Stutchbury, this roundtable brings together Robert Carling (CIS Senior Fellow, former Treasury and IMF official), Professor Richard Holden (UNSW Business School), and Chris Richardson (Principal, Rich Insight and Australia's most cited budget economist) for a frank, wide-ranging conversation on the fiscal pressures facing Australia.

They discuss rising inflation, a productivity slowdown, a housing crisis, a federal debt approaching $1 trillion, and whether Chalmers' promises on savings, tax reform, and intergenerational equity stack up.

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CIS promotes free choice and individual liberty and the open exchange of ideas. CIS encourages debate among leading academics, politicians, media and the public. We aim to make sure good policy ideas are heard and seriously considered so that Australia can prosper.

As much as anything, the Centre for Independent Studies’ first 50 years has been dedicated to restraining the growth in the size, reach and financing of government to provide room for private enterprise and individual choice.

Now, as in the mid-1970s, the size of government has been ratcheted up. And politicians are increasing taxes to pay for it.

This week, CIS senior fellow Robert Carling has delivered an important corrective to the mantra that taxes aren’t really much of a burden in Australia. Read more here: https://www.cis.org.au/publication/high-taxing-australia-how-we-measure-up/

Grim reality of the NDIS leviathan

“It will start big and get bigger and grow to become the new leviathan of the Australian welfare state,” CIS scholar Andrew Baker further predicted of Labor’s National Disability Insurance Scheme in his 2012 policy monograph. Even the Productivity Commission failed to pick the looming NDIS fiscal disaster from the worthy goal of providing support to permanently and significantly disabled Australians...

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The hard lesson of Australia’s protectionist past is that propping up uncompetitive and high cost industries invariably poses a burden on other sectors, including on the mining, gas and farm exporters that actually support our prosperity.

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Donald Trump’s threats to destroy the ‘whole civilisation’ of Iran this week jarringly contrasted with the out-of-this world American achievement of sending a four-member crew as far from Earth as any humans had gone.

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Australia’s new economic decline is colliding with the breakdown of the liberal rules-based orders for global trade and security. The post-pandemic and oil shock push for more sovereign capability and supply-chain self-reliance will eat into national income just as living standards are under pressure.

Resolving this tension will require more, not less, of the pro-market —or neo-liberal — policy agenda of the Hawke-Keating and Howard-Costello era to reboot productivity and economic growth.

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