Variety and Choice Good Schools for All Australians, Dr Graeme Starr
Just Released
Variety and Choice recounts the political history of the debate about government funding of non-government schools from the First Fleet to the present day. It contrasts the policies of the major parties and details the role of various Churches and interest groups in lobbying both for and against the provision of financial assistance to non-government schools. This is not a lengthy policy tract. It is a book full of human drama. Graeme Starr tells the story of how the schools that educated more than a quarter of Australia’s children were deliberately neglected by governments for nearly a century. He recounts that Robert Menzies’ government inherited a crisis but launched a real education revolution that saved our school system. He also tells the story of parents in Goulburn who called the bluff of State politicians and bureaucrats and forced changes in policies and attitudes to the funding of non-government schools. With the Federal Government’s review of non-government schools funding due to report soon, this book will make a timely contribution to an important ongoing policy debate.
So Many Firsts: Liberal Women from Enid Lyons to the Turnbull Era
Margaret Fitzherbert
Launching on 12 September 2009
So Many Firsts tells the story of the Liberal Party’s women in the federal parliament, especially its seven female Cabinet ministers. It establishes the long list of ‘firsts’ they achieved as women, for women, and for the wider community. . The diversity in the backgrounds of the Liberal women who became ministers is strikingthey were: housewives, lawyers, accountants, small business owners, academics, doctors, farmers, real estate agents, journalists, nurses, tourism operators, public servants, company directors; married women with large families and single women with none. They came from the city and country and from every State in Australia. They were those from political families and others who were the first in their families to enter public life.
So Many Firsts is also a story about contemporary politics and government in Australia. It examines the past and how it informs the Liberal Party’s present, and provides an in side account of various Liberal Governments in the words of the women who were there.
So Many Firsts is also a book about policies and the debates that surrounded them like child endowment, divorce law reform childcare, family assistance and women’s health and the particularly difficult debate over affirmative action legislation.
Don’t Leave Us with the Bill: The Case Against an Australian Bill of Rights , Julian Leeser and Ryan Haddrick (eds)
Pre Order Now. Available from 25 May 2009
Published in 2009, these twenty-nine papers comprise a range of essays by Australians of different ages and backgrounds making the case against an Australian bill of rights.
Advocates of an Australian statutory bill of rights have attracted much air time in recent years. Five current or former governments (ACT, Victoria, Western Australia, Tasmania, and now the Commonwealth) have established and funded pro-bill of rights inquiries. Yet there has been little organized intellectual opposition to these proposals. The purpose of this book is to join the debate and to make the case that a bill of rights is not an appropriate response to the issues facing Australia at this time. Those pressing the case for change have the burden of proving, not only that the current system is not working, but that their model for reform provides the best method of making the system work better. The authors in this book are sceptical about whether a bill of rights can discharge these burdens.
Sir Ninian Stephen, Foreword
Tom Harley, Chairman’s Preface
Julian Leeser and Ryan Haddrick, Introduction
Chief Justice Paul de Jersey, A Reflection on a Bill of Rights
George Brandis, The Debate We Didn’t Have to Have: The Proposal for an Australian Bill of Rights
Julian Leeser, Responding to Some Arguments in Favour of the Bill of Rights
John Howard, Don’t Risk What We Have
Ian Callinan, In Whom Should We Trust
James Allan, What’s Wrong About a Statutory Bill of Rights
Alan Anderson, Solomon’s Heirs? Dissecting the Campaign for Judicial Rule in Australia
Justice Kenneth Handley, Human Rights: the Question is – Who is the Master?
David Bennett, Principles and Exceptions: Problems for Bills of Rights
Christian Porter, Pluralism, Parliamentary Democracy and Bills of Rights
Ryan Haddrick, The Judicature, Bills of Rights and Chapter III
Helen Irving, A Legal perspective on Bills of Rights
Gary Johns, A Charter of Rights will Harm Aboriginal Prospects
AJ Molan, Trust Me It Will Not Be As Bad Ad You Think
Geoffrey Blainey, A Chaos of Rights
John Hirst, From British Rights to Human Rights
Bronwyn Bishop, There’s More To It Than Meets the Eye
Cardinal George Pell, Four Fictions: An Argument Against a Bill of Rights
Rabbi John Levi, Slaves Cannot Be free – the Biblical Origins of our Rights
Brigadier Jim Wallace, Why Christians Should Be Concerned About a Bill of Rights
Amanda Fairweather, Ethics and Limits of a Bill of Rights
Felicity McMahon, The Human Rights Act 1998 (UK): An Impossible Compromise
Trent Glover, The Devil in the Detail: Lessons from the ACT Human Rights Act
Bill Stefaniak, A Reflection on the ACT Human Rights Act 2004
Ben Jellis, Look but Don’t Leap: Lessons from the Victorian Statutory Bill of Rights
Sue Gordon, Afterword
State Policy Perspectives, Julian Leeser (ed)
These thirteen papers, published in 2007, represent a collection of papers presented at the Menzies Research Centre's inaugural State Policy Conference.
'The Centre believes that the reform agenda at a State level has atrophied. Despite the significant financial windfall that the States have received from the GST and the property and mining booms they have not invested this dividend in wise policy. It is for this reason that we staged the State Policy Conference - to raise some ideas for debate and to encourage some new thinking. As the selection of papers demonstrates the conference covered a range of key policy areas affecting the States: crime prevention, healthcare, education, infrastructure and governmental reform. Most of the contributors to this volume are policy professionals. They carry no partisan flag. Their contribution should be seen as indicative of their concern that issues that they have raised in their papers need to be addressed.'
Tom Harley, Foreword
Julian Leeser, Liberal State Governments: Some Themes
Michael Wagers, Broken Windows Problem Solving and Regulating Gang Behaviour
Mirko Bagaric, Strategic (And Popular) Sentencing
Keith Hamburger, Restorative Justice: Victims And Offenders
Ken Levy, Towards Greater Effectiveness In Offender Rehabilitation
David Kemp, The Reform Of Schooling: International Trends
Tony Abbott, Healthcare: What State Governments Should Be Doing
Russell Schneider, Health, the States and the Individual:
Encouraging Personal Responsibility In Health
Alan Moran, Energy Reform: The Next Phase State Role
Liberalism and the Australian Federation, J R Nethercote (ed)
Published in 2001 this collection of 18 essays was produced as part of the Liberal Party's contribution to the Centenary of Federation celebrations.
'This book is about liberalism, the political philosophy pre-eminent at Australia's federation and during its first one hundred years. It provides an authoritative account of the achievements of the Party, and its forerunners, in Australia's development as a nation. The book demonstrates the pervasive impact of liberalism on the nation's political institutions and the policies which have shaped the growth of its economy and society. Based on the work of a diverse group of Australian scholars Liberalism and the Australian Federation demonstrates that during the twentieth century, Australian history and Australian liberalism were closely intertwined.
John Howard, Foreword
A. A. Staley and J. R. Nethercote,Liberalism and the Australian Federation
Chandran Kukathas, Liberalism: the International Context
Gregory Melleuish, Australian Liberalism
Winsome Roberts, Liberalism: The Nineteenth Century Legacy
Greg Craven, A Liberal Federation and a Liberal Constitution
Ian Marsh, The Federation Decade
Margaret Fitzherbert, Alfred Deakin and the Australian Women's National League
J. R Nethercote, Liberalism, Nationalism and Coalition, 1910-29
Clem Lloyd, The Rise and Fall of the United Australia Party
Michael Keenan, The First Menzies Government and the Second World War
Graeme Starr, The Menzies Government and Post-War Prosperity
Ian Hancock, Liberal Governments, 1966-72
Charles Richardson, The Fraser Years
Andrew Norton,
Towards a New Australian Settlement? The Progress of Australian Liberalism
J. J. Pincus, Liberalism and Australia's Economic and Industrial Development
John Roskam, Liberalism and Social Welfare
Campbell Sharman, Federalism and the Liberal Party
Carl Bridge, In the National Interest: Liberal Foreign Relations from Deakin to Howard
Social Justice: Fraud or Fair Go? Marlene Goldsmith (ed)
Published in 1998 this collection of 15 essays represents the first major intellectual contribution of the Menzies Research Centre.
'Since the ascendancy of the Whitlam Government, the advocates of social justice have had their hands out, demanding ever-increasing resources to address an ever-increasing list of grievances. Yet today the list if still growing, many of the problems seem as bad or worse than ever, and too many of the people who were supposed to be helped by all the caring and sharing remain trapped in a cycle of dependency.'
Marlene Goldsmith, Introduction
Christopher Pearson, The Injustice of Social Justice
Andrew Norton, Liberalism and Social Justice the Unhappy Couple
Don Harwin, Compassionate Liberalism
Padraic P. McGuinness, Middle-class Welfare
Michael Warby, Equality,Justice and Sustainability: the failing logic of the Welfare State
Piers Akerman, Media Propagandists for Social Justice
Margaret Valadian, An Aboriginal Dilemma: the injustice of Social Justice
Susan Bastick, Social Justice for the Australian Family
Don Harwin, Social Justice and Intergenerational Equity
Noel Hadjimichael, Howard's Batters: Myth or Marketing Burden
Michael Wooldridge,
Remembering the Forgotten People: the Philosophy and Health policy of the Howard Government
Tony Abbott, Justice, Social Justice and Educational Justice
Tanya Baini, Women, Liberalism and Social Justice
Chris McDiven, Social Justice for Women in the Liberal Party
John Howard, Australia in the World
Variety and Choice Good Schools for All Australians Dr Graeme Starr
