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• Free Speech

Freedom of speech is a crucial principle of a liberal democracy that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction.

Cancel Culture Crusades
Monica Wilkie, Claire Lehmann, Peter KurtiMarch 30, 2021

To address the coercive cultural turn across many western artistic, educational, business, and entertainment institutions,...

Australians’ Attitudes to Social Media: Connection or Curse?
Monica WilkieMarch 29, 2021PP37

Social media appears in the news cycle, almost daily, and the majority of the coverage...

Cancelled! How ideological cleansing threatens Australia
Peter KurtiAugust 17, 2020AP13

‘Cancel culture’ campaigns in Australia are intended to erase elements of our history and to...

Moral terror
Tom SwitzerJuly 23, 2020Ideas@TheCentre

You know we live in a strange world when classical liberal think tanks, such as...

Linguistic Humbug
Monica WilkieJuly 23, 2020Ideas@TheCentre

The culture war — and its current battlefront ‘cancel culture’ — is exacerbated because the...

We must defend freedom of speech
Lionel Shriver, Brendan O'Neill, Monica WilkieJuly 17, 2020

Lionel Shriver and Brendan O’Neill sit down with CIS fellow Monica Wilkie for The Woke...

Reframing an Ancient Hatred: the intersection of left-wing antisemitism and anti-Zionism
Julie ClaridgeDecember 11, 2025AP97
Anti-Zionism has evolved to create a further mutation of antisemitism, cloaking bias and discrimination in...
Political legitimacy, harm protections and our freedoms
Paul TaylorNovember 10, 2025OP211
This article considers different concepts of ‘legitimacy’ and their contribution to understanding the difference between...
The rule of law, excessive regulation and free speech
Paul TaylorSeptember 11, 2025AP88

Foreword In the day that the 2024 parliamentary session concluded, more than 30 bills were...

The ties that bind. Reconciling value pluralism and national identity
Peter KurtiJune 12, 2025AP81

Executive summary Australia’s multicultural democracy is under increasing pressure, not only from economic uncertainty but...

Fractured Loyalties. Australian citizenship and the crisis of civic virtue
Peter KurtiMarch 6, 2025AP79

Can citizenship survive the end of tolerance? One of the principal tenets of a secular...

The Rise of Activist Corporations: How activism agendas subsumed shareholder primacy
Peter Swan AOSeptember 26, 2024OP202
Australian companies have been shifting from a purely shareholder focus to a much vaguer, less...
Don’t shout, we already have the laws
Monica WilkieSeptember 27, 2019The Australian

The answer to “hate speech” is not the introduction of a never-ending stream of laws...

Protecting minorities does not require sacrificing free speech
Monica WilkieSeptember 24, 2019Online Opinion

Flawed ‘hate speech’ laws are a threat to free speech. The bill introduced by Victorian...

What’s happening to our live-and-let-live culture?
Peter KurtiJuly 12, 2019Ideas@TheCentre

Free speech is being closed down in the name of preventing ‘hate speech’; bonds of...

Israel Folau: Moral compass all askew as virtue is eclipsed by values
Peter KurtiJuly 6, 2019The Australian

Unease is growing in Australia that something has changed for the worse in our live-and-let-live...

Cherry-picking freedom
Monica WilkieJune 14, 2019Ideas@TheCentre

The AFP raids on the ABC and a News Corp journalist are alarming, but the...

Lib win to burst corporate virtue-signallers’ bubble
Jeremy SammutMay 29, 2019The Daily Telegraph

Election result should burst corporate virtue-signallers’ bubble. The Coalition’s unexpected victory wasn’t the only miracle...

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Submission to the Senate Inquiry on Information Integrity
Michael StutchburySeptember 12, 2025

On behalf of the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS), we are pleased to provide the...

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