Centre for Independent Studies

Let's share good ideas. 💡

"He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that."
~John Stuart Mill

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The Ridiculous Spending Hidden in the Federal Budget

What is your favourite thing about the budget?

Watch our latest video:

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Trump heading for midterm defeat as MAGA coalition fractures

That is the view of Robert Doar, President of the American Enterprise Institute, Washington’s most influential centre-right think tank.

Speaking at CIS alongside the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia, Doar argued that if you “follow politics with the sound off” and judge the president by his actions rather than his words, much of the agenda is consistent with free markets and limited government. Deregulation, pro-growth tax reform and Supreme Court appointments, including the ruling that ended Chevron deference, have changed the US business environment.

Doar was just as direct about the costs. He described pay-to-play corruption, the use of the Justice Department against political opponents and an immigration crackdown that went beyond the border and into the states. On Ukraine, he called the administration’s treatment of Kyiv “appalling.”

With the midterms on November 3, Doar expects the Democrats to win the House and sees the Senate as genuinely open. Key contests in Maine, Michigan and Texas could decide it.

The full conversation with Michael Stutchbury is now available here: https://t.co/yqSLdvUYPF

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The ACT says NAPLAN comparisons are unfair. A buried report says the results are exactly what they look like.

'Fundamentally, it shows that the calculation of the socio-economic advantage used by ACARA that underpins its similar schools model of comparison between jurisdictions is valid, and ... there is no underlying issue with the data in terms of the quality of the input. That's very clear' said Trisha Jha.

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Think falling prices will fix Sydney’s housing crisis? Cheaper homes that never get built help nobody

Peter Tulip said 'The big issue we face as a society is not how do we get property prices back to the level of 2025 or 2024, but how do we get the affordability of housing back to what it was in the 1980s and 1990s'

https://t.co/bZOJ5ceAwd

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NAPLAN 2026 is in. Is screen time the culprit? The evidence is harder to ignore every year

'41% of Australian students reported there was noise and disorder in their classrooms, compared to the OECD average of 31%. … And that was from the Centre for Independent Studies.' said Blaise Joseph.

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From Haines to One Nation, the only exceptionalism left is negative

'With the nation’s economic, political, cultural and civil exceptionalism shattered, major effort is needed to prevent Kevin Rudd’s warning of a “second-rate country” coming true.'

Read Michael Stutchbury 's latest op-ed: https://t.co/f9p4ECD9h2

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“Mainstream parties that respond to a populist surge by adopting its economics do not recover their voters.” OECD chief Mathias Cormann told CIS’s Consilium that 2026 is an echo of 1976 and needs the same policy reformation

Read the weekly ideas: https://t.co/zylDhQAWNx

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$2 billion became $50 billion. Snowy 2.0 is now a threat to NSW’s own green energy plans

'Last February, in collaboration with Aidan Morrison of the Centre for Independent Studies, I warned that the project cost was exploding and could reach $40bn.'

Read more: https://t.co/y6dl9b99PF

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America Is Bigger Than the President: AEI's Robert Doar on Trump, Ukraine and the Midterms

How should classical liberals and conservatives judge Donald Trump's second term? In this wide-ranging conversation, Robert Doar, President of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), joined CIS Executive Director Michael Stutchbury for a frank assessment of American politics ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Watch here: https://t.co/ZKR1lbtsNT

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Global instability. Structural disruption. And a few wounds we inflicted ourselves. Australia’s perfect storm.

'Recent analysis from the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) reveals that state and territory debts are on a highly unsustainable path. According to the CIS analysis authored by former treasury officials, combined state gross debt has risen sharply, exceeding $660 billion and is projected to approach $900 billion by the end of the decade.'

Read Robert Carling: https://t.co/W6t7wXlzxo

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Pauline Hanson points to France and asks: could it happen here? The migration debate just got harder to dismiss

'“The multicultural bargain is not failing because Australians have stopped believing in it. It is fraying because both sides increasingly feel they are putting more into the relationship than they are getting back' said Parnell McGuinness

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Australian kids aren’t failing. The system failing them is. But the outcomes are becoming hard to tell apart.

Blaise Joseph points out 'screen addiction, plummeting attention spans, and disruptive, noisy classrooms—which cost students up to 12 weeks of learning time every single year—as primary drivers of the collapse. Remarkably, this rapid academic decline comes despite a 27% real per-student increase in public school funding over the past decade, sparking urgent calls to overhaul classroom discipline and early literacy programs.'

Watch more: https://t.co/U2Qi4gQcT9

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A mum got her kids’ favourite games banned from the classroom. The reason tells you everything about where education is headed.

'A priority to reduce screen time in schools should be about cutting back on unnecessary activities' said Kelly Norris

Read more: https://t.co/o9IBRRIjoL

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Why Australia's slow start to primary maths is failing students

'Education ministers will soon receive advice on the findings of a national review of the maths curriculum for the first three years of school. It may be one of the most important curriculum decisions of the decade.'

Read Kelly Norris's latest op-ed: https://t.co/NeNGzVqHVX

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54% of Australians believe migration has historically benefited the country. Just 25% say the same about migration today, and 52% now call its impact negative. New CIS research from Parnell Palme McGuinness

Read the weekly ideas: https://t.co/C7QIrZizGB

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They built lives here. They love it here. And many are quietly worried about where here is heading.

"New Australians have a strong sense of contribution to Australia, as well as an anxiety that they are not fully embraced'' said Parnell McGuinness

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Every other party submits to costings. One Nation won’t. NSW voters deserve to know why

“Political parties outside the mainstream such as One Nation will often have their own unconventional arguments of the costs and benefits of their policies, I think it is reasonable for parties to not have their policies costed – but most voters will be and should be very sceptical of the claims those parties make.” said Peter Tulip.

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Proud to be Australian. But feeling rejected by Australia. New research captures a painful contradiction

Parnell Palme McGuinness said 'the relationship between migrants and established Australians was under strain because both sides believed they were giving more than they received'

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Proud to be Australian. Anxious about what Australia is becoming. New migrants are feeling both at once.

"New Australians have a strong sense of contribution to Australia, as well as an anxiety that they are not fully embraced," said Parnell McGuinness

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New research finds migrants and Australian-born citizens both feel short-changed by the migration bargain.

A Culture of Reciprocity, a new Centre for Independent Studies Research Report by Senior Fellow Parnell Palme McGuinness, draws on Spectre Strategy polling of 3,552 Australian voters, including 2,025 born overseas.

The headline divide: 54% of Australians believe migration has historically had a positive impact on Australian society, but only 25% say the same of migration today. A majority, 52% now considers its current impact negative.

The research also corrects some widely held assumptions. New Australians name economic and job opportunities (38%), Australian lifestyle and values (34%) and the environment (31%) as the main reasons migrants come. Just 5% nominate access to welfare, against 22% of Australian-born citizens who assume it is a major draw.

New Australians are strongly committed to the country, 83% are proud to be Australian, higher than the 79% of those born here but many feel their contribution is unrecognised and that people from their background are not fully accepted.

“The multicultural bargain is not failing because Australians have stopped believing in it,” McGuinness says. “It is fraying because both sides increasingly feel they are putting more into the relationship than they are getting back.”

The common ground is substantial. More than eight in 10 on both sides say a strong national identity is important, and a majority of every group prefers integration over either assimilation or cultural separation. The report argues policy should be built on that shared preference, and that migration settings be measured against whether they strengthen it.

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