The 'big idea' at the Centre's annual Big Ideas Forum on Monday was sad and depressing: Europe as we know it has ceased to exist and is facing a difficult future.

Thinking big is currently out of fashion in Australia. That is, if you’re thinking about a 'Big Australia.' But what if, in all our worries about being too large, we're failing to appreciate the true 'big picture'?

Every year the CIS holds The Acton Lecture on Religion and Freedom, named after the Lord Acton, the great liberal and contrarian Roman Catholic who fought against the doctrine of papal infallibility in the mid-nineteenth century. This is where the great dictum ‘power tends to corrupt and absolutely power corrupts absolutely’ has its genesis. He was referring to both Popes and Kings.