Publications
Our publications are the most important means of contact between the Centre's ideas and its general readership. Since 1976, The Centre for Independent Studies has produced some of the most authoritative publications in Australasian academia. From the influential Lands of Shame to the authoritative Will China Fail? CIS has published hundreds of publications covering topics from the social policy to legal affairs to religion and education.
In addition to books, the CIS publishes a range of shorter publications: Issue Analyses deal with controversial and current issues and Policy Mongraphs investigate and offer policy solutions. Since 1984, Policy magazine has published feature articles and reviews authored by some of the foremost national and international thinkers on public policy and ideas. The quality of writing and the diversity of topics in Policy ensure its status as a 'must read' by leading politicans, businesspeople and academics.
Hard copies of our publications are available for purchase through the bookstore. Many of the smaller publications are also available for download.
CONTRIBUTIONS
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All Family Life Publications
A Fair Go: Fact or Fiction?
The Australian ideal of a fair go is fact rather than fiction. By offering all individuals the opportunity to capitalise...
Tax Welfare Churn and the Australian Welfare State
The welfare state currently consumes $316 billion a year; however, much of this spending is not targeted at those who need...
TARGET30 SNAPSHOT: Tax Welfare Churn and the Australian Welfare State
The welfare state currently consumes $316 billion a year; however, much of this spending is not targeted at those who need...
The Fraught Politics of Saying Sorry for Forced Adoption: Implications for Child Protection Policy in Australia
Many Australians will believe a national apology for forced adoption is overdue. But there is a danger that the apology will...
TARGET30: Towards smaller government and future prosperity
TARGET30 is a campaign promoting smaller government, supported by a series of research reports providing policy solutions...
TARGET30 SNAPSHOT: Towards smaller government and future prosperity
TARGET30 is a campaign promoting smaller government, supported by a series of research reports providing policy solutions...
Overcoming a Culture of Low Expectations
The most important thing we can do to encourage disadvantaged Australians into work – including people with disabilities,...
Do Not Damage and Disturb: On Child Protection Failures and the Pressure on Out-of-Home Care in Australia
This monograph shows that the rising size, cost, and complexity of the out-of-home care system in Australia is directly linked...
Populate and Perish? Modelling Australia's Demographic Future
Since the publication of the 2010 Intergenerational Report, Australia has been debating its demographic future and whether...
The Power and the Responsibility: Child Protection in the Post-Welfare State Era
Government-run child protection services in Australia are plagued by systemic problems, including a misguided emphasis on...
FEATURE: From Murphy's to Howard's Law
Shared parenting laws are under threat from feminists with no intention of giving fathers a fair go.
Family on the Edge: Stability and Fertility in Prosperity and Recession
Barry Maley argues that unless family law and policies rapidly change, family stability and a buoyant birth rate will be...
Breaking the Cycle of Family Joblessness
Solving the problem of high family joblessness will require reform of the welfare, tax, and industrial relations systems.
Million Dollar Babies: Paid Parental Leave and Family Policy Reform
Support for the introduction of paid parental leave has been so vocal that rather than being a means to an end, paid parental...
Baby Steps Toward Self-Funded Parental Leave
The debate about increasing the aged pension highlights the fact that, once again, government handouts lead to increasing...
OPINION: An Alternative Vision of Parental Leave
Instead of requiring more taxpayer spending, parental leave could be self-funded.
Child Care and the Labour Supply
This report investigates whether child care is unaffordable and if government funding is contributing to its affordability...
Child Care: Who Benefits?
Child care has gone from something that families would use sparingly and only if necessary to being an alleged human right....
BOOK REVIEW: The 7 Deadly Sins of Obesity: How the Modern World is Making Us Fat
The 7 Deadly Sins of Obesity: How the Modern World is Making us Fat edited by Jane Dixon and Dorothy Broom (UNSW Press, 2007).
FEATURE: The Baby Bonus: A Dubious Policy Initiative
The Baby Bonus is an expensive way to alleviate a fertility decline that need not concern us.
BOOK REVIEW: Motherhood: How Should We Care For Our Children?
Motherhood: How should we care for our children? by Anne Manne (Allen and Unwin, 2005).
Family Relationship Centres: Why We Don’t Need Them
As part of a major overhaul of the Family Law Act, the Australian government plans to spend $200 million establishing a network...
BOOK REVIEW: Family Matters: Family Breakdown and Its Consequences
Family Matters: Family Breakdown and its consequences by Patricia Morgan (New Zealand Business Roundtable, 2004).
State of the Nation: An Agenda for Change 2004
This book is now in its fourth edition. It offers independent views on Australia’s progress across a range of indicators...
The Taxation of Shared Family Incomes
Terry Dwyer’s paper makes a compelling case for recognising family income sharing for tax purposes, and his arguments and...
Divorce Law and the Future of Marriage
No-fault divorce law has precipitated marital instability in Australia, discouraging people from marrying, staying together,...
Reforming Divorce Law
Marriage has evolved from a relatively stable bond to a highly uncertain one. High divorce rates, the substitution of cohabitation...
The Tender Trap: Reducing Long-Term Welfare Dependency by Reforming the Parenting Payment System
Moving single parents whose children are at school off welfare and into work is a key component of a broader strategy to...
Family and Marriage in Australia
The growing instability of the nuclear family is a fundamental cause behind a great deal of juvenile crime, youth suicide...
Families, Fertility and Maternity Leave
Sound family policy is being side-tracked by the concentration on the role of maternity leave in raising the fertility rate....
Poor Statistics: Getting the Facts Right About Poverty in Australia
Some welfare organisations suggest that poverty statistics are unimportant and that the CIS critique of the Smith Family’s...
Poor Arguments: A Response to the Smith Family Report on Poverty in Australia
The welfare lobby, including The Smith Family and NATSEM, continues to inflate poverty statistics to advance a political...
Taxing the family : Australia's forgotten people in the income spectrum
Over the last two decades, the tax burden has shifted from taxpayers without to taxpayers with dependent children. While...
State of the Nation 2001: A Century of Change
This major report finds that Australia is in the midst of profound social and economic change sometimes for the better, sometimes...
State of the Nation 2001: A Century of Change (CD ROM)
A CD version of a major report that finds Australia is in the midst of profound social and economic change sometimes for...
Beyond the Classroom : how parents influence their children's education
Parents are crucial to the academic success of their children. The report, Beyond the Classroom: How Parents Influence Their...
Trailing the Class: Sole Parent Families and Educational Disadvantage
The association between family structure and educational performance has been the focus of much research in recent years....
Behavioural Poverty
The welfare debate is bedeviled by the failure to distinguish behavioural from financial poverty. The minimum income available...
State of the Nation: Indicators of a Changing Australia 1999
The expanded and revised edition of State of the Nation: Indicators of a Changing Australia 1999 is a comprehensive guide...
Children's Rights : Where the Law is Heading and What it Means for Families
Barry Maley cautions that while children are citizens entitled to the protection of the state, he believes that some recent...
Social Capital Stories: How 12 Australian Households Live their Lives
Social capital - the network of informal social connections that helps to hold communities together - is often reported to...
SCHOOLS' BRIEF: Taxation of Family Income
The Lost Concept of Horizontal Equity
Tax Injustice: Keeping the Family Cap-in-Hand
There is a growing awareness of financial pressure on the family, together with anomalies in the interaction of family earnings,...
BOOK NOTES: The Family: There Is No Other Way
The Family: There Is No Other Way edited by Bill Muehlenberg, Joseph Santamaria, Peter Westmore and Mary Helen Woods (Australian...
REVIEW ARTICLE: Family, Education and Society
Family, Education and Society: The Australian Perspective edited by A. R. Barcan and P. O'Flaherty (Academy Press, 1995.)
Home Repairs: Building Stronger Families to Resist Social Decay
FEATURE: The Culture of Modern Entrepreneurship
Family, religion and the economy.
REVIEW ARTICLE: Family Folly
Creating the Links: Families and Social Responsibility, Final Report by The National Council of the International Year of...
The Social Roots of Prosperity
A society’s prosperity depends on its families. That is the central message of Brigitte Berger’s analysis of economic...
Civic Capitalism- An Australian Agenda for Institutional Renewal
A new political middle ground is forming around the idea that successful societies depend on ‘social capital’- the goodwill,...
FEATURE: Supporting Mothers, Twenty Years On
Government support for sole parents has increased spectacularly over the last twenty years. The level of benefits is now...
FEATURE: Does the Family Need a Family Policy?
In recent years, two-parent families have lost ground in the welfare state to other groups, especially sole-parent families...
COMMENT: For Feature: Does the Family Need a Family Policy?
Comment for feature article, Does the Family Need a Family Policy?
COMMENT: Further Comment on FEATURE: Does the Family Need a Family Policy?
Further comment on feature article, Does the Family Need a Family Policy?
COMMENT: Continued Comment for FEATURE: Does the Family Need a Family Policy?
Continued commentary on the feature article, Does the Family Need a Family Policy?
REJOINDER: for FEATURE: Does the Family Need a Family Policy?
James Cox's rejoinder for his feature article, Does the Family Need a Family Policy?
FEATURE: Why Australia's Divorce Law Should Be Reformed
The law on divorce should be reformed to give effect to a 'democratic compromise' between liberal and conservative concerns.
REVIEW: A Framework For Family Policy
The Family in the Welfare State by Alan Tapper (Allen & Unwin, 1990.)
FEATURE: The Rise of the State in Education: Part Two: The Abolition of Parental Fees
In the second of two articles on the growth of state involvement in education, Edwin West describes the defeat of attempts...
FEATURE: Failing Families, Vanishing Australians and the Welfare State
Australia's fertility rate, like that of several other Western countries, has fallen well below the level needed to sustain...
The Long Debate on Poverty
In The Long Debate on Poverty, Professor Hartwell analyses the debate on poverty and its historical roots; demonstrates the...
Affirmative Action: The New Discrimination
Gabriel Moens finds that the philosophical and practical ramifications of such 'affirmative action' may be worse than the...
Free to Shop
Shopping hours and standards in Australia are far behind those of other countries. The trend of Governments in other countries...
