It was a great night on Wednesday 12 November for the Dawson Centre’s Melbourne Launch, with the event at capacity. I am very grateful to Fr Dean Mathieson for hosting us at St Peter’s Parish Centre in Toorak. Archbishop Julian Porteous delivered an engaging address on the importance of the Christian faith for arresting the decline of western civilisation and in particular the need to defend religious freedom.

Declining birthrate in the West

One particular contemporary issue that very clearly and tangibly demonstrates this decline and which is starting to receive some limited attention in the mainstream media is that of collapsing birth rates in the West.

The foundation of society is the family, which is itself built on the institution of marriage. It provides the loving and nurturing environment for having, raising and educating of children. Quite literally without the generation of children a society cannot exist and endure. As you might be aware a total fertility rate (the number of children each woman has in their lifetime), of 2.1 children is required to simply maintain the current population level. Anything below this rate means that the population will necessarily decline and the lower it drops the faster it will decline. This means that we need on average each woman to have between 2-3 children simply to maintain a stable population. All western nations, apart from Isreal, now sit below this bare minimum of 2.1 and in Australia we have fallen to a historic low of 1.48.

What I had not realised and what you are probably not aware of is that in demographic terms, once you hit a total fertility rate of around 1.41, which we are not far away from, it has proven virtually impossible to turn this decline around. Demographer Liz Allen at the Australian National University, has referred to this as a ‘point of no return’, stating that there are multiple examples showing that once this rate is reached, as far as we are currently aware, there is ‘really nothing’ that can be done (essentially by government) to effectively raise it to the required level of 2.1.

In real demographic terms then, in terms of total fertility numbers Australia sits at the precipice. If this decline is not arrested and turned around in coming years Australia, like other western nations, will effectively cease to exist at some point in the future. While we must of course recognise that that this will not take place in our lifetime, yet what we will begin to experience in the not-too-distant future is the beginnings of significant cultural and economic shocks caused by the declining population.

In Australia the immediate economic problems will arise from an ageing domestic population, where there are fewer workers to support increasing numbers of retirees and the elderly. More generally we will also be impacted by the significant decline in the population of what are currently our biggest export markets, China (TFR 1.0), Japan (TFR 1.15) and South Korea (TFR 0.76). These countries are already experiencing real declining populations with more deaths than births and very limited immigration. Based on their current birth rates these Asian nations will lose at least 30% of their population by 2075 and will be less than half their current size by 2100 if not sooner.

In basic economic terms declining population means less workers and less taxpayers, and in particular less demand for goods, both domestically and internationally. Shrinking societies and contracting economies are not conducive to human flourishing or flourishing communities.


What is the answer?

Unless significant action is taken now by governments, and the Australian community more broadly, our society is headed for a looming economic and social crisis the likes of which are historically unprecedented.

Some governments, like those in Australia and Canada, have tried to address the looming economic impact of the declining birth rate by significantly increasing immigration numbers. Yet while this provides a temporary population increase it has not halted or turned around the declining birth rate, in fact if anything it has seemingly worked to accelerate the decline through artificially raising housing costs by generating increased demand.

According to recent polling in Australia both men and women still desire to have two children, but it is the increasing high cost of housing, combined with recent significant increases in the cost of living, and stagnant wage growth, that is the major issue causing young couples to put off having a second child or having children all together.

The Dawson Centre believes that there is a way to address this existential crisis but one which requires fundamental economic and social change. Temporary and limited financial inducements, like a one-off baby bonus, will not work.

Men and women want to have more children; we simply have to make this financially possible. In simple terms what is required are fundamental changes in legislation and government policy around immigration, housing, taxation and family support payments that will provide long term financial relief and support that will significantly ease the financial challenges of having and raising children. Such changes would include implementing policies like income splitting for married couples on a single income, providing stay at home mothers equivalent payments to childcare subsidies and superannuation payments.

But before we can address specific legislative and policy changes what is required is a fundamental change in how we think about the role of government and politics more generally. What we have lost sight of in the modern era of big government is that government actually exist to support and serve the needs of families. Not the other way around. It is the family which is the original and natural human community. 

This seems to have been better understood by politicians and political parties in Australia in the early twentieth century but has been completely lost in the intervening decades.

Over the coming months the Dawson Centre will seek to promote the kind of fundamental re-orientation we need in our political thinking to return the focus back to serving and supporting the natural family and developing and advocating for the kind of policies necessary to address the dire situation we find ourselves in.

Alexander Sidhu
Director of the Christopher Dawson Centre 

In this newsletter I want to draw your attention to continuing efforts to undermine religious freedom in Australia.

The Allan Labor Government in Victoria has recently introduced a Bill into parliament to significantly lessen the supposed ‘safeguards’ around the so-called Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017, which legalised assisted suicide and direct killing of those meeting certain medical criteria. The proposed Allan Government amendments seek to make what was fundamentally bad legislation even worse. These amendments would allow ‘registered health practitioners’ to initiate discussions about assisted suicide or direct killing with those suffering significant illness, which is currently prohibited primarily because of the undue pressure it could place on those already in a fundamentally vulnerable situation. But more significantly for religious freedom, another proposed amendment would compel registered health practitioners who have a conscientious objection to assisted suicide or direct killing, to provide a minimum amount of information. This requirement would involve a fundamental violation of conscience, by forcing Christians and others opposed to the taking of innocent human life, to cooperate with what they believe to be a morally wrong act.

In addition to this, last month in Victoria two members of the Legislative Council, Georgie Purcell of the Animal Justice Party and Rachel Payne of the Legalise Cannabis Party, issued a ‘report’ calling for Catholic hospitals which are publicly funded to provide services which are opposed to their fundamental religious beliefs, specifically abortion and contraception.[1] We have seen similar calls from Greens MLC in NSW, Amanda Cohen, earlier in the year. If such requirements were legislated, public Catholics hospitals would have to cease their service as public hospitals and instead become private hospitals, greatly reducing public health services and forcing government to spend significant capital funds, effort, time and resources to establish new public facilities. 

We are increasingly seeing efforts on the part of parliamentarians to promote legislation that would force Christians and Christian organisations to act against their deeply held religious beliefs. If left unchecked this kind of position will eventually take hold in the culture and if it becomes accepted that religious freedom can be effectively ignored, what about other basic freedoms? How long will they last? If one of the most fundamental human freedoms can be ignored, surely it would not be long before other basic freedoms, such as freedom of speech and association, are also cast aside.  

How should we react to all this?

Of course, we should write to our members of parliament to object in the strongest of terms to legislative developments that threaten religious freedom and call out the continuing threats being made to remove public funding provided to faith-based agencies for not providing services that conflict with their beliefs. We also need to remind people of the importance of defending basic freedoms like religious freedom, the loss of one could easily lead to the loss of all key freedoms. Ultimately, in the long term, it is clear that without the introduction of stronger constitutional or legislative protections for religious freedom in Australia, important services provided by faith-based organisations to the community, and in particular the vulnerable in our community, may have to cease.

Over the coming months the Dawson Centre will seek to work with parliamentarians and other groups to respond to these attacks on religious freedom and promote the need for strong legal protections.

Alexander Sidhu
Director of the Christopher Dawson Centre


Upcoming Events:

• Melbourne Launch of the Christopher Dawson Centre

A reminder for those in Melbourne that the Melbourne launch of the Christopher Dawson Centre will take place 7:00pm on Wednesday 12 November at St Peter’s Catholic Church, Parish Centre, Toorak. Archbishop Julian Porteus will deliver the inaugural address on the topic of ‘How can we renew Western Civilisation given the challenges we face?’ You can register for the event at https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/1849675823179?aff=oddtdtcreator
 

• Tasmanian Launch of Tony Abbot’s book Australia: A History

I am pleased to announce that the Dawson Centre is partnering with the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) to sponsor the launch of former Prime Minister Tony Abbot’s new book Australia. This will take place 6:00pm on Tuesday, December 9, at Parliament House, Hobart. Registration will be required to attend and books will be available to purchase at the event with Tony kindly agreeing to sign copies. An advertising flyer with registration details will be emailed out to Dawson members later in the week. I hope our Tasmanian members will be able to attend this important event.

A BLAST FROM THE PAST
 
Dear Reader,
 
I’m grateful to the new Director, Alex Sidhu, for offering me a curtain call by appointing me guest editor of the September newsletter!  After eight months of retirement, it’s pleasant to be engaged once again in the Dawson Centre’s business before returning to the equally pleasant joys of being master of my own time.  I shall remain a member of the committee however, and greatly value that ongoing connection. 
 
I begin this newsletter by paying a compliment to Alex.  He has had a very difficult year.  His principal and challenging goal has been to find funding to enable the Centre to continue, and to replace the special funding provided by the Archbishop, the Archdiocese of Hobart, and a great number of generous private donors that enabled to Centre to come into existence and to function successfully.  In this he has had a large measure of success, so that survival for at least another two years is now assured – and there are promising signs of further support after that time. 
 
But this effort comes at a cost and the newsletter had to take second place until we had a higher level of certainty about mere survival.  There were also issues involving registration and compliance and all the other red tape burdens that complicate modern life almost to the limits of endurance.  Most of that is now behind us now, I’m pleased to say, and plans are in place for a monthly newsletter from now on, and a colloquium in April next year.  In the words of the old country and western song, I think we can say that ‘the circle is unbroken’! 
 
The next thing I want to do is to thank Emeritus Archbishop Porteous for both his vision and his financial support.  A Centre to proclaim and make more widely known the excellence of the Catholic intellectual tradition was his idea, and Christopher Dawson was his choice of namesake.  One of the enduring false myths of the modern world is that Christianity and Science are necessarily at loggerheads, that religious people are not thinking people, that spirituality has no part to play in the intellectual sphere.  That this is absurd is easily discovered from the lists of prominent scientists and thinkers who have also been religious.  This needs to be better known, and the Centre’s principal purpose was to do whatever it could to spread the truth.  We couldn’t do much on a large scale, but we early took as our motto Burke’s famous dictum that ‘no man made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little’. 
 
Archbishop Porteous tendered his resignation as he was bound to do on turning 75 last year.  After many months the Pope named Archbishop Ireland as his successor, and the latter was installed on 12 August.  The ABC report was mean-spirited in unfavourably comparing the ‘compassion’ of new Archbishop with the implied lack of it in his predecessor.  It is a mark of poor-quality journalism that reporting is too often confused with personal ad hominem commentary.  Porteous had been dogged by negative commentary since his appointment to Hobart 12 years ago.  A group called Concerned Catholics was unrelenting in its attacks.  They clearly had and held the ear of the local ABC reporter who should have known better: undiscerning opinion is no substitute for investigative journalism.  The national news agency should be above that kind of petty narcissism but sadly it isn’t.  The kind of language used is always revealing: Porteous, we were told, was more interested in doctrine than compassion; he was conservative (code for stuck in the past); he ignored ‘the spirit of Vatican II’ (he had read all the documents, though); he was unsympathetic to ordaining women to the priesthood (so was Pope Francis).  All these things were held against him.  I came to know him well and now consider him a good friend.  He was in truth a kind and gentle pastor who had to face a lot of disloyalty within the so-called Household of Faith.  We can only hope that Archbishop Ireland will get a better deal from the public broadcaster and the other media, though we know from long experience that a Christian pastor who is true to his Faith must inevitably make enemies.
 
Archbishop Porteous continues his involvement as a member of the standing committee of the Centre, as do I.  The fourth member of that committee is Mr Ron Ward, who was Business Manager/Financial Administrator of the Archdiocese for several years.  He combines impressive governance, financial and administrative skills, with cool judgement and strategic wisdom.  Ron also has a long record of voluntary work not only with Church-related bodies but also with worthwhile charities and social enterprises.
 
I propose to run two summer schools in January 2026.  I taught the first annual Medieval and Ecclesiastical Latin school 36 years ago and always look forward to it, though numbers are declining.  Not because everybody now knows Latin (certainly not true!) but because of the growing availability of online courses all over the world, some of them very good indeed.  But for the personal touch one will always have to travel.  The course will run over five full days from 5 to 9 January.  It is aimed at people who have already done some Latin.  The other course will be for absolute beginners in New Testament and Koine Greek, likewise an intensive five-day course in the week following, 12 to 16 January.  For further information if interested please contact me directly at dccdain@gmail.com or take a look at full course descriptions on my Substack page @daviddaintree. 
 
We’re not quite ready to put out a date-claimer for the 2026 Colloquium, but we’re looking at a Saturday in April as the most likely.  It should fit within school holidays to suit teachers who are usually the largest bloc of participants.  The venue will be in Melbourne and the theme is Can the terminal decline in western civilisation be turned around? And if so, how?  Of course we’ll keep you posted.
 
As explained above, I am guest-editor of this edition of the Director’s newsletter.  Please address all correspondence relating to the newsletter or the business of the Centre (other than the summer schools) not to me but directly to Alex Sidhu at director@dawsoncentre.org. 
 
On behalf of the Director and Committee I extend our very best wishes and sincere thanks for your loyalty and patience,
 
David Daintree
 

Dear Readers,

I want to thank you again for your patience over the last six months as attempts were made to secure the future of the Dawson Centre. There are still many challenges ahead but I am pleased that we are now moving to resume the regular operations of the Centre. In particular I am pleased to announce that we are currently working on finalising dates for the next Colloquium to be held in Melbourne in 2026, (details will follow in the coming weeks). 

In my first newsletter as the Director of the Dawson Centre I wanted to share with you my thoughts on what I believe is one of the central issues of our time and what will be a key focus for the work of the Centre: the accelerating decline of Western Civilisation.

The Dawson Centre was founded not simply to promote the Catholic intellectual tradition but also to address this decline, which was increasingly becoming evident in our society in Australia and across the Western world. There have been warnings of decline for the last few hundred years in the writings of Catholic popes (for example the papal encyclical Mirari Vos of Gregory XVI in 1832) and of course Christoper Dawson sought to highlight this decline in his own time in the early Twentieth Century. The decline itself is not a new thing, yet perhaps what is new is the accelerating nature of the decline which, if not arrested, could prove to be terminal in the not-too-distant future.

And just so we are clear, this would not be a good thing for anyone. Not just Christians and those committed to a classical world view, but for all of humanity.

Western Civilisation, built on the inheritance of the Roman and Greek cultures in law and philosophy which was then synthesised with the wisdom of the Christianity, has provided the foundation for arguably the greatest achievements in human history. From art, music, and architecture to scientific and medical discoveries and treatments and commercial and economic structures that have provided unprecedented material standards of living.

The key principles which have guided Western Civilisation and produced these very real achievements have come from the Christian tradition. They include among others: that the human person is made in the image and likeness of God and must be treated accordingly; that society is constituted or founded on natural marriage and family which must be promoted and protected; that there is a higher moral law against which all human action should be judged and the authority of the state limited; and finally, that there is an objective truth to reality which can be known, at least partially, through the use of human reason.

We know that there has been a focused attack on these core principles of Western Civilisation particularly over the last hundred years, most evident in the form of ideologies such as Marxism, Communism and Nazism. But what is most concerning is not just the increasing speed at which radical social and political change is happening but that we have reached a point where the culture, and in particular governments, have essentially lost contact with objective reality itself. This has become perhaps most evident in recent so-called ‘gender self-identification’ legislation and ‘conversion therapy’ legislation, where the law rejects objective biological reality as the basis for sex and/or gender. Depending on where you live, you can be subject to legal prosecution for simply defending biological reality. (Readers will likely be aware of the current legal predicament of Kirralee Smith, the spokeswoman for Binary.)

I believe that it is this rejection of objective reality itself which is causing the accelerating nature of our culture’s decline. In more general terms we might experience this as a loss of ‘common sense’ throughout the culture. Once the culture ceases to be grounded in the objective truth of reality it seems anything becomes possible.

It is not that people are increasingly rejecting the truth in a fully conscious way, but rather they seem to have simply lost sight of the importance of the recognition and defence of the objective truth in our culture for preserving what is good about our way of life.

What seems to have contributed to this situation over the last few hundred years is the slow but steady move from an aristocratic type culture, which aspired, at least outwardly, to the ideal of perfection according to an objective standard of truth, beauty and goodness, to a mass or populist type culture dominated by the expression of ‘feelings’ and ‘emotions’. The culture no longer encourages one to aspire to do what is objectively noble and right, but rather to do whatever makes one ‘feel’ good. Young people are told repeatedly ‘you can be whatever you want to be’, ‘you can do whatever you want to do’. It is all about the self and satiating one’s subjective desires. Rather than make us happier, these cultural changes, as studies have repeatedly shown, have only made us more lonely and depressed, despite our high material standards of living and digital interconnectedness.

Importantly there is a growing awareness of this decline internationally and the threat it poses to the way of life we have come to enjoy and take for granted. Of particular note is the recently established Association of Responsible Citizenship (ARC, https://www.arcforum.com/), which is trying to bring an international focus to the problem by gathering individuals and organisations together, firstly, to better understand the exact nature of the immediate social problems we are facing and secondly, to explore ways in which this situation can be turned around.

The Christopher Dawson Centre aspires to be part of this important work that is taking place across the world. It will seek to make a unique contribution to this work by drawing on the richness of the Christian tradition, particularly in the form of the Catholic intellectual tradition and its integrated approach of faith and reason.

Christopher Dawson understood the importance of Christianity for Western Civilisation as well as anyone, and wrote extensively on this issue. His was a prophetic voice in the early twentieth century which tried to make clear the importance of the recognition of the transcendent truth for civilisation. Unfortunately, like many prophetic voices, his warnings were not heeded, and as a result we find ourselves in an even greater mess than what was faced in the early twentieth century.

Following in the legacy of Dawson, the Centre will work to bring about in the public forum a revival of thinking grounded in reality and the transcendent truth. We are grateful for your continuing support and encouragement in these efforts. 

With best wishes to all,

Alexander Sidhu

6 November 2023

Dr Ian McFarlane 

Introduction – Define Woke 

As this study is essentially a journey from the real to the unreal in an attempt to make sense out of the nonsense this illustration taken from Hesse’s Steppenwolf is an appropriate motif for the paper.  Although I refer to Wokery as an Ideology throughout this paper, this is just for convenience as given the deep inconsistencies within the propositions we are presented with one should properly describe Wokery simply as a Phenomenon of our era. At times their reasoning is so obscure and riddled with meaningless jargon I am mindful of Nietzsche’s dictum ‘They muddy the water to make it seem deep’.  

Continue reading “‘Wokery’ its Origins and Objectives – a Work in Progress “ →

26 September 2023

Philip Crisp

The Voice referendum to be held on 14 October would make the most significant change to our Constitution in its history. It is timely to remind ourselves of the principles of liberal democracy articulated in the west during the Enlightenment period, as well as the roles of institutions supporting those principles. The principles remain sound, but the institutions are failing us because they have lost focus on their proper purposes.

Continue reading “The Voice Campaign and our loss of trust in institutions” →

13 September 2023

Professor Matthew Ogilvie 

When goodwill and unity prevail, the best people will have the most prominent voices. When ill will and divisiveness prevail, the loudest voices will be those who seek division and revenge. 

I fear that the ‘Voice’ campaign has divided our nation. Whichever way the referendum goes, if we can heal from the divisive experience (and I emphasise ‘if’) it will take years.  

Continue reading “After the Referendum” →

First published in the Christopher Dawson Centre Newsletter, July 2022. To subscribe, please fill out this form. We don’t send too many newsletters, rather fewer with content rich, thought pieces intended to spark conversation and community.

Last Saturday’s Colloquium was the big event of our year.  It lived up to our expectations and indeed soared beyond: all papers were well and evenly matched in their force and relevance.  

Continue reading “2022 COLLOQUIUM RESTROSPECTIVE“ →

This talk was delivered by Christopher Dawson Centre‘s Director, Dr David Daintree, at the first official Sydney dinner held on 27th October 2022 at The Royal Automobile Club of Australia.

Lovely of you all to turn up tonight at what is the Dawson Centre’s first official venture beyond Tasmania and ‘the Athens of the South’.  I thank you all from my heart, but my warmest thanks must go to Sophie York and Naomi Spinks.  Sophie for her precious friendship and passionate energy on behalf of Christian civilisation; Naomi, as assistant director of the Centre, for her loyal dedication as our anchor in Sydney.  I should apologize, by the way, for appropriating the term ‘Athens of the South’ for little old Hobart.  I’ve since been reminded that Adelaide has long claimed it for its own.  I guess I’m guilty of cultural appropriation – never a good look when an old white geezer does it. 

Once in a while Providence throws up a splendid synchronicity of famous births.  The second-last decade of the fifth century (480-490 AD) was one of those special times.  What other period and place in history has produced three people whose influence on the centuries to come has been as potent and far-reaching as St Benedict, Boethius and Cassiodorus?  

Continue reading “Reclaiming the Christian Intellectual Tradition “ →

13 October 2022

Professor Matthew Ogilvie 

This week, the Federal Labor government announced that it would expend significant resources to repatriating members of the Islamic State. While these IS members are presumed to be noncombatants by virtue of their sex and ages, they have been part of an evil organization that raped, tortured and murdered its way through the Middle East. Its victims included Yazidis, Christians and homosexual people. The situation is so serious that Opposition Leader, Peter Dutton expressed grave concerns after an ASIO briefing,¹ and local MP Dai Le spoke of the hurt the repatriation would cause members of her community who were refugees from the Islamic State. ² 

Continue reading “Freedom for me, but not for thee” →