About

The Australian Values Forum comprises a loose alliance of conservative thinkers who live by and promote fundamental Australian Values.

Our objective is to educate the people and parliaments of Australia in our nation’s foundational values.

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Our activities are:

• Maintain a web site to explain 20 basic Australian Values and the public policy implications and applications of those values.

• Host public meetings to address current public policy issues as they arise.

• Provide an online forum for discussion of social and political events in the context of Australian Values.

 

The Australian Values Forum is an initiative focused on discussing, promoting, and living by the core principles that define Australian society, such as respect for the rule of law, freedom, dignity of the individual, democracy, and equality of opportunity. Further examples include a parliamentary democracy, freedom of religion and speech, the rule of law, and a spirit of compassion and respect for others.

 

What the Forum is About

 

    Core Principles: Discussions at the forum centre on the fundamental values of Australian society, including:

        Respect for the individual: Upholding the dignity and freedom of every person.

        Rule of Law: The principle that everyone is subject to the law and must obey it.

        Parliamentary Democracy: The system where elected representatives make laws.

        Freedom of religion and speech: The right to hold one's own beliefs and express them.

        Equality of opportunity: Ensuring everyone has a fair chance, regardless of background.

        Compassion and Mutual Respect: A spirit of tolerance and care for others.

 

We believe in these Australian Values

 

Few people are able to identify their personal values nor the origin of those values, much less explain the meaning of their values. Values may be understood as the basis of morality, being how do you know the difference between “right” and “wrong”, both at a personal level and for a community and a nation.

A national Constitution and legal code have a basis in, and clearly express, shared values and morality, which is in the case of Australia, “Western Civilisation”, which arose from ancient Judeo-Christian culture.

 

These are the 20 values on which the nation of Australia was founded and has prospered:

• In Australia, its people and its future.

• In the innate worth of the individual,

• in the right to be independent, to own property and to achieve, and in the need to encourage initiative and personal agency.

• In the basic freedoms of thought, worship, speech, association and choice.

• In equality of opportunity, with all Australians having the opportunity to reach their full potential in a tolerant national community.

• In a just and humane society, where those who cannot provide for themselves can live in dignity.

• In the family as the primary institution for fostering the values on which a cohesive society is built.

• In stewardship of our natural environment and natural resources

• In the creation of wealth and in competitive enterprise, consumer choice and reward for effort as the proven means of providing prosperity for all Australians.

• In the principle of mutual obligation, whereby those in receipt of government benefits make some form of contribution to the community in return, where this is appropriate.

• In the importance of voluntary effort and voluntary organisations.

• In parliamentary democracy as the best system for the expression and fulfilment of the aspirations of a free people.

• In the separation and distribution of powers as the best protection for the democratic process.

• In a federal system of government and the decentralisation of power, with local decisions being made at the local level.

• In a constitutional head of state as a symbol of unity and continuity.

• In Government being sufficiently responsive so that it can meet its proper obligations to its citizens.

• In Government keeping to its core business and not competing with the private sector.

• In the rule of law and justice, giving all citizens equal rights under the law, responsibilities to maintain it, and the freedom to change it.

• In Australia playing a constructive role in the pursuit and maintenance of international peace in alliance with other free nations and in assisting less advantaged peoples.

• In Western Civilisation, with its emphasis on the individual and enterprise, as the cultural philosophy best able to meet the demands and challenges of the 21st century.

 

These values are consistent with and derive from universal values as expressed in the Torah, the Bible, Stoic philosophy and other cultures.

Former Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson identifies six universal values across various cultures as being care, liberty, fairness, loyalty, authority and sanctity.

He says: “ … progressives mostly place value on only three of the six universal moral foundation – care, liberty and fairness – with a particular emphasis on care. Conservatives, conversely, value all six moral foundations pretty equally, supplementing their moral palette with the added social relational concerns of loyalty, authority and sanctity.” (The Australian  30 June 2017)

Greek and Roman Stoic philosophers such as Cicero, Cato, Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius taught four fundamental human values as being courage, temperance, justice and wisdom.

 

We can, as the authors of our Constitution and our Australian National Anthem have expressed, acknowledge ourselves as a people and a nation:

 

We acknowledge and honour the Lord God Almighty, creator of the heavens and the earth, who has raised up this Nation, in this land of beauty rich and rare,

A people of freedom, of dignity and of truth.

We acknowledge and honour our elders elected by the people of Australia, past, present and future, the guardians and protectors of this land and those who have given their lives for our nation.

We declare this as rightful legal citizens and owners of this land, for we are one and free.

 

The Forum introduces and explains our basic Australian values.

The explanation breaks down the concept to its component parts then explains the value overall. Application of the value is then shown as the means by which the value is, or may be, employed in legislation and public policy. By contrast the policy, social and political applications are discussed in various forms. This is described as the view of “The Left”, being forms of Socialism, for example totalitarian regimes of Soviet and Chinese Marxism, Hitler’s German Socialism of the 1930s and post-war Fabian Society, Labor political parties and the American Democrats.

 

The Forum also applies those values to a range of current issues that affect Australians, as expressed by a variety of subject matter experts.

 

In the flow of history circumstances change over time, both at national and international levels. Government policy expresses the means to translate national values into policy to manage our society. As circumstances change over time, so must policies change. A secure, stable values base enables reliable, viable and visible government policies to change and grow as our nation grows.

 

In their speeches to the nation two Australian Prime Ministers in particular demonstrated this pattern of linking values to policy. Sir Robert Menzies and John Howard both presented short speeches with an A-B-C framework:

A – explain an issue that needed to be addressed

B – explain the national values that were relevant to the situation

C – detail a policy response that clearly linked the values to the issue as a solution. This is as John Howard used the term ‘progressive’ a means by which an issue is solved or managed to the benefit of all Australia.

 

Tony Abbott told Inquirer (The Australian 09 August 2025) “the Liberals must realise that standing on their principles guaranteed a political fight. If their principles are sound, they should welcome the fight.” That applies to any political party. That is why at every biennial Australian Labor Party National Conference they vote to maintain their primary foundation as their Socialist Objective, and govern consistently with that.

There is a clear and specific difference between the Left and Right of Australian political thought, ignored or minimised at the peril of appropriate understanding and analysis of contemporary politics. Labor’s Socialist Objective is central to their politics and has been since 1921.

“In the labour press and the unions, the [Socialist] objective’s adoption was heralded [in 1921] by all from The Communist to the AWU’s Australian Worker as a notable, even momentous, reorientation in party ideology: ‘a magnificent advance in the direction of a militant, class-conscious, working class movement.’” (Kaspi 2023, page 15)

The idea of ideology goes by various other terms such as worldview, philosophy and religion. It is fundamentally the idea structure by which a person understands and explains reality. Politics is a contest of ideas. Grounded in those ideas and principles are a set of values. This discussion forum is a means by which our common worldview in Western Civilisation is explained as values and consequently as policies for government. A purpose of a values statement here is to provide a guideline for government at both personal and national levels. The role of a government is to implement these Australian Values.

 

In the year 63BC Roman Stoic philosopher Cato was named Tribune of the Plebs, a powerful position he was eligible for because of his family’s ancient plebeian origins – giving him the chance to balance interests of the disenfranchised with those of the elites. Australian workers, families and home owners are now the disenfranchised and the elites are the Socialists of media, education, judiciary and government. We trust that this Forum will be of assistance in that direction, that you might take on the mantle of Cato, the mantle of Elijah, and as did the prophets of old, speak truth both to power and the people.