John Howard’s Centre For Western Civilisation Project Should Avoid the Folly of his US Studies Centre Initiative, by Gerard Henderson’s Media Watch Dog.

In the Weekend Australian on 4-5 March 2017, Paul Kelly reported that the late Paul Ramsay had left a bequest of some $3 billion (yes billion) to establish a Centre for Western Civilisation in Australia.

Writing in The Australian last Wednesday, Mr Howard stated: “… Before his death he asked that I become chairman of the board of the centre. As is known, a major bequest in Ramsay’s will underpins the Ramsay Foundation, whose prime remit is the funding of many charitable pursuits. The foundation will be the principal funding source for the Centre for Western Civilisation. Like many in the community, I believe we are losing sight of what is owed to the influence of Western civilisation.”

It all sounds fine. Some years ago the Institute of Public Affairs in Melbourne and the Mannkal Education Economic Foundation in Perth set up The Foundations of Western Civilisation Program with a council consisting of — among others — Geoffrey Blainey and Ian Harper. It seems that the Centre for Western Civilisation is a development of this initiative.

The essential problem with John Howard’s United States Studies Centre project is that it was effectively handed over to the University of Sydney. No surprise, then, that it was soon subsumed in the left-liberal ethos which pervades Australia’s tertiary institutions.

MWD understands that John Howard’s Centre for Western Civilisation project will be effectively handed over to the University of New South Wales. If this occurs, it is likely that, as with the United States Studies Centre, a left-liberal ethos will soon pervade the institute and Paul Ramsay’s legacy of $3 billion will be thwarted. It’s possible that, like the USSC, the Centre for Western Civilisation could become a base for the promotion of leftist ethos. …

The author Mervyn Bendle identified the problem in a letter which was published in The Australian on 15 March 2017: “John Howard and his board will have to confront the intolerant and irrationalist leftism that is entrenched in Australian universities. They are the ideological HQ for the leftist, postmodernist, progressivist campaign that has been waged against the West for nearly half a century.”

Looks like Howard is going to hand over $3 billion intended for defending western civilization to its sworn enemies.

He’s made errors like this before. He set up the Australian greenhouse reporting system that allowed Gillard’s carbon tax. Howard’s government set up the mechanism whereby everyone reported their carbon emissions, and all Gillard had to do was tax them.